1. Pick the Perfect Course Topic

Your course topic must be something that you LOVE.  If you are not passionate about your topic, it will be obvious if you don’t love your topic and will make your training about as engaging as a cardboard sandwich.

Don’t feel like you have to teach a university-level course. Think about your skills, talents and life experiences. Cooking your favourite dishes, interior design, writing non-fiction, overcoming the death of a loved one… the list of possible course topics is endless.

2. Ensure Your Course Idea has High Market Demand

Once you have picked your online course topic, the next step is to conduct a number of market research tests to see if it has a demand or not.  Many course creators make the mistake of thinking that if there is a lot of competition in their topic area, then their course idea won’t fly.  But actually, this shows that there is a high chance of there being a strong market demand for that course idea and is therefore well worth investigating further.

The main three things you want to be checking for are:

1. Are people talking about it?
2. Are people asking questions about it?
3. Is there a gap in what the competition is offering?

If your answer to the above three questions is ‘yes’ and your idea is similar but different to what is already out there, then you have a course idea that has a chance of getting a big audience.

3. Create Magnetic and Compelling Learning Outcomes

Don’t underestimate the importance of learning outcomes. If your students don’t know HOW your course is going to help them, they are unlikely to enroll in it.

Learning outcomes clearly explain, with measurable verbs, what the learner will be able to do, know and feel by the end of your course.

• What skills will they be able to demonstrate?
• What new knowledge will they have obtained?
• What feelings will they have moved away from or to?

4. Select and Gather your Course Content

This is the stage where many course creators start to risk falling into ‘The Hole of Eternal Procrastination’. The main reason we get stuck here is often because of the sheer volume of information we have in our heads or all around us in books, on our hard drives, in our notepads and so on. The art at this stage is not just about what we should include in our course, but what stuff we need to leave out.

This is where the research you will have conducted in the market testing phase and your learning outcomes, now come to serve you again.

• As you are sorting through your piles of content, throw out anything that does not directly relate to achieving a learning outcome.
• Secondly, make sure that every learning outcome does have content aligned to it.
• Only include content that answers your audiences burning questions.

5. Structure Your Modules and Course Plan

This is the stage where you now take a look at all of your content and start grouping together your similar themes, tips, and ideas into modules and then ordering the lectures within those modules into the most progressive and logical manner so that they form a flowing sequence of lessons.

6. Determine the Most Engaging and Effective Delivery Methods for Each Lesson

Now it’s time to decide on the best way to deliver your content.

• You need to be aware of the different principles of adult learning, learning preferences and all of the different ways that you can deliver your training to really make sure that your training is as engaging as possible.
• Will you have videos, reading content, activities, audio content?
• What type of visuals will you have?
• Will you have community learning areas?

You need to make sure that you have a balance of visual, audio and practical methodologies so that everyone is engaged and provided with the optimum learning experience.

7. Filming, Recording and Editing your Online Course

This is the production phase. By now you should have a thorough course plan, all of your content together and know exactly how you are going to deliver each element of your online course. Now it’s time for the fun part – getting on camera.

The most effective method of delivery is video.

• This could be ‘talking head’ video which is when you are in the shot on camera.You can also incorporate PowerPoint slides.
• Another method is called screencasting which is when you are recording your computer screen – you can choose to include a webcam type video of yourself on top of this.

8. Setting up your online school

The first thing here is to recognize that there are three major ways to sell your online courses.

• online course marketplaces
• learning management systems
• plugins or software on your website.

There is a very big difference between online course marketplaces and learning management systems.

A learning management system is your own Academy that you can link to your website and fully brand as your own platform. It makes online course creation simple and easy to sell your learning products.

 9. Getting the perfect pricing models and feeding into a bigger education based business model

Make sure you have strategised how and where your online course will fit into your overall business model.

• Is it going to just be a free lead magnet into your primary product and service?
• Is it going to be an income stream in its own right?
• Or, is it going to be your primary income stream?

10. Launch and Ongoing Marketing

At this stage you will need a launch and ongoing marketing strategy to promote your course and enrol students.

Adding interactivity to your course

To add interactivity we addthe plugin H5P a free plugin. H5P makes it easy to create interactive content by providing a range of content types for various needs. See the video below to view the different options.