how to create your online course

CREATE AN ONLINE COURSE

OVERVIEW• Introduction • Validate Your Course • Creating Content & Content Mediums • Course Marketplaces • Learning Management Systems (LMS) • Pricing Your Course • Creating Your Website • Screenflow Walkthrough • Internet Marketing & User Growth • Everything Else

1 INTRODUCTION

SEO Project Manager at Airbnb

Previously SEO Manager at PayPal

Created an online SEO training course with 5,000+ users called ClickMinded

Who is this bozo?

ClickMinded started as a live, face-to-face training class at a co-working space in San Francisco.

We eventually filmed it and turned it onto a comprehensive 5-hour online training course.

ClickMinded now has more than 5,000 paid users. This course is about what worked and what didn’t.

2 VALIDATE YOUR COURSE

Use tools to determine if there’s demand for your content before you create it.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Trends SkillShareUdemy

Amazon

Search the way your target market would.

“dog training course”“dog training how to”

“how to train a dog”

Read reviews of what people say they liked / didn’t like and take note.

3CREATE CONTENTS & CONTENT MEDIUMS

The Course Skeleton

Create a simple skeleton outline

of your entire course in Google

Docs.

Create a simple 1.0 presentation with just text in Google

slides.

Convert the Google Slides into

a well-designed Powerpoint or

Keynote.

No good at Powerpoint or Keynote? Use Upwork.com to find freelancers to do it for you.

Stock Photography & Video

• Free ‣Unsplash ‣Gratisography ‣Death To The Stock Photo ‣Negative Space ‣Picjumbo

• Paid ‣Shutterstock Video ‣VideoHive ‣VideoBlocks ‣GraphicRiver ‣PhotoDune

• Video courses seem to command the most dollars. • They’re more difficult to pull off but worth it in the end. • Live audience vs just you. • Scouting a location.

Video Courses

Video Courses & Meetup.com• One of the best, fastest, cheapest ways to get people of similar

interests into a room with you. • Set up a Meetup group at least 30 days before your event, create an

event right away. • You don’t even necessarily need a location for your event, just start

collecting names. • This effectively becomes a mailing list for people interested in your

subject. • Integrate Eventbrite - don’t make it free! Put a price on it and offer a

discount.

Fast, Cheap & Effective Video

Have a Mac? Use Photo Booth.

Fast, Cheap & Effective Video

Have a iPhone? Shoot with that.

Tools & Apps for Your Phone

Cinema FV-5 on Android

FiLMic Pro on iPhone

Smartphone Tripod

One of the best films at Sundance was shot on an iPhone 5s.

Additional Content Mediums

• Slides: Use Slideshare to embed an entire presentation.

• Slides with audio: Record your voice while you’re going through slides via Screenflow.

• Embedded quizzes: Use self-graded quizzes to make sure students are getting it.

• Downloadable files: PDFs, MP3s, MP4s, Programming Code & Scripts, Graphics and more.

4 COURSE MARKETPLACES

Marketplaces

There are a few top-tier “self-serve” course marketplaces. These are ecosystems you should consider uploading your content to.

Marketplaces

• There are a number of additional “teaching ecosystems” that have a high barrier to entry. You generally have to contact them, get approved, and sometimes even fly to where they are and re-shoot their content in their style. Don’t start with these.

• There are a large number of “2nd tier” course marketplaces. Don’t start with these either.

• There are also MOOCs, which are generally free and have content from major universities. You generally couldn’t even start with these if you wanted to.

Self-Serve Marketplaces:

• The first place you should go to create a course. • Great if you don’t want to create your own site. • Millions of students, thousands of teachers, strong promotional

network. • Pretty good UI and a good course editor. • Very high revenue share (Udemy takes a minimum 50% of all sales). • If you opt-in to Udemy’s marketing programs, they take even more.

Udemy

Self-Serve Marketplaces: Udemy

• Udemy sends out coupon codes way too frequently. • Udemy gives you 100% of revenue from students you refer, but you

don’t get their email address, and Udemy markets competitor courses to them.

• You can not price your course above $300. • The rules are subject to change (and have changed frequently).

Self-Serve Marketplaces:• 750,000+ Students. • Creative orientation (Design, Photography, DIY, Culinary). • 25+ students puts you in their partner program. • Pays out on the number of monthly premium enrollments + student

projects created in each class. • Not very straight forward and they seem to obfuscate it with weird

examples on their FAQ page. • I generally don’t like participating in “all you can eat” learning

engagements because the incentives are for the marketplace and not for you.

Skillshare

Self-Serve Marketplaces:

• “All-You-Can-Eat” course marketplace from Shutterstock.

• Students pay $19 a month, can access all content.

• Instructors are pooled together and paid 30% of all revenue based on how many minutes students watch.

• Most courses are less than 20 minutes.

• I generally don’t like participating in “all you can eat” learning engagements because the incentives are for the marketplace and not for you.

Skillfeed

Second-Tier Self-Serve Marketplaces

Learning & Teaching Ecosystems

MOOCs

WordPress

• WordPress is a free content management system (CMS) that powers ~20% of the internet.

• What started off as blogging software has become a powerful way to run a comprehensive website.

• One of the biggest benefits of WordPress is the vast ecosystem of themes and plugins that are available.

• Many learning managements systems (LMS) to create online courses are built on WordPress as themes and plugins.

5 LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Learning Management System (LMS)

• Software that hosts your online course is called an LMS. • Most LMS’ allow you to create multiple courses, and within

those courses you can create a series of chapters and lessons.

• Most LMS’ also include a grade book and progress tracker. • An LMS is not an online learning ecosystem like Skillshare or

Udemy, it’s the software you install yourself.

Learning Management System (LMS)

• The upside to using an LMS is more control over the look and feel.

• The downside is more technical integration needed and multiple 3rd parties that need to ‘play nice’ with each other.

• Content can be text, video or images and grading can be automated

• Not all of them are on WordPress, but many are.

LMS:

• In my experience, the best way to host your own course. • You can host your content as a subdomain on their site or

your own. • I recommend WordPress as your primary site and Fedora

installed on a subdomain. • $0 - $300 a month.

Fedora

• A WordPress plugin that functions as a great LMS within WordPress. • Technically works with any WordPress theme, but some

customization is required. They recommend using the WooThemes Definition theme.

• Other themes that work well with Sensei are Skillfully, Guru and LMS. • Relies on the insanely popular WooCommerce for checkout

functionality.

LMS: Sensei

LMS: Sensei

• Uses the regular WordPress database to store user information.

• Not great for quizzes and tests. • Lots of plugin conflicts that would break lessons, checkout

functionality, logins. • Starts at $129.

• WordPress plugin that integrates with your existing theme. • Drag-and-drop content creation within WordPress. • Full courses have modules, modules have course units,

course units have tests and quizzes. • Better quiz and test functionality than Sensei.

LMS: WP Course Ware

LMS: WP Course Ware

• Not as seamless as Sensei. • Requires a separate membership & payment integration to

secure content. • Easily integrates with s2 Member, Wishlist, Premise,

Memberpress, Membersonic & Paid Memberships Pro. • Starts at $99.

LMS: Learn Dash

• WordPress plugin that integrates with your existing WordPress installation.

• All-In-One solution: You don’t need a separate plugin to manage memberships, drip content or process payments

• Integrates with PayPal, 2CheckOut, Woocommerce and a few other

LMS: Learn Dash

• Uses the Tin Can API, which allows other high-end learning systems to communicate with each other and track learning experience

• Many higher ed institutions use LearnDash. • Starts at $99.

Second-Tier WordPress LMS

WPLMS Academy Clever Course LMS Press

EduLMS Educator WPS

There are lots of these you can check out, but I still recommend using Fedora.

WordPress Membership Plugins

• You can create content, and then create a WordPress membership site to access that content (DIY LMS).

• Some LMS plugins require a membership integration (WP Courseware): ‣Wishlist Member ‣Digital Access Pass ‣Magic Members ‣Member Mouse ‣Paid Memberships Pro

GumRoad

• GumRoad is a beautiful, fantastic, fast way to sell digital content. • 5% + 25¢ per transaction. • There are a number of ways to sell an online course through

GumRoad: ‣Use GumRoad to create a multi-file product. ‣Drip out course content over time with a GumRoad Workflow. ‣Use memberships to charge on a monthly / annual basis for content. ‣Use pre-orders to sell content before it even exists.

6 PRICING YOUR COURSE

Charge More Than You Think

• People get value in different ways. • Have multiple price points: The best price is the most the student

will pay. • People value the product more when you price higher. • Rule of thumb: $25 for 1 hour of content.

You Charge More When You Have:

✓ Higher production quality.

✓More teacher / student engagement.

✓ Offer more value than competitors.

Multiple Products & Bundling

• Consider cutting up your course into multiple products.

• 3 products is a good start: ‣Bronze ‣Silver ‣Gold

• Additional upsells & products for each: ‣30 minute phone call ‣Premium support / unlimited

email support ‣Additional content / eBooks /

Information ‣Access to a community

Discounting

• Price your course high and don’t lose credibility with excessive discounts.

• Set a firm deadline on your discount a.k.a “finite sales window”.

• Deadlines get deals done!

Discounting

• 3-7 days is a good start (enough for 3 emails): ‣First send a “This discount is coming soon” email. ‣Then send a “This discount is now live” email. ‣Finally send a “This discount ends in X hours” email.

• Add products as a bundle rather than lowering your price. Example: “get an additional ebook free if you sign up in the next 24 hours”.

Subscriptions

• If you’re providing ongoing value, offer a subscription. • Subscription model is okay, but only if you can

consistently provide value: ‣Monthly webinar or phone call ‣Forum or message board ‣Weekly or monthly lesson updates

Subscriptions

• It doesn’t make sense to pay monthly for content that doesn’t change.

• Huge value in recurring revenue. • Most membership and LMS WordPress plugins offer

this functionality if they integrate with a major payment processor.

7 CREATING YOUR WEBSITE

Starting a site for the first time? I recommend WordPress.

WordPress & Website Hosting

There are lots of sites that offer “1 click WordPress installation” and cheap web hosting.

My favorites:

Faster and with more features, but comes at a price.

Don’t Want To Create A Website?

• Fedora & GumRoad will host for you (but you bring your own users).

• Udemy, Skillfeed & SkillShare will host for you (with a revenue share).

10 EVERYTHING ELSE

Video Hosting

• Many course platforms take care of video for you (Fedora, Udemy, Skillshare, Skillfeed).

• A few others require you to manage video on your own. • If this is the case, you have the following options: ‣Wistia ‣YouTube ‣Vimeo ‣Easy Video Player & Amazon S3

Promo Video

• Over-invest in your promo video. • For many people, the promo video is the make-

or-break factor in purchasing. • Be succinct and end with a clear call to action.

Student Management

• Email response time is a giant consideration for everything: ✓Getting sales ✓Getting referrals ✓Getting great reviews ✓Keeping students

Commenting on Lectures

• Many LMS include the ability to comment on lectures. • This is great - but maintain it! Seeing a lecture with

unanswered comments from weeks / months / years ago is not good.

Facebook Groups & Community Forums

• Offering a community is a great value-add. • It’s very difficult to manage / maintain / contribute to a

community over the long term. Have a long term vision before you commit to this.

Launching Your Course

• Get your course live before it’s perfect. • Consider a very precise, very specific value

proposition. Example: ‣ClickMinded: 10x your traffic from Google

Other Good Course Titles

• Build 15 iPhone apps in 30 days. • Become a Bartender in 12 hours. • Learn CPR this Weekend. • Remix Your First Song Today.

Collecting Email Addresses?

Consider a launch day with a finite sales window that has clear start and end dates.“Deadlines get deals done”

SlideShare

• A web-based version of powerpoint or keynote. • Great way to embed content. • Not only is Slideshare great to embed on your own

site, it’s great for generating leads to your content. • Publish your slides, leave them public on slideshare

and make sure to include links back to your site.

Certificates

• People love certificates. • People will justify absurd things in order to add a line

on their resume. • Many LMS have certificate systems built into them -

most of them suck. • Accredible is a great 3rd party tool to host and

manage certificates.