How to start online classes : Create best selling courses- part 1
Table of Contents
In this series of posts, we will see how to start online classes
The 5 Reasons You Need to Create an Online Course
Everywhere you look online now, you see online courses that offer anyone who has a little time and money the chance to gain new skills. With no commute to a physical classroom, these educational opportunities allow anyone no matter how busy they are, or where they’re located to learn. Here are five reasons why you should be creating online courses.
People Need Help and You Can Provide It
People get on the internet to find information they need. If you can address a need of your target market and teach them how to fulfil or solve it, you can help people. This benefits them but it also benefits you by building relationships. After people take your course, they’ll continue to follow you and they may take future courses.
You Can Become an Expert
Creating online courses helps you to become an established expert in your field. Right now, you may not feel like much of an expert. What on earth can you possibly teach people? But if you think about it, there is a great deal of knowledge you’ve gained through running your business. This is knowledge you can easily teach others (and you can research to fill in any gaps). You’ll become the go-to for information for your audience, and their go-to when they need your products or services.
Catch up (or Surpass) the Competition
There is a good chance none of your direct competitors are running online courses for their customers. If they aren’t, this puts you in a unique position. Among the competition, you’re more than just another business but also a valuable learning resource. This gives you a tremendous competitive advantage.
If your competitors are already offering online courses, it’s even more essential that you start doing so as well. Find a unique angle or a unique approach to what you’re teaching to set your course apart.
Profits Now and in the Future
You can sell your online courses and profit from them. There are free courses available online, as well as a great deal of free information, but if you can provide real value, offer something unique, and market your courses well, you can charge a good price for them and you’ll see enrolment.
Even better, you can use your online courses as a way to build future profits as your courses build a relationship with your audience. Even if you offer a free course, you’ll establish yourself as an expert and trusted source of information. There are many ways to profit from online courses, including running a short free course that leads to a longer premium course. You can also build a passive income by creating courses that students can take at any time and that are run mostly through automation
It’s Easy
It’s much easier than you probably imagine creating and run online courses. It just takes a bit of organizing and preparing. You can research to gather whatever information you need to fill in knowledge gaps. Your online course will exist and be managed on a platform specially designed for courses. And once you run one course, it gets much easier to do the next.
Online courses offer a great way to reach your audience and if you’re not doing it now, you’re missing out on a great opportunity
You might be thinking: Creating online course may be easy but who are the takers? Well. Wear a student’s hat and think as a student. You will begin to notice several benefits.
The Virtual Classroom – The Benefits of Online Learning for your students
Online learning is blowing up. People are increasingly paying good money to attend courses through the internet and here are the reasons why.
New Skills
Online courses teach a variety of skills and areas of knowledge. It’s a great option for people who want to improve their technical or job skills. There are many courses that teach you to do tech tasks like set up websites, conduct online marketing, use social media, and so on.
No Commute
The only commute to your virtual classroom is the steps you have to take from the couch to your PC. Online learning enables more people to gain skills and knowledge because they don’t have to physically attend. This is great for all learners, but especially for those who live in isolated areas, can’t get around easily, or have family or economic issues that make attending school difficult.
Online Learning Is Cheap
There are free courses, but even premium courses are much cheaper than an offline classroom. The cost of higher education has skyrocketed in recent years. Online learning allows those who don’t have a great deal of budget to spend on their education to learn valuable skills.
Every Topic Is Available
There’s an astounding array of topics you can learn about through online learning. You can find virtually anything you want to know, from simple everyday skills to highly technical and specialized knowledge. Perform a search on any topic you’re interested in along with “online course”, and you’re likely to find some options.
Learn in Your Pajamas
It’s probably not a good idea to attend an offline educational institute in your pajamas. But with online learning, you can be on the couch with a cup of coffee to sip, lounging around as you learn. There is no more comfortable learning environment than your own home.
Maximum Flexibility
Online learning gives you a chance to make your own schedule. Flexibility is one of the key benefits. Parents, full-time workers, and other busy people can take courses at their leisure. You may have deadlines to meet and group sessions to attend, but the schedule is usually mostly up to you.
Opportunities for Interaction
Many people mistakenly assume that online learning is lonely. You don’t get the same face-to-face interaction with your classmates and teachers as you do offline. But with the progress of technology, this is no longer the case. Modern courses offer a great deal of interaction, including group sessions, webinars, and one-on-one coaching. In fact, taking an online course is a great way to network.
Earn a Certificate
Some online courses offer certificates of completion or college credits that are transferable. This can help with your education or career enrichment.
As a business owner, you can create online courses and offer them to the public. This is a great way to build your audience of followers, establish yourself as an expert, help people who could use your help, and earn a profit. It’s something that any business can benefit from.
Course Research
Now that you have decided to create an online course, let’s explore various domains and find out the best-selling course ideas.
Content research is a key step in deciding the course topic.
3 Great Places to Research Your Online Course Topic
Are you thinking about creating an online course to offer to your audience? The first and most crucial step is to decide on a topic. The topic choice determines all of the other decisions you’ll make as you plan your course, and it’s the single biggest factor determining whether you’ll see high enrollment or not.
The internet offers a wide variety of places to get ideas for your topic. Simple Google search and social media can help you find an excellent topic idea. But here are three great places for ideas you might not have considered.
Feedly
Feedly is a news aggregator application that brings you blogs and articles. It takes the work out of searching for you by bringing stories you’re interested in straight to your feed. What sets Feedly apart is its ease of use; it brings you headlines that you can scan quickly to see what’s new.
You choose sources by simply clicking on an “add” icon and then mark the sources by priority. You can create categories and organize your feed to make it as efficient as possible. Checking your feed, you’ll see blog posts and news in your niche.
Feedly is available for various web browsers and mobile devices using iOS and Android.
Quora Q&A Platform
A great way to get topic ideas is to consider questions your target audience asks. What are the things they always want to know from you? Social media is useful for seeing conversations and seeing what people are asking. But Q&A sites like Quora are even better. You can search for questions that users are asking directly. Find a good question and base a course on answering it.
You can also get an idea of how popular topics are. You can see which questions are asked most often on Quora. These high demand questions are good issues to tackle in your course. You can then read answers to get ideas on the kind of advice that’s given.
Reddit is a very active online community and message board with conversations on any and every niche under the sun. Users create “subreddits” for specific topics and questions. Like Quora, it provides a place where people can ask questions and other users can answer. You can search Reddit to find questions for topic ideas.
When you’re looking at these sources for ideas, here are a few things to consider:
- Look for pressing problems that your target market is facing. Your course should aim to offer one unique way to solve the problem.
- Try to consider length. Your online course should be about five to seven modules. Is this a question you can answer in that length?
- Choose a topic that’s timely but also evergreen. If you teach something evergreen, you can run the course multiple times.
- Try to choose a topic you know about through experience if possible (but remember that you can fill in gaps by researching or hiring a writer).
Make a big list of ideas and save the ones you don’t use this time for future courses.
The Essential Tools You Need to Teach an Online Course
T eaching an online course is a great way to offer a valuable educational opportunity to your audience, help people solve their problems, and spread awareness of your business.
Anybody can teach an online course with minimal resources or budget. Tech requirements are also minimal, but here are the basics you need to offer a high-value online course.
Laptop or Desktop Computer
While it’s possible to run online courses through your smartphone or tablet, it’s far from ideal. Size of screen is an issue and built-in microphones don’t offer great sound quality. It’s hard to share files and it simply doesn’t look professional. You’re better off with a laptop or PC with a large screen.
Video Software
You need to use some type of video platform such as Zoom, Skype, or Ustream. Each platform has its own features such as screen sharing, file sharing, and chat functionality. Choose a platform that offers the features you need and get comfortable using it before you launch your online course.
Many video software programs offer a free and premium version. Start with the free version and see if it has the functionality you need, and you can then upgrade as needed.
High-Quality Webcam
The quality of your videos will impact the success of your online course, so it’s best to use a high-quality webcam. You want to offer the best experience possible to your students while they’re going through your course. It’s also important if you plan to repurpose your course into video content for marketing purposes. Popular webcam options are inexpensive and easy to install.
Microphone
The same goes for your microphone. In fact, your mic is even more important than your webcam in some ways. If your words can’t be clearly heard by your students, this will present a serious barrier to their learning and ruin the overall experience. You can use a headset mic if you want the option to move around while teaching, or a standard mic like the Blue Yeti.
Recording and Editing Software
You’ll need software to record and edit your course videos. Your chosen video platform may offer built-in functionality. If you record your content, you can then use bits of your course for marketing or release it later as an information product. You can also offer the recording for students so they can review the material. Plan ahead of time what you will do with your course and choose the right tool for the job.
Other Optional Tools
The above are the essentials but you may also consider using the following:
- Presentation software like PowerPoint can be useful for presenting visuals to making data easier to understand.
- You may want to use document sharing for passing out or receiving handouts and worksheets as part of your online course.
- A tool called a virtual whiteboard allows you to write and share as you present information.
With a few tech investments, you’ll be ready to start teaching a high-value online course that helps your audience solve their problems and achieve their goals.
40 Tools to Teach Your Online Course
Web Conferencing and Meeting Platforms
Webinar Platforms
Social Media Livestream Platforms
Create Interactive Training Videos
Video Screen Recording Software
BlueBerry Flashback Express Recorder
Video Editing Software
Survey and Polling Platforms
Please read other blogs on how to start online classes
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