How To Create An Online Course From Scratch In 10 Steps & Best Platforms
22 August, 2024
Consider that you’ve created an impressive online coaching business. You’ve been working with clients one-on-one, and while you enjoy it, you can’t shake the feeling that there’s got to be a better way. You’re tired of trading hours for dollars and want to find a way to help more people at once and create more time and financial freedom.
Enter online courses. Learning how to create an online course can not only help you reach more of your ideal clients, but it can also significantly boost your income. This guide will provide insights on creating an online course to help you monetize your expertise and achieve your business goals.
One of the best ways to create an online course quickly and easily is with Delphi's digital clone. This innovative tool helps you make a customized digital version of yourself that can teach, answer questions, and coach your clients for you. It will help you automate your coaching business and regain your time.
What Exactly Is An Online Course?
An online course is a structured program of learning activities delivered over the Internet to help learners achieve a specific educational goal. Depending on the subject matter and the learning objectives, these courses can vary widely in format and structure.
Types of Online Courses
Online courses come in several formats, each tailored to different learning styles and needs:
Self-Paced (Asynchronous)
In a self-paced course, learners can access the material anytime and quickly move through the content. There’s no fixed schedule, so students can complete the course on their timeline, making it a flexible option for busy individuals.
Instructor-Led (Synchronous)
Instructor-led courses are conducted in real-time, often through live webinars or virtual classrooms. They follow a set schedule, and learners are expected to participate in live sessions, much like in a traditional classroom setting.
Blended
Blended courses combine online and in-person instruction, offering the flexibility of online learning with the benefits of face-to-face interaction. This approach is common in educational institutions and professional training programs.
Hybrid
Like blended learning, hybrid courses mix different online learning formats. For example, they might include both self-paced and instructor-led components, giving learners a more tailored experience.
Most modern eLearning courses include videos, webinar recordings, PDFs and slideshows, podcasts, and quizzes. These can be uploaded directly to a Learning Management System (LMS) or created through an authoring tool as a SCORM course. Course creators and e-learning businesses sell online courses as knowledge products, usually as standalone offerings or following a membership-based business model. They’re also the basis of corporate training programs delivered by organizations to employees, partners, and customers.
Why Create An Online Course?
Scale Your Knowledge with Online Courses
One of the most significant advantages of creating an online course is the ability to scale your knowledge. Unlike traditional one-on-one coaching or consulting, an online course allows you to reach hundreds or thousands of students simultaneously. This scalability means you can teach more people without a corresponding increase in effort, making it a highly efficient way to share your expertise.
Create Passive Income with Online Courses
Once your online course is created and launched, it can generate passive income. Unlike a service-based business where income is tied directly to your time, an online course can sell while you sleep. This passive income stream can benefit your revenue, providing financial stability and growth potential.
Online Courses Have a Global Reach
The internet knows no boundaries, and your online course can reach learners worldwide. This global reach allows you to connect with a diverse audience that you might not have access to through in-person teaching or local workshops. It also opens opportunities to tap into international markets and different time zones, further expanding your potential customer base.
Flexibility and Convenience of Online Courses
Creating an online course provides flexibility for both you and your learners. You can design the course around your schedule, allowing you to work from anywhere and anytime. For learners, the flexibility to access the course materials at their own pace makes it an attractive option, especially for busy professionals or those in different time zones.
Build Brand Authority and Credibility with Online Courses
By creating and selling an online course, you establish yourself as an authority in your field. Sharing your expertise through a well-designed course enhances your professional reputation and builds trust with your audience. This credibility can lead to more opportunities, such as speaking engagements, consulting offers, and partnerships.
Create Engaging and Impactful Content
An online course allows you to create engaging and interactive content that can have a lasting impact on your students. You can provide a rich learning experience beyond traditional methods through videos, quizzes, downloadable resources, and community forums. This engagement helps students retain the material better and encourages them to spread the word about your course, leading to organic growth.
Diversify Your Income Streams with Online Courses
Offering an online course diversifies your income streams, reducing your reliance on a single source of income. This diversification is particularly valuable for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and business owners looking to mitigate financial risks. Adding an online course to your portfolio creates a more resilient business model.
Achieve Personal and Professional Fulfillment
Sharing your knowledge and helping others achieve their goals can be incredibly fulfilling. An online course allows you to make a meaningful impact on the lives of your students, which can be personally rewarding. Professionally, it can lead to a deeper connection with your audience and a sense of accomplishment as you see them succeed.
Long-Term Value of Online Courses
An online course can provide long-term value to your audience, offering them the skills and knowledge they need to advance in their careers or personal lives. This long-term value can lead to repeat customers, as satisfied learners return for more advanced courses or recommend your offerings to others.
Create Your Digital Clone With Delphi Today
Delphi’s digital cloning platform allows users to capture their unique style, voice, and expertise, enabling them to scale personalized 1-1. Delphi enables content creators, coaches, influencers, CEOs, executives, and more to scale/clone their expertise, time, and availability. Preserve your knowledge and wisdom, and mass personalize communications with Delphi.
Delphi's mentorship as a service allows knowledge-based professionals to clone themselves (texting, calling, video calling) with audience management features such as mass messages, hop-in conversations, alerts, analytics, and content strategy data. Get started and create your digital clone for free today.
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How To Create An Online Course From Scratch In 10 Steps
1. Choose the Right Topic
Selecting the right topic is foundational to your course's success. This step involves identifying a subject that resonates with your expertise and aligns with what your target audience wants to learn. Begin by defining your target audience—understand their interests, challenges, and knowledge gaps. Once you have a clear audience, choose a topic you are passionate about and knowledgeable about. This ensures that you can create engaging and valuable content. Additionally, conduct market research to assess the demand for your topic. Look for a niche with interest but not an oversaturation of similar courses.
2. Validate Your Idea
Before investing significant time and resources, validating your course idea is crucial. Create a landing page introducing your course concept, outlining what learners will gain. Promote this page via social media, email newsletters, and other channels to gauge interest. Collect feedback and see how many people sign up or show interest. This step helps you test if there's demand and willingness to pay for your course. Set clear goals and KPIs to measure the success of this validation phase.
3. Research the Topic Extensively
Even if you're an expert, thorough research must ensure your course stands out. Dive deep into the topic, exploring all angles, and seek information beyond what your audience can easily find online. Look at competitor courses, webinars, books, and articles to understand what’s already available and identify gaps you can fill. Perform keyword research to discover what specific queries your potential students are searching for. This will help you refine your course content and ensure it meets the needs of your audience.
4. Outline Your Content
With your research in hand, create a detailed outline for your course. This outline should map out each lesson, including the main topics you plan to cover. Structure your course logically, ensuring each lesson builds on the previous one to create a smooth learning experience. Define clear objectives for each lesson, guiding your students through the learning process. For example, if you're teaching a course on digital marketing, one lesson could focus on SEO fundamentals to enable students to optimize their websites for search engines.
5. Select a Platform for Your Online Course
Choosing the right platform is key to delivering your course effectively. Platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, and Kajabi offer a range of features, including video hosting, quizzes, and course certificates. Consider what features you need, such as creating a members-only area or hosting live sessions. If you already have a website, use a plugin or add-on that integrates with your existing site. Look for a platform that supports your content types (videos, PDFs, quizzes) and offers marketing tools to help you promote your course.
6. Create the Course Content
Now, it's time to produce the content for your course. Depending on your format, you might need to film videos, create slide presentations, write text-based lessons, or design interactive quizzes. If you have existing content, consider repurposing it to fit your course structure. When filming, focus on delivering clear, concise information, and consider editing your videos to remove unnecessary pauses and add titles or captions. Incorporate assignments and activities to reinforce learning, and consider offering downloadable resources like PDFs or worksheets. You can also create certificates or badges to reward course completion.
7. Set Goals and Pricing
Determine your goals for the course, such as the number of enrollments and revenue targets. These goals will guide your pricing strategy. When setting the price, consider factors like production costs, the value of the content, and what your target audience is willing to pay. Research similar courses to see how they are priced, and decide if you want to offer one-time payments, subscriptions, or tiered pricing with different access levels. Pre-selling your course can be a great way to gauge interest and secure early revenue.
8. Sell Your Online Course
Depending on your content and audience, there are several ways to sell your course. You can offer individual lessons for purchase or rent or create a subscription model where users pay a monthly fee to access all content. Another option is to sell the course as a one-time purchase with lifetime access. If you want a more personalized experience, offer one-on-one lessons or live sessions as part of the package. To entice sign-ups, offer a free course preview, such as the first lesson or a short teaser video.
9. Promote Your Course
Effective promotion is crucial to attract students. Use a mix of marketing strategies, including social media campaigns, email marketing, and content marketing. Share snippets of your course content, testimonials from beta testers, or behind-the-scenes looks at the course creation process—partner with influencers or affiliates who can help you reach a broader audience. You might also consider running paid ads on platforms like Facebook or Google to drive traffic to your course landing page.
10. Gather Feedback and Improve
Once your course is live, collect participant feedback to identify areas for improvement. Encourage students to leave reviews and share their experiences. Use this feedback to refine your course content, update materials, or add new lessons. Continuous improvement will help keep your course relevant and valuable and can lead to higher student satisfaction and more enrollments over time. Consider offering additional resources or advanced courses to keep your students engaged and returning for more.
Common Mistakes To Avoid When Creating An Online Course
Clearly Defined Learning Objectives Help Set the Stage for Success
Clearly defined learning objectives are the foundation of a practical online course. They provide a roadmap for learners, ensuring they understand what they will gain from the course and how it will benefit them. With clear objectives, learners may feel safe and confident of the course's purpose.
Assess learners’ current knowledge and skills to help you create clear, measurable goals that target any gaps. For example, suppose you were making a course on social media marketing for beginners. In that case, an objective might state, “By the end of this course, you will be able to create a social media marketing plan to boost engagement on your business’s social media profiles.” This objective is specific and measurable, so learners will know exactly what to expect from the course.
Interactivity Keeps Learners Engaged and Motivated
Online courses shouldn't be passive learning experiences. Incorporate interactive elements like quizzes, polls, discussions, and hands-on activities to keep learners engaged and motivated. Interactive elements allow learners to apply the knowledge they gain and reinforce their understanding. For example, if you were creating a course on running a successful email marketing campaign, you could include an activity requiring learners to create a sample email to boost course engagement. The more you can do to break up traditional lesson content with interactive learning activities, the better.
Quality Audio and Video Make a Difference
Audio and video quality play a significant role in the overall learning experience. Ensure your audio is clear and free from background noise, and use high-quality video that is visually appealing and easy to follow. Poor audio and video can distract learners and hinder their grasp of the content. If you don’t have the expertise to create polished audio and video materials, consider hiring a professional to help. You can also find freelancers on sites like Upwork or Fiverr to help with editing videos.
Build in Opportunities for Testing and Feedback
Regular testing and feedback are crucial for assessing learner progress and identifying areas for improvement. To gauge learners' understanding and provide constructive feedback, incorporate quizzes, assignments, and self-assessments throughout the course. You can also include peer reviews to enhance the learning experience. Building a solid course structure with opportunities for testing and feedback will help your learners feel more confident as they progress through your online course.
Accessibility and Usability Are Critical
Make sure your online course is accessible to learners with disabilities. Use inclusive language, provide alternative text for images, and consider using transcripts for videos. Ensure the course platform is easy to navigate and compatible with various devices. Even if you don’t have any learners with disabilities in your course, creating an accessible online course is simply the right thing to do.
How To Market Your Online Course To Gain Traction
Email Marketing: Your Best Friend for Promoting Online Courses
Email marketing helps you reach interested leads. Use your email list to promote your online course by crafting compelling email campaigns that offer early-bird specials or discounts to encourage sign-ups. If you have an existing email list, this can be a highly effective way to reach people interested in your content.
Social Media Marketing: Get the Word Out on Social Platforms
Social media marketing helps you connect with your target audience. Use social media platforms to spread the word about your online course. LinkedIn is excellent for targeting professionals who might benefit from your course. Join relevant groups and actively participate to increase visibility.
Paid Ads: Invest to Boost Traffic and Course Sales
While organic marketing strategies are great for promoting online courses over time, paid strategies can help you gain traction faster. Consider investing in paid advertising like Google Search Ads and Banner Ads. These can help you reach a broader audience and drive traffic directly to your course landing page.
YouTube and Promo Videos: Show Your Audience What to Expect
Starting a YouTube channel dedicated to your course topic can help establish you as an industry authority. Create a course trailer to generate interest and provide potential students with a preview of what they can expect.
Referrals and Reviews: Harness the Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing
One of the oldest tricks for promoting online courses is to get the word out through referrals and reviews. Encourage your past students to refer others to your course and leave positive reviews. Testimonials can significantly influence potential students' decisions.
Website Pop-Up: Grab Your Visitors' Attention
Adding a lightbox pop-up on your website is a simple but effective way to capture visitors' attention and direct them to your course.
Collaboration with Third-Party Websites: Reach a Wider Audience
Another effective strategy for promoting online courses is to collaborate with third-party websites. Partner with other course platforms or continuous education organizations to reach a wider audience. These partnerships can also lend credibility to your course.
Blog Posts: Establish Authority and Boost SEO
Launching a blog related to your course topic can help you promote your online course. Regular blog posts can boost your SEO, making it easier for potential students to find you through search engines. Plus, it showcases your expertise in the subject matter.
8 Best Platforms To Create An Online Course
1. Delphi: Create Your Own Digital Clone
Delphi’s digital cloning platform allows users to capture their unique style, voice, and expertise, enabling them to scale personalized 1-1. Delphi enables content creators, coaches, influencers, CEOs, executives, and more to scale/clone their expertise, time, and availability. Preserve your knowledge and wisdom, and mass personalize communications with Delphi.
Delphi's mentorship as a service allows knowledge-based professionals to clone themselves (texting, calling, video calling) with audience management features such as mass messages, hop-in conversations, alerts, analytics, and content strategy data. Get started and create your digital clone for free today.
2. LearnWorlds: A Course Creation Powerhouse
LearnWorlds stands out amongst course creation tools because it emphasizes interactivity, customization, and social learning. This LMS is an all-in-one platform with a user-friendly interface and built-in sales and marketing tools like interactive video editing. The drag-and-drop design for editing makes it easy to use, even for those who aren’t tech-savvy.
Additionally, the platform integrates with trusted global and local online payment gateways, ensuring secure transactions. The LMS also integrates with many popular platforms, so it’s great for existing infrastructure. They advertise as a tool for selling online courses, but it’s also great for businesses to create continuing employee training due to their interactive nature.
3. Thinkific: An All-in-One Course Creation Platform
Thinkific enables businesses and entrepreneurs to create, market, sell, and deliver online courses and training programs. The LMS has a mix of individual creators and corporate clients who use the platform to create amazing micro-academies for their products. A notable client of theirs is Hootsuite with their Hootsuite Academy. Thinkific is also the only platform that has an app marketplace for developers. In 2024, an app complementing the LMS is another way to increase employee interaction and enjoyment.
4. Nas.io: For Course Creators Who Value Community
Nas.io is another LMS that’s excellent for businesses creating communities and courses for anyone due to its comprehensive features, user-friendly interface, and focus on community building and monetization. We even created a comprehensive guide on this particular platform.
This LMS allows businesses to create and sell courses, manage memberships, and host events. It also offers integrations with popular apps such as Zoom, Discord, and WhatsApp. The platform’s analytics feature helps businesses track performance and make data-driven decisions. This is a lifesaver in improving courses, especially if you’re just starting to implement them for employees.
5. Disco: An Affordable LMS for Creating Courses
Disco is one of the newest LMS options on the market. This LMS is great for small businesses looking to develop online courses but may have a smaller budget. It’s a cost-effective solution that also has customization options for higher-tiered platforms. Disco also offers progress tracking to see how employees are doing with the courses to ensure they complete them on time. With Disco, you can host events and create cohort-based and self-paced courses. They also offer a multitude of popular integrations.
6. Kajabi: A Robust Platform for Knowledge Entrepreneurs
Kajabi is an all-in-one business platform that helps you create and scale your knowledge business and training programs. The Kajabi LMS has many integrations to make any student's learning experience incredible. It has email automation, landing pages, an advanced curriculum builder, and a landing page. Blaine Anderson is a famous creator on the platform with her Dating By Blaine coaching programs. Kajabi is a great all-around choice with various customizations and an impressive range of optionality.
7. Docebo: The Corporate eLearning Powerhouse
Docebo leans on the academic and corporate side and has been in the market since 2005. The LMS is compatible with SCORM 1.2 and 2004 and Tin Can. The LMS can centralize and organize courses, distribute and manage online and instructor-led courses, track certifications, and measure results with dashboards and custom analytics. In addition, Docebo is powered by AI, automatically tagging learning content and making it easier to find. Docebo’s custom analytics and AI are two of its most powerful tools and help it stand out from the competition.
8. Adobe Captivate Prime: Best for Adobe Users
Adobe has produced a lot of eLearning and Design tools over the years, but their main LMS product is Adobe Captivate Prime. The LMS gives you complete control to deliver personalized learning experiences to your employees, customers, and partners. You can also use AI-based recommendations to provide a hyper-personalized learner homepage experience. If your business already uses a lot of Adobe, this is an excellent option because it is easy to integrate into your current workflow.
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How Much Does It Cost To Create An Online Course
Creating an online course to monetize your expertise can be a rewarding venture, but understanding the costs involved is crucial. If you have your knowledge and don’t need to hire external subject matter experts (SMEs), your expenses will be lower, and you can save around $42 an hour for not hiring an SME. However, there are other costs to consider, mainly if you aim for a professional and engaging course.
Who Can Help Me Create an Online Course?
If you're creating the course content yourself, you'll save significantly on hiring SMEs. Your main costs will revolve around course design, platform fees, and any additional tools or resources you need.
Writing Guidelines
Even if you're knowledgeable about the subject, an instructional designer can help structure your course in an engaging and effective way for learners. Instructional designers earn $38 per hour in the U.S. Depending on the complexity of your course, you might need their services for 20 to 100 hours, ranging from $760 to $3,800.
How Much Will Technology and Platform Fees Cost?
You must invest in a learning management system (LMS) to host your course. Popular platforms like Teachable, Thinkific, or Kajabi offer monthly plans ranging from $39 to $200. Additionally, if your course requires specific software (e.g., video editing, interactive elements), you must budget for these tools.
Creating a Professional Finish
For a more polished and interactive course, you might need to hire additional professionals, such as audio editors and voice-over talent, if you include high-quality video or audio content. Animators or Developers if your course includes custom graphics, animations, or interactive elements. LMS Specialists will help with platform setup and customization. The costs for these additional services vary widely based on the complexity and length of your course. For instance, professional audio editing costs between $30 and $100 per hour, while animation or custom development costs anywhere from $50 to $150 per hour.
Overall Cost Estimate
For a straightforward course where you handle most of the content creation, you might be looking at a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, mainly for platform fees and instructional design. However, depending on your requirements, the cost could range from $5,000 to $15,000 or more for a more complex, interactive course with additional professional services.
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Create Your Own Digital Clone with Delphi Today
Delphi’s digital cloning platform allows users to capture their unique style, voice, and expertise, enabling them to scale personalized 1-1. Delphi enables content creators, coaches, influencers, CEOs, executives, and more to scale/clone their expertise, time, and availability. Preserve your knowledge and wisdom, and mass personalize communications with Delphi.
Delphi's mentorship as a service allows knowledge-based professionals to clone themselves (texting, calling, video calling) with audience management features such as mass messages, hop-in conversations, alerts, analytics, and content strategy data. Get started and create your digital clone for free today.