This is a beginner’s guide on the best websites to create and sell online courses. Get to learn of to how start training people online from scratch using your website but of course through the help of platforms like teachable, udemy, thinkfic, skillshare among others listed below.

What is an online course?

An online course has the same content as a regular face to face course but the difference is that it is accessed in the internet. It is usually organized by modules or topics. These often include an outline of what you want to teach.

 

Making Money through online courses

Making money through teaching online is an awesome thing because you can take something that you know, package it up and put it online for potential customers who are looking for this information. And if you truly connect with them they will buy and they will buy over and over and over again. That is it. No magic.

Choosing the best Platform to create and sell online courses

Selling online courses is a great way to make money online and provide value to your customers. Once you know you are going teach an online course on some topic, one of the other important thing that you have to do is you have to decide what online teaching platform you are going to use.

Let’s start with looking at the online platforms you need to start teaching online because you cannot create your course without using some type of platform.

Should you use a WordPress Plugin to create an online course?

Most with websites on WordPress CMS prefer to use wordless plugin like Coursepress to create their online courses because it is free. Although I understand that you want to save on cost I don’t encourage using this method. My preference is to use an online learning platform some of which include;

• Teachable-Offers a premium platform Create Courses and integrate in your website
• Udemy-Provides a platform for teaching and learning. No personal website integration. Limited Freedom.
• Edx-This is the best option for higher institutions of learning. Some of its users include Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology e.t.c
• Coursera-This is another good option for learning institutions. It is used by top universities like Stanford University, Illinois, Michigan, Duke e.t.c
• Alison-This is a good take if you are a professional. Let’s say a professor, lawyers or so
• Skillshare-More like Udemy but I love its simplicity. You can also upgrade to premium to get more features.
• Khanacademy-Teach Online Course and lessons for free.
• Thinkific-This is somewhat like Teachable. We will do a review about it.
• Google Open Online Education-Its completely free. But not appealing at  all.

For now, I am going to cover Teachable because it is the one that I have the most experience with. I will cover some of other best platforms  to create an online course listed above in a separate blog post for each. But for right now, lets focus on Teachable.

Why Teachable is the best platform to create online courses

Teachable offers vast features like Unlimited courses, Unlimited Videos, Unlimited Students e.t.c and is not restricted to classrooms like other platforms. It is also trusted and used by top companies and bloggers like, The New York Times, Shopify, GetResponse, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income e.t.c

But the reason that I chose Teachable is because of the simplicity, speed, the functionality, and the features that come with it. You can go ahead and set up a free trial with just a few clicks.

How to create your online course with teachable (in summary)

Creating an online course with Teachable is as easy as publishing a blog post;

• STEP 1: Create a school (has a unique website)
• STEP 2: On your Dashboard click NEW COURSE
• STEP 3: Enter Name of Course
• STEP 4: Enter New Author  (teacher/you)
• STEP 5: Add a Course Content Description (this is what is visible to the public before they sign up for the course)
• STEP 6: Select Category and Click CREATE COURSE
• STEP 7: Add branding (thumbnails, background images, promo video e.t.c)
• STEP 8: Click Save
• STEP 9: Add Curriculum (more like topics or sections of what you are going to teach. Only visible once the student has signed up)
• STEP 10: Upload Video, PDF, Audio recording e.t.c (this is what you are selling to students. They can download it or view online)
• STEP 11: Add Pricing (free, monthly or yearly subscription, one time purchase or fixed payment plan)
• STEP 12: Payment Method (Payment methods are already inbuilt, all you have to do set price and means which you would like to receive your pay in your profile. For instance PayPal Email)
• STEP 13: Customize checkout page (add your THANK YOU message)

Teachable Payment feature

With teachable, you don’t have to be worried of the complex process of payment intergration because it handles the handles the payment processing side, which if you used a WordPress Plugin, you’d have to install several plugins to accomplish the same task. Installing many plugins will in-turn slow down your regular website. So, that’s something that should bother you.

Teachable, WordPress Integration

The other great thing about Teachable is that is you can attach your own WordPress website and domain name to it or use a free domain that they will give you which looks like (yourdomain.teachable.com). You can also reach out their support, they will walk you through all this integration for free.

How much to charge for your online Course

After you have created you content, the next challenge to most freelancers is figuring out what to charge your customers.  I think that if you have something of value, that you should charge a premium for it, and the appropriate price according to me is not less than $99.

I hope this gives you some perspective on how you can create online courses and sell. I intend to do a comparison of what I think are the top 10 best platforms for creating online courses in my future post.