insights | 26.02.2025

How to create an amazing online course in 8 easy steps

Article topics

Choose your topic of expertise
Carry out market research
Plan the format of your course
Pick the right platform
Create your content
Launch and promote your course
Gather customer feedback
Revisit and refresh your course

Online courses are big business right now.

In fact, it’s estimated that the market will be worth a staggering £388 billion by next year!

Creating an online course can be a fantastic way to earn passive income, showcase your expertise, and upsell to customers.

And the best thing is, developing a course is not as hard as you might think.

Curious about launching a course? Check out our eight-step guide to creating an online course your customers will love!

1. Choose your topic of expertise

The first step in creating a successful online course is to decide what you’re going to teach.

This needs to be something that:

You’re passionate about. If you’re enthusiastic about a particular topic, this will show in the content you create. Plus, you’ll be more invested in promoting it and keeping it up to date
You’re skilled in. Prospective customers want to learn from people with skills and experience in a particular subject area. As well as being an expert, you also need to be confident that you can teach your topic of choice to your target audience
There’s a market for. You need to make sure there’s demand for your course and understand who will buy it. While you’ll validate your potential course idea in the next step, it pays to know if your subject area is a viable one from the offset

The simplest way to identify a potential course idea is to brainstorm.

Set a ten-minute timer, grab a piece of paper, and write down all the subject areas you’re skilled in and passionate about. Don’t spend time thinking through your ideas, just get them on paper!

Once time is up, you can go back to the ideas that interest you and consider market demand. A quick and easy way to do this is to search Google. Are many people talking about your topic of choice, and if so, are there already any well-established courses?

Once you’ve identified one or two potential ideas, it’s time to dig a little deeper.

2. Carry out market research

You could have the best course idea in the world, but if people aren’t going to enrol, there’s no point in developing it.

It’s important to conduct market research to make sure your idea is a viable one. Here’s what to consider.

Look at the questions people are asking online

This will help you see what demand there is for your course, as well as the potential lessons and modules you can create.

Investigate social media groups, as well as online forums like Reddit and Quora.

AnswerThePublic is an excellent source of data – it takes autocomplete data from Google, Bing, Amazon, and social media platforms to identify what people want to know.

Research your competitors

If there are already existing online courses in your topic of choice, take the time to do some detailed competitor research.

This will help you plan and price your course, as well as determine a unique selling point that will make you stand out.

Look at:

The price of the course
What the course covers
The format of the course (for example, video-based or text-based)
Reviews and testimonials (this will help you identify what people like about the course and if there are any negative issues or gaps in the course content)

(Although, of course, if there’s no competition in your chosen topic but there’s still customer demand, take that as a positive sign!)

See if there’s demand for your course

Next, you need to see if there’s demand for your course and if so, how much people will pay for it.

If you already have existing customers, you can ask them for their thoughts. You can do this through an email survey or by interviewing customers – whether over the phone, on Zoom, or face-to-face.

An alternative is to create a minimum viable product, or MVP. This is a basic version of your product that you can launch quickly, using it to gauge demand and get feedback.

For example, you can build a landing page that promotes your course and encourages prospective customers to sign up for a waiting list.

Doing this not only shows you how many people are interested in your course, but you can send them emails and nurture them until they’re ready to enrol for real.

3. Plan the format of your course

You’ve got an idea, and your market research has shown there’s potential take up. It’s time to start planning the layout and structure of your course.

The first step is to identify your target audience – the people who will enrol on your course.

This will help determine what pain points they have that your course can solve, as well as what to talk about, and which marketing channels to promote your course on.

(Keep reading to learn more about the marketing channels you can use to publicise your course.)

As well as your target audience, you need to consider the following when planning the format of your course:

Learning outcomes. What skills and knowledge do you want customers to gain by the end of your course?
Course prerequisites. Will customers need a basic, intermediate, or expert knowledge of your subject, or is your course suitable for people with no knowledge at all?
Course length. Do you want your course to be short and sweet, or do you want to provide a comprehensive in-depth look at a topic?
Price point. Price your course in the same way you would a product or service. You want to consider your outgoings and identify how much profit you want to make. While you might be tempted to underprice your course to undercut your competitors, this may make prospective customers think your course is low-quality

Once you’ve got this information, you need to think about your modules and lessons.

A module is a self-contained unit of content, which in turn can be broken down into multiple lessons.

Breaking your course up into modules and lessons makes it easier for customers to study and helps them monitor their progress.

How many modules should your course have? It depends on the length of your course and what you want to cover. As a rule of thumb, the longer your course is, the more modules you should have.

What is the average attention span to guide the length of your modules and lessons?

While studies have been carried out, there is no clear consensus. Some papers claim the average student’s attention span is between ten and fifteen minutes, while others have debunked this theory.

Ultimately it depends on what you’re teaching – some subject areas will not take much time to cover, while you’ll need more time to talk about others. Create a plan based on your own requirements and listen to customer feedback.

You’ll also need to consider the medium of your course modules and lessons. These can be:

Videos (this can be of you talking to the camera or a screen recording with a voiceover)
Images
Podcasts or audio recordings
Text (for example, notes or links to additional resources)
Quizzes (these are good for monitoring progress and helping customers pay attention to your content)

You can also offer additional resources like workbooks, cheat sheets, and spreadsheet templates. This can be a good way to encourage customers to buy your course over a competitor.

In our experience, it’s good to mix things up and try different mediums to keep your course engaging.

Let’s put everything together and imagine you’re creating a two-hour course to show people how to get started playing the ukelele. Your course structure could look a little like this:

4. Pick the right platform

Before you start creating your course, you need to decide which platform to host it on. There are three different options.

A standalone course platform

This is a content platform specifically designed for hosting courses and growing communities around them. Examples include Kajabi, Podia, and Thinkific.

These platforms have a wide range of targeted features to help you launch and market your course, as well as dedicated customer support. However, they can be expensive, especially if you use them alongside your standard website platform.

A course marketplace

A course marketplace gives you a space to upload and promote your course. Examples include Udemy and Skillshare.

The advantage of marketplaces is that you don’t need to spend money hosting or marketing your course, as the website does it for you. This makes it a great way to test the waters if you’re just starting out.

However, there is a lot of competition and you don’t have much control over how your course looks or is promoted. Plus, these sites can take a hefty commission on any sales you make – Udemy can take up to 63%.

Your own website, using an app or extension

Many platforms offer their own course creation software, or apps and extensions which enable you to sell courses on your own website.

WordPress/WooCommerce, Magento, and Shopify all have this functionality.

The advantage of this option is that you can manage your website and course together and ensure consistency between the two. You also get all of the money from any courses you sell (minus any fees from your payment platform of choice.)

However, you have to invest significant time and resources into promoting and marketing your course.

5. Create your content

The good news is that you don’t need thousands of pounds of equipment to record a course. All you need is a camera, microphone, and, if appropriate, screen recording software.

Here are our top tips for creating engaging video content.

Find a quiet location with good lighting and minimal background noise. If you can’t find anywhere in your home or office, consider hiring a co-working space – many have recording equipment you can use
Practice your delivery before recording – try to be as enthusiastic and passionate as you can, and maintain eye contact with the camera
Take regular breaks when recording. If you are tired and frustrated, this will come across in your delivery
Avoid time-sensitive information and memes where possible – this will date your content and mean you have to re-record it to stay relevant
Edit your videos before you publish them – remove any filler words or dead air
Share your videos with friends, family, or colleagues to get feedback

Don’t forget to include a transcript and captioning with your videos. This makes them more accessible and can help with your search engine rankings.

6. Launch and promote your course

The time has come to launch your course. However, the hard work doesn’t stop there – you need to market your course to encourage people to buy it.

Even if you use a marketplace that promotes your course for you, we’d still recommend doing your own advertising. Marketplaces are competitive, and there’s no guarantee that your course will get a significant amount of publicity.

A good landing page is essential. You can use this to publicise the benefits of your course, showcase your credentials, and highlight positive reviews and testimonials.

Here are some other marketing channels you can use to promote your online course:

Search engine optimisation (SEO).

A good starting point to improve your keyword research is to identify the words and phrases your target audience uses and optimise your course page for them.

If you host your course on your website, provide a great user experience, as this will show the search engines that your course is credible and reliable. For example, make sure your course loads as quickly as possible and is accessible on both mobile and desktop.

Your guide to technical SEO.

Pay-per-click-advertising (PPC)

If you have the budget, use paid search and paid social ads to target people who are ready to buy and to build brand awareness amongst newer customers.

Retargeting ads can also encourage customers who checked out your course but didn’t buy the first time around to revisit your site.

Webinar

A webinar can introduce customers to the concept of your course and encourage them to sign up in exchange for their contact details.

Create a free webinar that targets your customers’ pain points and promotes your course as the final call to action.

You can also nurture webinar attendees through the email address they gave you. Send them relevant content to keep them engaged and encourage them to sign up for your course when the time is right.

Social media

Building a community around your course is a fantastic way to encourage loyalty and show you provide value. Identify the platforms your target audience uses most and create content that answers their questions.

Another profitable strategy is to create a group for prospective customers to join and connect with like-minded people.

Social media marketing for eCommerce businesses – six steps for success.

Influencer marketing

Joining forces with trusted social media influencers operating in your niche can help you make sales.

When promoting your course, it’s often best to work with nano-influencers (those with between 1,000 and 10,000 followers) and micro-influencers (those with between 10,000 and 100,000 followers.) These influencers charge lower rates, are more likely to engage with their audiences, and have a more targeted following.

Affiliate marketing

The benefit of affiliate marketing is that other people promote your course on your behalf, earning a commission if someone buys your course.

This makes it a low-cost, low-risk way to get enrolments, although you need a reliable platform in place to track sales.

7. Gather customer feedback

Getting reviews and testimonials from customers after they complete your course can help you sell more courses in the future.

78% of people say course reviews are a ‘very important’ factor when deciding which course to enrol on.

Not only this, but reviews can help you make changes and improve your course.

Customer feedback – how to use it to grow your business.

8. Revisit and refresh your course

And finally, it’s vital to make sure your course is up to date with the latest best practices and guidelines in your industry.

If your course is out of date or contains irrelevant information, people won’t buy it.

We recommend reviewing your course at least twice a year, or even more frequently if you operate in a fast-moving industry like digital marketing.

Add a note to your course stating when it was last updated and what information you updated. This will reassure prospective customers that your course is relevant and accurate.

Power up your passive income with Xigen

It can take time to plan and research a course that resonates with the needs of your customers.

Get it right though, and you’ve created a brilliant stream of passive income for your business!

Want to create a stunning course on your website? Our team of experts will help you build your own bespoke course platform and help you build a loyal community around your brand.