¿Do you want to create an online course with WordPress and don’t know where to start? Here you’ll find a brief guide with some useful tips that will guide you through the process.
At the end, you’ll have a clear idea of how to spread your knowledge and earn some money at the same time.
Creating an online course is not easy. It requires lot of work and planning, but it’s worth it. Of course that you need to be a master in what you want to teach, and that’s not all. You need to deliver knowledge in a way that people want to buy your courses.
It’s not like “Hey there, I’m a master at this topic, buy mi course”. That’s not how it works.
Learn how to create an online course with WordPress
Prepare course content
You need to have awesome content so you can give a sample of what are students going to buy. Not only for selling, but also for students to came back and buy again other course you may have. And if they liked the course and they felt satisfied with it, be sure that they will recommend it.
So the first thing to do and the most important is to prepare content of your online course.
Before you start creating content, you want to define the following:
The main layout of course.
Think about how many modules, lessons and sections will the course have, its titles and a structure all modules will follow.
Content format
¿Are you going to have images, infographics or video tutorials?¿Do you plan to offer live streaming videos, webinars or live chat? ¿Which platform are you going to use?
Define all this and write it down. You must have a very clear idea about how your course will be in order to convince people to buy it.
Evaluation and certification
Courses are for people to learn something. And the best way to ensure that they really learn is to take exam to students. The same as a school, you have to evaluate if they’ve really learned each lesson before going further.
Consider also to give students a final certification, it doesn’t matter if your certification has no value. It will make students feel that they have achieved something and it’s something they can share with proud.
Freeware content
Nobody is going to buy your courses if you don’t give them a hint of what are they going to get. Consider to create a standalone free course. This course shall not get into advanced concepts, only the basic knowledge. It’s only a hook to get students for the paid course.
Also you can give a piece of your course for free, maybe the first lesson or module for free. So if they want to go on with the course they must pay.
Pick a plugin
After creating your course, you have to publish it in your WordPress Website. There are several plugins that can help you with that. Here are some of the best ones.
Sensei ($129)
This plugin easy integrates with WooCommerce, so you can use this full ecommerce solution to sell your courses.
It requires some advanced technical skills in order to set up. Nothing to be afraid of, but it may be hard for users with no advanced knowledge.
It comes with tons of additional features, which gives the freedom for creating all kind of online courses.
Learn Press (Free)
Its drag&drop editor makes things easier when creating course content. And also offer the possibility of adding quizzes, among other useful features.
It can be integrated with paypal and there are lots of addons available, both free and premium ones.
The final result is a very attractive and good looking course. But not recommended to create complex courses. For simple ones it’s a great plugin.
WP Courseware ($99)
This is a very complete plugin for creating online courses. Its drag & drop editor allows to create courses same way as it were a post.
It comes with lots of useful features such as drip content, certificates, quizzes, course organizer, select available modules, schedule content delivery and much more.
It lacks a built-in payment system. This is the only thing missing to be a perfect plugin.
LearnDash ($159)
With this plugin you can create any kind of online course. It is a complete solution with many features.
Specially recommended for complex projects. It comes with inbuilt payment system, quizzes, drip content, pre-requisite courses, multiple instructors, lesson timers and much more.
It also have its own membership system, a big advantage since you don’t need to use the WP member native system, which can give you problems in some cases.
It’s a highly recommended plugin for creating online courses with WordPress, although it may be expensive for many users.
LifterLMS (Free)
LifterLMS is very easy to use and fits perfectly well for simple online courses and small projects with low budgets.
It is free to use but if you want to add more functionalities there are some paid addons available. They cost $99 each.
A very decent plugin with many features in its free version. For most of users, this plugin will fulfill their requirements for free.
Conclusion
At this point you surely have an idea on how to create your online course with WordPress. The fact is that you can be a master in any topic, but if you don’t know how to plan your online courses the right way it will be hard to get students.
You have to think in each detail before promoting your online course. By the way, this is something that deserves a whole post. How to promote your online courses will be covered in further post.
I hope these tips helped you to clear things up. If so, please show your gratitude sharing in your social network.
And if you have something to say, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and share with the world your thoughts.
