How to Create an

Online Course -
Ultimate Guide for
Online Course
Creator

This article is originally published at:

https://www.blog.duomly.com/how-to-
create-an-online-course/

 How to create online course -

intro

Almost everyone has some specific skills

or knowledge, like marketing, design,
cooking, fitness, or anything else.
Thanks to globalization and the internet,
you can share this knowledge with people
worldwide and earn money by publishing a
course and becoming a tutor.
If you think that there is something
you’d like to teach other people, but you
wonder how to create an online course,
this article can be pretty helpful for
you.

I’ve already created a few curses in my

career, so you can learn many interesting
things from the knowledge I’ve gathered
for you in this article.

We will go through different points like

what online courses are the most
profitable and in demand, but you’ll also
find out how to promote, and sell your
content, to earn money.

I hope this article will give you an

overview of how you can start with
content creation, monetizing your
knowledge, and become successful.
Let’s start!

What online courses are in

demand?

When thinking about creating online

courses, you need to research to find out
what online courses are in demand.

Creating an online course that many

people want will make it much easier to
earn money from sales. During this
research, you have to keep in mind what
kind of skills you have and what you
would like to share in your course.

If you have a list of skills, you need to

think of the most popular platforms with
online courses like Udemy or Skillshare.
There you can find out what are the most
popular courses in a given category. It’s
also a good idea to check what people are
searching for in Google using Google
Trends and Google Keyword Planner tools.

Some niches are very popular currently,

so let’s list them here, and if you are
going to create an online course in one
of them, you won’t have to spend time on
the research.

 Some of the most in-demand niches

currently are:

- technology (programming, security, web

development, machine learning)

- marketing (copywriting, social media

marketing, video marketing)

- self-development (time management and

productivity, leadership, negotiation,
influence, mindfulness)

- business (e-commerce, affiliate

marketing, PPC advertisements for the
business, sales pages)

- beauty (make-up, style, wellness,

skincare, haircare)

- video & photo (food photography,

portrait photography, videography, video
editing, vlogging, Youtube content
creation, photo editing)

- languages (popular languages like

Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese)

You can see many topics that you can

share knowledge about, but finding a
proper niche is not all you need to do to
build a successful online course.















 What is the best platform for

online courses?

Many people who start their adventure

with online courses don’t have their own
infrastructure to host online courses,
provide a payment system, and make sure
only people who paid have access.

Happily, you don’t have to create

everything from scratch because some
platforms will help you start with your
first courses, providing full
functionality. Some of the platforms are
paid, and some are free, charging just
some fee from courses that you sold.

The most popular ones with the biggest

traffic are:

Udemy is more a marketplace than a strict

platform to create and sell online
courses. It allows the online course
creator to build a video course,
connected with some interactivity
provided as quizzes and some documents
that students can download;

Skillshare is another marketplace for

video courses, which are much shorter
than on Udemy, most classes take about
20-60 minutes, and they are divided into

 shorter videos. On Skillshare, users are

paying a monthly fee for access to all
courses on the platform.

Thinkific is the platform to create,

sell, and get paid for your online
courses. It comes with many features
useful for every online course creator,
making it easy to create engaging
training. It doesn’t charge fees for sold
courses, but it is based on monthly
subscriptions, starting from $49 monthly.
You can try this platform for free with
its core features.

Teachable is another example of the

platform to create, host, and sell online
courses. It comes with different payment
methods, based on a monthly subscription
or based on a fee from sold courses. It
comes with a custom domain, a very easy
setup, a build-in payment system, and
even one-on-one sessions.

There are lots of different platforms

which are helpful in online course
creation, but another way worth
considering, especially if you have some
coding skills, is creating your own
platform where you can create online
courses exactly how you’d like to and get
all money from the payment.

 How to create online course

content?

When you decided to create an online

course, you selected your niche and even
the topic, but what next? How to create
online course content and where to really
start?

At this point, you need a good plan. I

mean that you need to take a piece of
paper or open an excel file and point by
point plan what you want to talk about.
You should divide the content into
sections, like chapters, and then
chapters for lessons.

From my own experience I realized that

people really prefer short lessons, then
a long ones. That’s why you should create
more lessons, but shorter.

When you have a list of lessons ready,

try to add some keywords about what
you’ll be talking about in each lesson.
Also think about the kind of script, if
your course will be a video training.

Well, that’s one more thing you need to

consider if your online course will be
video type or more written type of
course. And how many different

interactive activities you’d like to

prepare for your students.

Whatever you decide about the course’s

form, it’s really important to make it
short and perfectly explained.

How do I create online training

video?

If you decided to go into a video type,

of course, there are several things you
need to consider. First of all, you need
to gather some basic equipment to start
shooting your course. It is nothing
complicated, you need a camera or mobile
phone, microphone because good audio is
the most important part of every video.
Also, a tripod would be good to have
thing, and basically, that’s it.

When your equipment is ready, you should

create a script for every lesson you want
to create. But you shouldn’t learn it
word by word; it’s rather to help you
stay on track and just know what you are
talking about.

When you have all from above, choose the

stage. It can be your office space or a
piece of what wall. It’s important to
take care of natural lighting, so you
look good on the camera. In case you have
video lighting, you don’t need to pay too
much attention to natural lighting.

After your course is recorded, there’s a

need for some additional editing. You
have to check if the audio is good; if

not, you need to fix it in post-

production. Also, you can cut off some
parts with mistakes that happen for
everyone. And voila, your video training
is ready! What’s next?

 Where to sell online courses?

When your course is ready, you need to

start the sales process. For example, if
you have some authority, you have your
own blog or Youtube channel or social
media profiles with nice reach, you
should start by letting your audience
know that you actually created a course
and when they can buy it.

You can start selling your online course

on platforms we talked about earlier,
like Udemy, Skillshare, Thinkific,
Teachable, Podia, Kajabi, LearnWorlds,
and many more you’ll find on the
internet.

Selling through online platforms is

easier because there is already some
traffic, and the platform promotes you as
well. That takes part of your side’s
responsibility and still lets you earn
money on your content.

But if you have a big audience, who would

like to buy your course, it’s a good idea
to build a website, sell the course, and
place your videos on Vimeo where you can
give access only to the users who paid
for that. If you don’t have the skills to

create, it’s better to hire a freelancer

to help you or use a ready platform.

 How to promote my online course?

As an online courses creator, you’d like
to maximize your course’s sales and
revenue. That’s why the promotion of the
new course is very important for you. As
I already mentioned, if you have any kind
of audience, blog, Youtube channel,
popular Twitter profile, or Instagram
account with many followers, those are
the places you should start with.

The next way to promote your online

course is to make a giveaway and give
some coupon codes with the discount so
first users can get your course cheaper.
Another way to promote the course is to
create some guest posts that will
redirect users to your course. But it
shouldn’t be salesy. It should be helpful
and bring people value.

The other method to promote the course

that you’ve created is creating webinars
or workshops that will be interesting and
will touch the same subject, but you need
to remember that your course has to bring
bigger value than the workshop where you
can promote it.

You can also create a landing page where

you’d gather emails from people and send

them some valuable resources, and later

you’ll be able to offer them your course
as well.

 How to make money with online

courses?

You can get money for your courses in

many different ways. Right now, the most
popular are one-time payments like on
Udemy. People can buy access to your
course forever for a certain amount of
money.

The next popular possibility is selling

access in time-limits subscriptions, for
example, monthly or yearly access.
If you have your own platform, you can
think about different solutions, like
offering the course for free and charging
for the certifications. People love to
have confirmation that they finished
courses, so they will very often pay for
that.
It’s important to remember that to make
your online course profitable, you have
to update it every few months or how
often it’s necessary to have fresh
information. Also, you need to take your
students’ feedback and fix what’s seems
uncomfortable on not perfect.

Good reviews on your courses will make

them sold, and that’s the easy way to
make your piece of content perfect.

 What makes online course

successful?

To be successful with your online course,

you need to think about that from the
beginning. When you are looking for a
good niche in the first step, you need to
know the subject, but people also have to
look for that content.

If you are the best pancake maker, and

you’d like to make an online course about
making pancakes, but just 5 people are
looking for that, it may be very hard to
make it successful finally.

When you start planning your content, you

should research your competition, check
how you can stand out, how your online
course can be better, maybe longer, or
maybe deeper, or maybe talk about aspects
that others are not touching.

In the next step, you also have to take

care of the quality. Your audio just has
to be good. Adding subtitles is a good
idea as your audience may not be native
in the language you speak. The lessons’
length should be good, and lessons should
be interesting, entertaining, and
valuable.

Promoting is also the step that you need

to do good because even if you create the
best online course, if nobody knows,
nobody will buy.

There are many factors that consist of

your online course’s success, which you
need to care about. But the ones above
are just must-haves.

 Summary

In this article, we went through many

aspects of creating an online course. If
you are at the point when you’d like to
build one, I hope this content will be
helpful.

From this article, you could find out

about niche research and platforms to
sell, host, and promote your online
course and methods. Also, you have an
overview of planning content and creating
video lessons.

Thank you for reading and good luck with

your course,
Anna from Duomly

Table of contents:
• How to create online course - intro
• What online courses are in demand?
• What is the best platform for online
courses?
• How to create online course content?
• How do I create online training video?
• Where to sell online courses?
• How to promote my online course?
• How to make money with online courses?
• What makes online course successful?
• Summary