Online courses have become a very profitable business opportunity. In the coming years, the global market for online courses is expected to quadruple and reach more than 1 billion dollars by 2027.
With the Covid-19 pandemic, the growth of this sector accelerated drastically since it presented an increase of 36.3% during 2020 and 21% in 2021 with a similar trend for 2022.
So if the business of online courses is so lucrative, why not create one?
It is for this reason that in this article we will present you step by step how to create an online course and monetize your knowledge.
Select the topic and structure of the course
Before building a course you have to establish the central theme of your online course.
Choose a topic in which you are an expert and that allows you to provide valuable information to the students, since when you conceptualize the course you not only have to think about the monetary benefits that you can obtain with the implementation of the course, but also , you have to think about how the course can help your future students improve their lives.
The structure must be made from sections that contemplate the main ideas and later in lessons where the secondary topics are addressed. Similarly, you have to define what multimedia elements you will use in your course, you can add video lessons, explanatory audio, infographics, concept maps, summaries, among others.
Choose a course platform
The next step to take is to choose a course creator or LMS (Learning Management System), which allows you to capture your entire structure on a page where students can access the educational program.
We recommend the SendPulse platform as it has the following benefits and special features:
Free version with limited number of courses and affordable pricing plans starting at $892 Mexican pesos ($45 USD) per month to host up to 1,000 students.
The possibility of hosting your online course with the free domains that SendPulse has. This allows you to save money on hosting and domain subscriptions. However, the platform allows you to connect your domain if you have one.
Drag and drop editor so you can preview content and design lessons without advanced HTML coding skills.
Automatic certificate generator when the configured conditions are met.
To create a free account in SendPulse go to: https://sendpulse.com/latam
Build and publish your online course
Next, we will present you the step by step to create an online course with this platform.
Step 1: Create the course
The first thing you have to do is go to the “ EDU ” tab of your SendPulse platform. If this is your first time creating a course, click on the green “ Create your first course” button . Performing this action will open a new page with a new “ Create course ” button, click on it.
Clicking this will open a pop-up window with two options: Create a new course from scratch or Create a course from a template. At the moment, you will only be able to select the new course option from scratch.
By clicking on ” + New course “, a page will open where you have to enter the name of your course, as well as its URL. By default, the domain of the course URL is “.sendpulse.academy”, but if you wish you can connect your domain.
Keep in mind that to connect your domain it is necessary to have a paid plan.
When you have confirmed the general information of your course, click on the “ Save and add ” button. Next, a new page will open where you will configure the main characteristics of your courses, these are the course preview, the featured image, the description for students and the course format.
SendPulse allows you to select the course format “Unlimited” so that the student can access the content at any time or “By dates”, where you will have to set the start and end date of the course.
Likewise, you will define if the course will be free or paid. Remember that you can only select the paid course option if you have an active price plan.
You can also configure the flow of the lesson. You decide if you will have access to all the lessons at once or if the lessons will open when you complete the previous lesson or pass a test with a certain score.
Another aspect to configure is the course completion criteria. You can choose to be required to complete all lessons, complete lessons and take the quiz, or pass a quiz with a score assigned by you.
To finish this step, click the “ Save” button .
Step 2: Add content to the course
The next step is to add the course content, to do this, on the course page, go to the “ Lessons ” section and click on the “ Add lesson ” button.
The lesson editor will automatically open. At this point place the lessons and elements that you designed previously. In SendPulse you can insert videos, put mp3 files and files to download.
Use your creativity to provide your students with the best experience.
When you finish placing the content, click on the “ Save ” button and that’s it.
Step 3: Publish the course
The last step to follow is to publish the course. To do this, go to the “ Publish ” button.
Keep in mind that once the course is published you will no longer be able to make changes, so if you are not sure about the content or any element of it, do not publish it.
Promote your course
Now all that remains is to promote your online course so that students can enroll. In SendPulse, a registration page is automatically generated where users can sign up. Use this registration page to share on your social networks or through other channels such as email marketing or others.
Creating an online course is a simple task if you have the right tools to do it. You do not need advanced coding knowledge and the benefits are multiple.
So, do you dare to venture into the online course industry?
