Since I’ve been embarking on writing posts around the theme of digital course creation and delivery this month, today’s topic is simply best practices and must-haves for your courses.

Before you begin creating your course, you should consider the best way build the online course and what should be included.

In order to engage your students, you want to create and present your course in a way that is right for your audience. The content should also help you move your students through becoming a satisfied, lifelong, customer.

Course Creation Best Practices

Use these 15 best practices to create a course that is well received and informative.

1. 1. Know your audience before you begin to design your lessons. Identify who they are and understand who they are and how they learn. Cookie cutter courses are often to impersonal and don’t meet the needs of particular students.
       
   2. Use different styles of content. People learn in different ways. Some students may learn better with bite-size pieces. Others may prefer interactive tools and group activities. Others yet may prefer videos or written content delivered in a lecture formatted course.
       
   3. Create well-organized courses or trainings. It’s helpful to break each section into smaller, “micro” bits of information that helps students from being overwhelmed or feeling bogged down by too much information. This also allows students to work on the course when they can fit it into their own busy schedules.
       
   4. Know how much it will cost to develop your course. It will depend on many factors, including content development, research, and marketing. You’ll want to include the cost of video equipment if you’re using video, outsourcing work and software.
       
   5. Choose the right subject for your online course. It’s not as simple as choosing your favorite topic and writing a blog post. Instead, you need to choose your course topic based on what problem your target audience face on a regular basis and help them solve it.
       
   6. You don’t have to start from scratch. Use content you’ve already created. You most likely chose a topic that you’ve already talked about so the content will be relevant for your course. Don’t just duplicate the content they can already get free on your blog. Instead, use them as starting points for videos, workbooks or just expand on the existing content.
       
   7. Proofread and edit before you send out your course for sale. Make sure your videos are edited for clarity and can be heard easily.
       
   8. Differentiate your courses unique value proposition from the beginning. What sets your course apart from the rest?
       
   9. Create an outline that is organized. A comprehensive outline makes it easier to arrange your content chronologically. This way your course goes from easiest to advanced or natural progression from beginning to end.
       
   10. Pre-sell your course before you create the content. Pre-selling helps you see if there is any interest in the course before you waste time and resources creating it.
        
   11. Have beta-test students go through the course before you release it to the public. This helps you gather insight on what needs improvement, added or taken out. HINT: It also helps you gather testimonials you can use on your sales page too.
        
   12. Set up a landing page to gather subscribers interested in the topic. Begin building a relationship with them through email marketing. When you’re ready to launch your course, send them an offer to get in on the class at a reduced rate.
        
   13. Create your sales page. Include images, videos, benefits, a compelling headline, your author bio, testimonials, and your call-to-action.
   14. Use a good authoring tool that lets you design, edit, and share online courses to different platforms.
   15. Make your course easy to navigate. Students should be able to find where to go next.

In Summary

You have a great idea for a course and have decided to create that course. But before you jump in with both feet and arms, make sure you use the best practices tips for creating course.

Before the first word is written, get input on the topic and the targeted audience’s pain points. This helps you create a course that your audience actually wants to take.

Create an outline and a summary of the course so you can keep it organized when you begin creating content.

Determine how and what platform you will use to host your course. Is it compatible with your other marketing platforms like your email provider or your payment gateways? Decide if you want it self-hosted or hosted on your own website.

Use quality equipment when creating your videos and voice content. You need a microphone, camera and lighting for good videos. Finally, the easily digestible content teaches them what it is you promised in your sales page.

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Aletha McManama

Aletha is a "Digital Marketing Maven" who specializes in online marketing using WordPress, social media and email marketing to assist her clients in marketing their business. She is a WordPress pro that designs websites and blogs. Plus, she trains business owners to create and maintain their own WP site and blog.

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