Online courses work by uploading your course content to a learning management system called an online course platform. These platforms link a course creator with an audience. When you run an online course business, it brings an income and creates a closer relationship with your audience.
If that sounds complex, it's because it is. But if you want to create and sell online courses you need a basic understanding of how online courses get traffic, give value, and create a sustainable online course business.
That’s what you’ll learn in this guide.
Beginner's guide to ONLINE COURSES
In this chapter:
Online Course Basics
Online Course Basics
Before we get into details, let's first make sure we understand what online courses actually are, why they exist, and why this even matters.
What are online courses?
Online courses are classes that a student can view via an online course platform.
Each online course consists of two parts:
- Video Lesson(s). A recorded version of your course.
- Learning material(s): Additional content such as PDF(s), jpg(s), etc that increase the value of an online course.
Examples of popular online courses include art&creativity, web development, health & fitness, and business.
What is the aim of online courses?
Every online course aims to provide the best value to its students. That's why people pay money for them—at least in theory.
How do online courses make money?
There are two pricing strategy types of online courses:
- Free online courses where the price is 0. A student doesn't need to pay to take the course (a strategy to hook new students).
- Paid online courses where the price is from $10 to $350 (or €). A student needs to pay to take the course.
Each time someone pays for your course, they expect some value in return, it's called value based pricing.
This is why value matters. Higher value means higher price and more income.
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Why should you care how online courses work?
Understanding how online course value and price work will help you in sales.
If you can create a course with a high value, you will get more sales of your online course.
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What are the most popular online courses?
The good news is that the online course industry is growing in many categories, from art&creativity to web development through health&fitness and business. The most in-demand courses in those categories are the following:
- Art & Creativity
Illustration courses. They are 36.8% of all art/creativity courses.
Illustration courses are most popular in the art/creative category of online courses.
- Web development
JavaScript courses. They are 28.7% of all web development courses.
JavaSript courses are most popular in the web development category of online courses.
- Health & Fitness
Nutrition and diet. They are 28.7% of all health and fitness courses.
Nutrition and diet courses are most popular in the health&fitness category of online courses.
- Business
SEO. They are 43.3% of all business courses.
SEO courses are most popular in the business category of online courses.
Let's wrap this up
Understanding how online courses work is the first step towards creating and selling more online courses. If you place your course to an online course platform that doesn't allow you to create value for your students, you’re dead in the water before you even start.
If you want to know how to do that, and how to start creating online course with high value, subscribe to our guide.
