A Step-By-Step Guide To Create Online Courses

With the increasing consumption of digital education, the e-learning market is growing at a rapid pace. There has been a massive upsurge in e-learning globally during the pandemic. Many experts expect the e-learning market to be worth $325 billion dollars by the year 2025.

This is a great opportunity for those who are interested in building online courses. If you have the needed knowledge and know the right ways then you can easily create and sell online courses.

Selling courses can be a great source of passive income. But first, you need to establish a network of an online clientele. They will be responsible for driving sales of the online courses.

Online courses are a great way for people to improve and learn new skills at home. You can use your online course to reach clients/customers of your niche. However, there is more to building an online course than it meets the eye. Your course is never just about the topic. It is about meeting the needs of those interested in it.

We have tried decoding the important steps that can lead to an uninterrupted profit for you. From finding a profitable niche topic to creating a profitable online course, this guide is a short course that will help you.

1. Choose A Profitable Niche Topic

The first step to creating any online course is to think of a profitable niche topic/title that you will teach. To select a niche, you should ask yourself the following questions.

• What are you passionate about?
• What is your expertise?
• What have you studied?
• Have you taught this before?

This will help you narrow it down to subjects that you want to choose and can commit to. Once you have a particular subject in mind you should now try to get more specific. This will help you choose the topics that you are comfortable with.

It is important to consider your audience’s interests and needs. This will play a pivotal role in deciding a profitable topic. Some general niche topics that people often search about are Lifestyle, Blogging, Art, Photography, Writing, Social Media, Technology and Marketing. You can choose the best one based on your expertise, field of interest and passion

2. Decide Your Target Audience

Next important step towards creating online courses is to find your target audience. If your content is not targeted to the right audience, then the chances of its success becomes slim. Defining your target audience is therefore a very crucial step.

Many people think that the best strategy to market any business is to cater to everyone’s needs. This is absolutely incorrect and impossible. Narrowing it down to a specific target audience is just as important as deciding a particular niche topic. The more specific your target audience is, the better the chances of it being profitable.

For instance, if you are teaching an online course on social media marketing then you’ll have to build your content in a way that is understandable and beneficial to both experienced social media creators as well as beginners. Appealing to a specific target audience will allow you to achieve desired results.

3. Structure Your Online Course

After you have decided the topic and target audience, the next step is to structure and outline your online course. To structure your online course you will need to define certain learning outcomes.

The aim of the online course is to aid the process of learning. Hence, your course should serve a purpose and be useful for your students. The biggest obstacle in this path is a poor structure. It can make the course aimless.

Start with an objective. This will help serve the learning outcomes of your course. With defined learning outcomes you would be able to answer what skills and knowledge can be from your course. Outline your course by organising the lessons you want to teach in a logical order. The outline should be a logical mix of different topics. Remember, teaching is the art of guiding your audience to reach a timeless learning.

To set the objective of your course, you can adhere to Bloom’s guide of levels of student learning:

• Recall
• Comprehension
• Application
• Analysis
• Synthesis
• Evaluation

This structure is defined as per the psyche of the users/students and is a sure-short way to designing a great online learning experience.

4. Build The Content

The next step is to build the actual content. The structure and learning outcomes of your course will help a lot in this process. In this step you can create your script that will include your lessons, themes and sub-themes.

Prepare the study material using slides, pdfs, props and images. Try to keep your content entertaining and fun. The lull of boredom can make a very interesting topic monotonous. A fun course will also attract more audience to your course. People would be more interested to buy your course if it gives a creative learning experience and is entertaining as well.

Interact and engage with your audience. This will help in building connections with clients/consumers. Use stories, memes and jokes to create a fun atmosphere in your course sessions. Don't forget to add examples. There are several ways that you can use to make your content more engaging. Experiment with your creativity and create the content the way you like.

5. Record

The next big step is to start recording! You already have your study material and script ready. Now all you need is to get the right gears and start recording. If people are willing to spend money on your online course, then you should try to keep your overall course production levels high.

Low and poor quality videos can disappoint your audience. You can start by getting a good quality HD camera, good lighting source, audio equipment, a sturdy tripod, and a clean backdrop/green screen. Don’t worry if you aren’t able to invest in a professional set-up. You can also rent the kit. Start with whatever is feasible for you to get and later on you can invest in a high quality professional set-up. Make sure to practice your script and do a test recording to check the audio and video quality. Test recordings will help you minimise the errors and adjust the set-up accordingly.

If your online course is paid, it is suggested that you include an unpaid preview of the course. In the preview, you could talk about the course structure. You could also talk about the different areas where the viewers can apply the learning that they will get by investing in your online courses.

6. Edit

The final step to create online courses is editing. In this final step you can bring all the materials including audio, video, images, and slides together. While editing you can also add additional images, reference videos and music. The final touches will help in putting together all the pieces into one cohesive online course. You can use different editing apps as per your ease.

Apps like InShot & Quik are some free apps that are great for video editing. You can also get your videos edited by professional video editors.

Now that you have touched base with the essentials, you can start creating an online course. You can use these guidelines step-by-step to create an engrossing online course.

With this guideline, I have tried explaining the process. But it is only imperative to understand that creating a course is not enough. You should also know how to market and sell it.

Another important thing to keep in mind is the constant evolution of the audience. What is relevant to them today may soon become irrelevant. It is thus essential to keep updating the course structure from time to time.

At GoSocial, we are trying to build a safe place for creators from different domains to earn money from their passion. On the platform, you can host your workshops and online courses. You can also engage with the community using challenges, prompts and discussions. If teaching online and sharing your knowledge is something that you are passionate about, don't forget to sign-up to the waitlist.