Online Course Workbook

Creating Your
Online Course
Workbook
Joe Casabona
CreatorCourses.com
Creating Your Online Course 1
Table of Contents
Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Welcome to the Workbook......................................................................................................................... 3
What to Expect ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 3
What You Might Need .................................................................................................................................................................................. 3
About the Instructor .................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 5
Establishing Expertise ................................................................................................................................ 6
Picking a Topic ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 6
Start a Blog ....................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Collect email addresses as soon as possible. ............................................................................................................................. 6
Other Avenues to Establish Expertise ................................................................................................................................................... 7
Learn About & Define Your Audience ..................................................................................................... 8
Answer this: “Why do People Follow Me?”.......................................................................................................................................... 8
Remember when I told you to collect email addresses? ..................................................................................................... 8
Pay Attention to Analytics ................................................................................................................................................................... 8
Who do You want to teach? ....................................................................................................................................................................... 9
How do I get them from Zero to Win? .................................................................................................................................................. 9
Your Content ................................................................................................................................................ 11
Come Up with a Concept ........................................................................................................................................................................... 11
How will You Deliver Your Lessons? .................................................................................................................................................... 11
Make the Outline .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
Choosing Your Platform ............................................................................................................................ 13
What’s Out There for Online Courses? ................................................................................................................................................ 13
Udemy (hosted) Pros & Cons ......................................................................................................................................................... 13
LearnDash (self-hosted/owned) .................................................................................................................................................. 14
Your Path from Hosted to Self-Hosted ................................................................................................................................................ 15
Selling Your Course .................................................................................................................................... 16
One Off Pricing .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Lifetime Access & Updates ............................................................................................................................................................... 16
Memberships .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 16
Determining the right price .................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Sales and Coupons ............................................................................................................................................................................... 17
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Refund Policies .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 17

Make Your Sales Page Clear ............................................................................................................................................................. 17
Engaging with Students ............................................................................................................................ 19
Online Teaching is Not Passive! ............................................................................................................................................................. 19
How will you engage? ................................................................................................................................................................................ 19
Start with a Good Experience ......................................................................................................................................................... 19
Other Avenues for Engagement .................................................................................................................................................... 20
Cultivate a Community .............................................................................................................................................................................. 20
You Did It! ..................................................................................................................................................... 21
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Welcome to the Workbook

This workbook is designed to provide supplemental materials for you to create your
online course. In it, you’ll find text, examples, and the assignments. You can also
take notes in the margins if that’s your thing!
What to Expect
The best way to get the most out of this course is to watch a lecture and then refer to
this workbook. You’ll get the groundwork and ideas from the videos (or audio) and
then you can put your ideas to work!
Use The Hub!

Don’t forget to post your work to The Hub at hub.creatorcourses.com! There you will
post assignments, interact with students, and more. It’s a great place to engage and
validate (and improve) ideas.
What You Might Need

We tried to keep this pretty lite, so you don’t need too much in the way of materials.
However, in Lesson 1 you’ll see we recommend you create a blog. There’s a separate
manual on how to set one up, but you’d need hosting and a domain if you don’t
already have one. For hosting, we recommend SiteGround. It’s super affordable and
we love it! It also comes with a free domain. A twofer!
Case Study
Throughout the course, we’ll look at Joe’s Up and Running with Beaver Builder course
for examples. If you’d like to purchase the course to see what it’s all about, you can
get 60% off using the coupon code TEACHONLINE.
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About the Instructor

Joe Casabona is a Front-End Developer, Instructor, & Course Creator.
When he’s not writing code, he's teaching people how to

build things on the web. He also hosts a weekly podcast
called How I Built It, where he interviews product
developers and business owners about how they create.
As a big proponent of learning by doing, he loves creating
focused, task-driven courses to help students build
something.
Joe started teaching in 2007, when he became a

Teaching Assistant at The University of Scranton. After
obtaining his master’s in software engineering in 2009,
he came on as an Adjunct Professor in the Computer
Science Department. While he moved in 2016 and could
no longer teach in-person, he continues to develop and
teach online courses for the college.
Knowing he would be moving, he started his own education business in 2014 called
WordPress in One Month. He experimented with different types of ways to teach,
including weekend workshops, live, online webinars, and onsite training for
companies. He realized the best way to reach the most people would be pre-
recording online courses.
After spending 3 years honing his skills to build a successful online course business,
he changed the name to Creator Courses, to better reflect his mission and the types of
courses he offers. Now, in addition to online courses, he is consulting with agencies
and organizations, trains teams, and continues his tenure at The University of
Scranton.
In addition to the profession stuff, he loves Star Wars, Disney, smoking cigars, and
playing the drums.
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Introduction
Creating an online course can be tough. What topic do you talk about? What if it's
already done? What platform do you choose? How do you price it? And so many more
questions that come along with creating the content that you want to pass on to
other people.
In this course, you’re going to all of those answers, tutorials, and more. You’ll learn
about why Field of Dreams Marketing doesn’t work, how to best engage with your
students, and creating fantastic content. You will also get a workbook that has
assignments at the end of each lesson. Do the assignments and you’ll have a 100-
mile head-start on your online course.
In this course, you will learn how to organically build an audience that you can sell
to, how to define your perfect student, how to approach content creation, choosing
the right platform, pricing, engagement, and more.
Notes
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Establishing Expertise
In this lesson, we’ll talk about the number one thing you need to do in order to
launch a successful online course: establish expertise. No one will want to learn from
you without knowing that you know what you’re talking about.
This will be your first, most important task.
Picking a Topic
When it comes to picking a topic, pick something that you can lend your unique voice
to. Is there something you do really well? Do people ask you advice for something
often? Those are good starting points.
Start a Blog
Helpful resource for
After you have your topic, write about it - all the starting a Blog:
time! Start a blog and keep blogging about WinningWP’s No Steps
everything related to it. This will help you gather a Skipped Video
very organic following of people with whom you can
connect.
As your blog gains popularity, people will start to submit their own questions to you.
This is easy content generation for you; you don’t even need to come up with the
subject!
Collect email addresses as soon as possible.

Your email list will be your life’s blood when it comes time to sell. It’s never too early
to start building it. Attract the audience with your blog. Capture your audience with
your email list.
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Other Avenues to Establish Expertise

Everything nowadays has an online community. Find the ones that align with your
topic and contribute! Answer questions people have that you can answer well, follow
other people in the space and forge real connections.
You want to let people know you that:
1. You’re here to help.
2. You’re not just here to make a quick buck.
3. You know what you’re talking about.
Notes
Assignment
Pick Your Topic and Start your blog. Share a link in the hub!
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Learn About & Define Your

Audience
Answer this: “Why do People Follow Me?”
Answering the above question will help you niche down your expertise. Maybe you
are a developer, but there are lots of developers. What questions do you help people
answer? If it’s java script specifically, then you are on your way to finding a perfect
niche topic for your course.
Remember when I told you to collect email

addresses?
Using a tool like ConvertKit is instrumental in this endeavor because you can collect
email addresses as well as tag them - associate key words based on where the user
came from or what links they’ve clicked on.
Pay Attention to Analytics

2 things you should do here: install Google Analytics and the Facebook Pixel on your
blog. These tools will give you insight into popular posts, user paths, and user
interests. Even if you never use the Facebook Pixel for ads, the insight you get is
fantastic.
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Who do You want to teach?

In defining your student you should state things like:
1. They have a background in these areas…
2. They definitely don’t know these things…
3. They should have these types of goals…
Example Assumptions
For my Beaver Builder course, I wrote out a list of my assumptions:
• The student knows how to use the WordPress Dashboard
• The student has purchased Beaver Builder
• The student may not know HTML and CSS
These assumptions helped me limit the scope. I didn’t need to go through what Posts
and Pages are, or where to find things. I also knew not heavily use CSS to accomplish
our goals.
How do I get them from Zero to Win?

Defining your “Zero to Win” defines your goal, and therefore outcome for the course.
Again, this will help shape your content and who you market to. I like to call the stuff
we talked about here the objectives and assumptions, and they will come in handy in
the next lesson.
Example Zero to Win

Zero: The user has never built more than something basic with Beaver Builder
Win: By the end of the course, they will have made a full, multipage website using
different layouts with Beaver Builder
Notes
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Assignment
Define your objectives and assumptions. Share your Zero to Win in the hub!
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Your Content
With your Zero to Win defined, it’s time to start putting your content down on paper.
Here’s my process for coming up with my content.
Come Up with a Concept

How can your students learn everything they need while actively working towards
that win.
In my development courses, we create an actual, working website. In this course,

your assignments are to actually build your online course, step-by-step.
Example Concept
In Up and Running with Beaver Builder, we build a website for a space travel agency.
Hopefully students caught all of my pop culture references!
How will You Deliver Your Lessons?

Two factors should be taken into account here:
1. What’s the best way to deliver your content?
2. How do your students best learn?
Make the Outline

Now it’s time to make your outline. Take your course - the concept, the win - and
break it down into consumable lessons. The first time around it should be rough -
more like an ordered brain dump. It will help you:
Ø Flesh out your objectives and assumptions

Ø Understand what kind of background you’ll need to provide
Ø Determine what can be cut out or assumed knowledge
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Ø Create your final product for the course
Notes
Assignment
Create your outline. In the hub, share how you’re delivering your lessons
(videos? text? audio?) and why you chose this route.
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Choosing Your Platform

There are no hard and fast rules to this, but ultimately it comes down to three things:
1. How quickly you want to get set up?
2. How much freedom you want from the start?
3. How do you want to spend your time?
What’s Out There for Online Courses?

With an online course, you have a lot of options, so let’s narrow it down to one of
each: Udemy and WordPress, using Learn Dash. What doing we get with each?
Udemy (hosted) Pros & Cons

Pros Cons
The audience and reach is much bigger They control everything including price
They handle everything from course They could disappear tomorrow, with
creation to billing your content
They have guides to help you along the You don’t get access to your audience
way
Other Options for Hosted

• Teachable – this is a platform you pay monthly to use, but you have much
more control over the price and how your content is sold.
• Thinkific
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LearnDash (self-hosted/owned)
Pros Cons
You control everything You need to build the platform yourself
You can integrate with virtually (or hire someone)
anything You (or someone you hire) are tech
Direct access to market to your audience support
Other Options for Self-Hosted

• LifterLMS – This is another WordPress Plugin
• Moodle – Moodle is a totally stand-alone LMS, and a longtime popular pick in
the industry
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Your Path from Hosted to Self-Hosted

Want to get up and running as quickly as possible? Your best bet is always a hosted
solution. It could be anyway, especially if you’re testing a new concept. Once you get
validation, you can create your own platform.
Notes
Assignment
Choose your platform! Post your choice in the hub and talk about why!
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Selling Your Course

OK! You have your audience, your content, and your platform. Now it’s time to sell
your course.
One Off Pricing

You can do what a lot of people do and offer a single, one-off price for your course.
That means students will pay one time for access to it
Lifetime Access & Updates

This does raise a question about how you handle updates. I will often offer “lifetime
access and updates” on my courses when sold one-off. That means the student pays
once and will always have access to that core content. If I update it, they will get the
updates. If I add content to that course, they will get the content too.
Memberships
If you’re planning on doing a series of courses (or more than one course), then
memberships might be the right route for you. Offer each course as a one-off price,
offer all of your courses for a membership, both, or only memberships!
Again, my personal model is both. Allow people to buy one course, or allow them to
sign up for a membership for all courses. This is also the model that Masterclass and
WP101 take.
Determining the right price

When pricing you will want to state the value of the course - generally by stating the
problem taking this course solves. Make sure to price it appropriately based on that.
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There’s nothing wrong with experimenting with price either! Just make sure
to start low and raise it. If you start high and bring it down, those who paid the
higher price might feel slighted. This is also why coupons are great.
Price Anchoring
Anchoring is essentially offering a higher price first to make your discounted price
look better. It’s why Amazon is always showing the MSRP, even if the item never
sells for that price. Showing a larger price then offering a sale anchors potential
buyers to that higher price. But this can work for everything.
Sales and Coupons

Sales and coupons are a great way to incentivize people to purchase your course (and
another important reason to value your course appropriately). Launch week sales
will:
1. Offer a perceived savings on a great new course
2. Have a FOMO effect. If they don’t buy the course now, they will miss out on the
best possible price for the course.
Refund Policies
Some will tell you that the good will bought by offering a 14- or 30-day is more
valuable the the refunds you’ll give back, and perhaps that’s true. I have a stated “No
Refund” policy, but encourage students to reach out to me. I’m a teacher first and if
they don’t see value in the content they may deserve one. Ultimately this is up to you.
Make Your Sales Page Clear

Remember those assumptions and objectives? I put mine on the sales page. I put the
course outline on the sales page. I offer sample videos on the sales page. The buy
knows what they are getting before clicking “Pay.”
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Notes
Assignment
Come up with your pricing model & refund policy. Justify it in the hub!
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Engaging with Students

Teaching In-Person vs. an Online Course is Different. In the classroom, I knew who I
was talking to. I could see them and had some information on their backgrounds.
When I said something they didn’t understand, I could tell by the look on their faces.
In this lesson we’re going to look at the potentially the greatest challenge of online
courses: engagement.
Online Teaching is Not Passive!

Teaching means engaging with your students in a meaningful way. Answer their
questions and encourage them to participate. This will go a long way in ensuring the
success of your course.
How will you engage?

This has been the hardest part for me (and for many online course developers).
Engaging students in a classroom is much easier because you get face-to-face time.
But online, you want to make sure that students get the same sort of engagement.
Start with a Good Experience

In my LMS, LearnDash, I make sure I let my students know I’m here for them right
off them bat. As soon as they register for the course, they get an email from me with
important information, links, and resources. And then I tell them to email me if they
have questions. I respond to each of those emails.
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Other Avenues for Engagement

Build a community by allowing students to engage with you, and with each other.
Some helpful tools to help you do that:
• Slack or Discord
• Facebook Groups
• Forums
• Zoom or Google Hangouts
Cultivate a Community
No matter what you do, the name of the game is to cultivate a community. Doing that
will help your online courses (and therefore your business) grow, it will build your
audience, and you’ll be able to keep doing what’s most important: teach.
Notes
Assignment
What engagement methods work for you? How do you plan to engage with
your students? Post your thoughts in the hub.
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You Did It!

Congratulations! You made it through the whole course. I’m so excited to see what
you create. Be sure to post your course in the hub when it launches. And definitely
check out the bonus modules for this course. We go deeper into Price Anchoring, get
a demo or LearnDash, and more.
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Creating Your

Refund Policies .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 17

Welcome to the Workbook

Use The Hub!

What You Might Need

About the Instructor

When he’s not writing code, he's teaching people how to

Joe started teaching in 2007, when he became a

This will be your first, most important task.

Collect email addresses as soon as possible.

Other Avenues to Establish Expertise

You want to let people know you that:

1. You’re here to help.

2. You’re not just here to make a quick buck.

3. You know what you’re talking about.

Learn About & Define Your

Remember when I told you to collect email

Pay Attention to Analytics

Who do You want to teach?

1. They have a background in these areas…

2. They definitely don’t know these things…

3. They should have these types of goals…

How do I get them from Zero to Win?

Example Zero to Win

Come Up with a Concept

In my development courses, we create an actual, working website. In this course,

How will You Deliver Your Lessons?

1. What’s the best way to deliver your content?

2. How do your students best learn?

Make the Outline

Ø Flesh out your objectives and assumptions

Ø Create your final product for the course

Choosing Your Platform

1. How quickly you want to get set up?

2. How much freedom you want from the start?

3. How do you want to spend your time?

What’s Out There for Online Courses?

Udemy (hosted) Pros & Cons

Other Options for Hosted

Other Options for Self-Hosted

Your Path from Hosted to Self-Hosted

Selling Your Course

One Off Pricing

Lifetime Access & Updates

Determining the right price

Sales and Coupons

1. Offer a perceived savings on a great new course

Make Your Sales Page Clear

Engaging with Students

Online Teaching is Not Passive!

How will you engage?

Start with a Good Experience

Other Avenues for Engagement

You Did It!

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