How To Create an Online Course For Beginners (8-Step Guide)

Most people overcomplicate their first online course, and that's why they never launch. But what if I told you there was a simple way to get it done fast? In this video, I'm going to walk you through an 8-step process to create and launch your first online course without all the overwhelm or getting stuck in perfectionism. We'll cover how to pick the right topic and make sure there is demand for your product. Then I'll show you how to create your course content and start selling in record time. If you're new to the channel, I'm James Allen, and I've helped countless coaches and course creators build profitable online businesses while working less than 20 hours a week. This is the exact process that I've used to launch my own courses and has helped me and my clients generate thousands in course sales while keeping things ultra simple. If your ultimate goal is to turn this course into an automated passive income stream, I'd highly recommend you watch my free masterclass after this video. It'll show you a 3-part system to earn your first $2,000 per month from digital products without a massive following, expensive paid ads, or complicated tech. There's a link down in the description, or you can always visit profityourknowledge.com/masterclass. Now, before we get into creating your online course, I first need to share the biggest mistake that I see most beginners make. Most people think online courses need to be this massive, all-encompassing thing right out of the gate. So they spend months building out tons of content only to launch and realize that they spent all that time and energy on something that no one actually wanted. It's a huge waste of time and frankly, one of the biggest reasons that many aspiring course creators never get started. That's why starting with a mini course is a much smarter way to go. By focusing on mini courses in the beginning, you'll make money faster, get better at marketing courses and selling them, you'll start building an audience of buyers, and you won't feel so overwhelmed in the process. And when you're ready for a larger course, you'll be in a much better position to succeed. So now that we've agreed to start with a mini course, let's dive into step number 1, and that is to choose a very specific topic for your course. When you start thinking about your first mini course, you wanna be specific, not broad. For example, instead of creating a course about how to play guitar, you want to narrow it down to something more specific like Fingerpicking 101 or Music Theory 101. By the way, these are real examples from Lauren Bateman, a mini course creator who teaches beginners to play guitar. Lauren has made over $2 million selling online. So here are some ideas to get your wheels turning. You can make a course on how to speak on camera with confidence, how to write emails that sell even with a small list, or how to start watercolor painting as an absolute beginner. Just remember that the more specific you are about the topic, the better. Let me know in a comment below what's one specific topic that you could teach in your niche. I'd love to hear what you're working on. Once you've nailed your topic, then we can move on to the next step, which is to create your promotional materials. Now I know you might be thinking, James, what are you talking about? Haven't even filmed a lesson yet. Before you decide to spend more time creating your mini course, it's a good idea to figure out if anyone is interested in buying it, right? That's where we create a waitlist page. This is a simple page that describes your mini course, its benefits, and what students will learn. As you build out this page, make sure that you are focusing on the transformation that your students are going to get more than the features that the course delivers. Really think, what should somebody expect from finishing this? How are they going to come out on the other side different, more experienced, more skillful? So instead of saying something like, this course includes 10 video lessons on personal finance, you could say, you'll walk away from this with a simple money plan that puts you in control so you can stop stressing about the bills and start building real wealth. Do you see the difference? When people see the transformation that they will experience, they're far more likely to take action. Let them know that this course will be launching in the future and that they can learn more about it and stay updated by giving you their email address and getting on your waitlist. Now, if you're thinking, James, how am I supposed to get people to actually sign up to this thing? Well, to get traffic, here are a couple things that you could do. First is to leverage social media. Share valuable content related to your course topic. This could be tips, insights, or sneak peeks, and make sure that you always include a call to action in your post that point people to your waitlist page. You can also start conversations in relevant Facebook groups or online communities, or even on your personal social media about the struggles or challenges that your course is going to solve. You just want to make sure that you're talking to the right people who would actually be interested in this course topic. By having more of these conversations with the right people, it'll make it really natural for you to segue into mentioning your waitlist page. And lastly, you can always do collaborations. This is where you partner with influencers, bloggers, or other creators in your niche for shoutouts out or cross-promotion. You don't have to go to people with a massive audience. Even if they do have a smaller audience, as long as their followers are interested in your course topic, it's worth connecting. And if you don't have a large following yet, don't underestimate the power of your existing network. Reach out to friends, family, or colleagues who might be interested or that could refer you to someone who is. A personal recommendation can really go a long way. If you do this and collect a few hundred emails, that's a really good sign that this is worth getting started. If not, you'll want to go back to your drawing board. Once you've decided to move forward in building your course, you'll want to start with our next step, and that is to create an outline. The goal here is to break the mini course topic down into roughly 5 lessons. It could be a little bit more or a little bit less, but the goal here is to keep it simple. Each lesson should cover one key concept or skill that helps your students achieve the desired outcome that the course is ultimately promising. You'll want to include the main points, examples, and any other resources or exercise that you would want to include to help your students reach their outcome faster. And I cannot stress how important it is to keep things simple here. All you're doing is mapping out a bird's eye view of what it takes to get your students the transformation that your course is promising. For example, if you had a mini course on how to write emails that sell even with a small list, your outline could look like this. The first lesson would be the psychology of persuasive emails, why people buy from emails. Lesson 2 would be the 3-email framework for selling without feeling salesy. Lesson 3 would cover subject lines and hooks that get opens and clicks. Lesson 4 would be all about writing your first sales email with a simple template that is included. And lastly, we have Lesson 5 where you're automating your emails for persuasive sales. Once you've laid out your simple outline, then we can move on to creating the course content. Here's a simple structure that you can use for each lesson of your course content. First, we want to introduce the main points that the students are going to learn. For example, you could say, in this lesson, you'll learn how to craft a compelling subject line that increases your email open rates. This will help you grab your audience's attention right the inbox. After your intro, we want to use the bulk of the lesson to explain your ideas and concept using clear examples and visuals, ideally because it is a video course. You also want to make sure that you include any necessary resources, things like worksheets or templates, to help your students implement the content that you're teaching. And at the end, summarize the key takeaways and provide clear action steps for your students to take. And a pro tip here when you're building your course content is that as you move from each lesson, explain how the next lesson is going to build upon that last lesson that you just taught. An example of this would be, now that you've mastered crafting effective email subject lines, in the next lesson, we'll dive into writing engaging email copy that keeps your readers hooked even after they've opened your email. By doing this, students can digest your information in a logical sequence, and they really feel like they're making tangible progress. After you followed that flow for each one of your lessons, then we can move on to the next step, and that's setting up your course delivery platform. You're going to want to choose a platform to host and deliver your mini course on. If you're getting started from scratch, choosing something simple like Gumroad or Thinkific is a great option. Don't worry about making a huge amount of money right now. You're just trying to get some traction and start to build a bit of authority. If your mini course is successful, you can always move on to something more robust like my favorite platform, which is Kajabi. Kajabi is an all-in-one platform that is well worth the extra bit of money that you'll invest compared to other tools. Not only can you host your course, but you can also build your website, set up email marketing, create landing pages like that waitlist page that I showed you earlier. You can offer paid memberships and communities, sell your products, track and analyze data, and create quizzes and assessments as well. Kajabi simplifies the process of creating, marketing, and selling your courses, which allows you to focus on delivering value to your students. If you use my link, you can get a free 30-day trial compared to the regular 14-day trial that Kajabi offers. and on top of that, I'm giving you my Kajabi Kickstart course that will help you set up your business for success in that 30 days. Plus you're gonna have a one-on-one private coaching session with me on Zoom. I'll answer any questions that you have about Kajabi or strategy for your online business as well. This is all included when you use my link. If you're interested, there's a link in the description, or you can go to profityourknowledge.com/kajabi. So now that you've built your course and chose a platform, let's talk about pricing. Just because you think that you are providing $1,000 plus of information, it doesn't mean that you can price your mini course at $1,000. In the early stages of your journey, you probably don't have enough social proof or online authority to charge that kind of price. And remember, money is not your top priority with your first mini course. I'd recommend charging anywhere from $25 to $50 to keep the content short, like an hour or less, to start generating some low-cost tripwire sales. This is also gonna be a really low barrier for entry, and because it's a short course, people will feel a lot more compelled to actually finish the course content. And a pro tip is that at the end of your mini course, you can set up a simple testimonial collection video with a little widget so you can add testimonials to your website over time. Some tools I recommend for that are senja.io or testimonial.io. You can also offer your private coaching at the end of your course as well because these people bought your smaller course and they watched the whole thing. Chances are they'd be interested in learning more from you. Now, once you've decided on your price point, now it's time to actually sell this thing. All you're going to do here is update your waitlist waitlist page that you had built earlier and turn it into a sales page. This is way easier than you might think. All we're going to do is simply replace the email collection box that you added on your waitlist page to start getting some emails with a strong CTA or call to action button to purchase your mini course. That'll then point to a checkout page, and then you just want to make sure that as soon as they buy, they're automatically going to get the course in an email. An example of a strong CTA could be something like, ready to finally master the kitchen and cook meals that wow your friends and family? Click the button below to get instant access to Kitchen Confidence Kickstart and start creating delicious, foolproof dishes today. Obviously you wanna make it sound like your own language. Make sure that you include your CTA button in each section of your page so that when people are ready to buy, they can easily just click the button and go over to the checkout page. For the button text, you could use something like start cooking like a pro now or enroll in Kitchen Confidence Kickstart today or whatever the name of your course is. Once your page is set up and you're ready to sell this thing, now it's time to launch and promote your mini course. To do this, set a launch date your mini-course and begin promoting it to your audience. Use your email list that you had built from your waitlist page or any social media that you have to generate interest in signups. A good practice is to offer a special launch price that's a little bit discounted, or you can add in an extra bonus like an extra worksheet or maybe a session with you or a Loom video where you review some aspect of their business or their life, and that's gonna really inspire people to sign up during that launch week. Then close the cart at the end of the week to take a break and let your students really go through this course. This is going to give them time to watch the content, ask questions, and give you feedback on how to make it better. All of that is going to help you improve this course and create better courses in the future. Look, making money is great, but providing value and helping your students achieve a specific outcome is going to build a ton of trust as you continue to grow this business. I already mentioned one huge mistake that beginner course creators make earlier in this video, but if you want to have the best foot forward with selling your online courses, watch this video and I'll show you the 7 worst online course mistakes that beginners make so that you can avoid them yourself. Take what you learned here, get out there, make something happen, and I'll see you in the next one.