I’m a bestselling online entrepreneur and I’m excited to tell you about how to create and launch your first online course with WordPress.
Have you ever considered turning your expertise into an online course? You are not alone. Nowadays, numerous thought leaders are transforming their insights into structured online courses. This shift is supported by current trends in the online education market.
For instance, the worldwide e-learning market is predicted to reach USD 175.52 billion by 2030.
Although information is readily available, there remains a significant demand for structured, actionable and value-based online courses.
I know about this personally – because I am a bestselling online entrepreneur with about 2 million books and courses sold globally.
Plus I created a digital program to help entrepreneurs to make money online.
It’s called The Make Profitable Courses Without The Overwhelm Course.
I love sharing insights and strategies to empower entrepreneurs and businesses to be more successful.
With this in mind, I’m excited to tell you about how to create and launch your first online course with WordPress. With a vast user base and ease to use, launching your online course on WordPress is not only viable, but also potentially very profitable.
Consider this: WordPress is a popular platform among content management systems. It leads the pack, powering an impressive 45.8% of all websites across the globe. Its soaring popularity isn’t accidental, rather, it is the result of its simplicity and cost-effectiveness.
So, if you’re looking to materialize your knowledge into something impactful and share it globally, WordPress is an excellent starting point. But before we dwell into the nitty-gritty of online courses, let’s explore why WordPress should be at the top of your list for your educational online course platform.
While platforms like Teachable, Skillshare, and Udemy may appear simple. But course creators are often overburdened with hidden costs and challenges there. Their challenges are:
The overall cost paid on a third-party platform is quite higher than WordPress’s cost. On third-party platforms, you may pay transaction fees, hosting fees, platform fees and payment gateway fees. Whereas on WordPress, your fee depends on the usage of the tools, which you can limit yourself.
Thousands of content creators upload their courses on third-party platforms that create immense competition internally. Result? You may lose customers to your competitors easily. Moreover, there is no assurance that your courses will reach your target students easily.
This is technically true with websites, too. But on WordPress, decisions regarding content marketing, search engine optimization and platform rights remain with you. You can implement a robust SEO plugin like Yoast SEO on your WordPress website. It will help your LMS website perform better on search engines.
If the above reasons are not enough, then here is a long list of benefits that you can avail by creating your online course on WordPress.
Following guide will help you to create an online website on WordPress. Follow our guide and start monetizing your online course.
Your web host will host and install a WordPress website on their server. But before that, you have one web hosting service. Remember, the reliability of your course website very much depends on the quality of the web host. So, do a thorough research before selecting your web hosting services. It will save you later from domain migration hassles, which is quite taxing and complex!
When selecting a hosting plan, it’s wise to compare various plans, read user reviews, and make an informed choice. Prioritize the following key factors to ensure your hosting aligns with your storage needs, eCommerce capabilities, and desired functionalities.
Apart from this, one more crucial parameter that can affect your decision is Safety. Although a few hosting services offer basic SSL certificates. But still, if your selected hosting services score well on other parameters but don’t offer a free SSL certificate. For that you do not need to spend extra money. As many resellers offer low-cost or cheapest SSL certificate options in the market. This way you will easily secure your online course from security threats.
You must have thought of your business name.
You can use that name as your domain name. If you don’t get that name for some reason, try to keep a domain name close to your business.
Data states that the average length of a domain is 13.5 characters in the dot com category.
So, go for a short, unique name which is easy to remember and relates to your course and audience.
Many people think designing a WordPress website needs a lot of effort and coding expertise. But reality is completely opposite.
Designing a WordPress website is neither complicated nor requires any coding expertise. Instead, you can build your own online course platform on WordPress by following a few simple steps.
WordPress provides numerous free and premium themes. But not all themes can meet the very purpose of an online course website.
Remember, the website theme sets the tone, style, and appearance of your website. Therefore, referring to the customer reviews, checking customization options – are well testing strategies that can help you in selecting a good website theme.
Many people make mistakes and focus on the aesthetics side of the theme. But this is wrong practice. You can easily aesthetically design your course with any theme. So, your selected theme needs to be customizable and responsive across devices. It should also be user-friendly, SEO-friendly, and compatible with the plugins you intend to use. Additionally, color plays a pivotal role in branding. Ensure that your website’s color scheme mirrors your brand’s identity.
Ideally, initially you can start with a free theme. It will save you from unnecessary expenses. Once your online course website launches and starts generating revenue. You can easily upgrade the free theme to its Pro version.
LMS Plugin is essential in setting WordPress online courses. It acts as a backbone, enabling the creation, management, and delivery of online content possible. By integrating an LMS plugin, you can transform your regular WordPress site into a full-fledged e-learning platform.
You guessed it right, with LMS your simple WordPress website will transform into an e-academy. Here you can manage subscriptions, conduct quizzes, track progress of your students, issue certificates and much more.
WordPress has a variety of LMS plugins, each with unique features and strengths. Some of the common plugins are:
While choosing an LMS plugin, keep specific requirements into consideration such as the scale of your course, and additional feature requirements. You can also check customer reviews before investing in any premium LMS plugin. After all, extra research can save you from shocks in future.
Like other projects, a roadmap is necessary in setting WordPress online courses too. Blueprints keep the process aligned and coherent to the vision of the course creation. Therefore, while creating the roadmap, consider documenting below points.
This exercise will set the foundation of course. It will streamline course structure to the broader objectives. Outcome? A more satisfying learning and user-centric experience.
Creating an online course is easy. There is no set process of course creation. It purely depends on the type of LMS you are using. Just make sure the course feels clear and entertaining. Once you are done with course creation. Publish the page and take a run through it from a student’s perspective. It will help in catching any potential issues with the layout.
If you are using the WooCommerce premium plugin, then you can use all WooCommerce compatible gateway and processors (Like WooCommerce Payments, PayPal, and Stripe). This feature is beneficial to both, course creators and students.
Now, set up payment options for your online course. You can also add discounts and put your course on sale. For this, you need to create a paid course. Follow below mentioned steps for clarity.
TADA! YOU ARE ALL READY TO GO!!!
Once you launch your course, you can strategically plan content marketing, affiliate marketing, email marketing and collaborations to promote your course online. Blogging, PR marketing, influencer marketing are several strategies that you can work on besides building SEO of your website.
In addition, you can ask for testimonials from your old students. You can ask them to rate on Google or on your social media pages.
Creating and launching your online course on WordPress is more than an avenue to share knowledge. Instead, it’s an opportunity to leverage the power of content management systems – even while working from home.
The journey, as detailed in this guide, might seem extensive at first. But remember that with each step, you’re building towards something valuable. Each step will take you closer to your goal, and unlock avenues of knowledge monetization.
Explore my bestselling digital program: The Make Profitable Courses Without The Overwhelm Course.
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