Udemy and Skillshare have free online courses on how to successfully start your business. These courses are highly recommended before you start out. To produce an online course, you will need a good camera to do the videos, a clear microphone to record your speech, and, of course, your tutorial notes to guide you.

Online courses are becoming very popular with Udemy being most popular and offering more than 25000 courses. This makes it a bit tricky to penetrate especially if your course has been covered before. However, this shouldn’t deter you from trying since online courses attract millions of students.

How to Start an Online Course

1. Determine your topic

A good topic to start an online course on should be one that you are well versed in, preferably academically. There will be several courses under your topic. You can go through them and create yours in such a way that it addresses something not addressed in the other available courses.

2. Identify your audience

Are you targeting beginners, intermediates, or advanced level students? Once you know your target audience you will create your course in such a way that it addresses their needs. You can also have a series of courses starting from beginner levels to more advanced levels. This way a student can start with you from scratch and be able to take all your courses to the last level.

3. Use a proper title for your course

A good way to title your course is to use keywords so that it can be found in search engines. You can break down your course to several subheadings also keywords to increase your visibility chances when someone does a search on a related topic.

 4. Format the body for your course

Be keen to check on course format specifications as you prepare yours. These are the guidelines on video and audio format to use. Always use the recommended length for your course and make the course more interactive by introducing quizzes in between lectures. Make sure you have an introduction and conclusion for each lecture you prepare.

5. Produce your content

Create a course in good video and audio quality, and include a landing page on your course. The landing page should outline the course summary, author’s biography, and a promotional video to your course. This is a great way to market your course to prospective students and encourage them to sign up.

6. Pricing

A good price should concentrate on offering value for money. You can check on what rates your fellow tutors are charging to help you set your own rates. Once you have finished setting up the course, you can submit it for review and recommendations by Udemy or skill share team. If approved, it will be listed on their courses and you can start marketing yourself to attract students to your course.

A lot of people are turning to online courses to learn new skills. If you are good at something, create an online course on it in Udemy or Skillshare and get paid for your knowledge. Have you instructed a course at Udemy or Skillshare? Leave a comment on how you planned and prepared for your course.