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HOW TO CREATE AN ONLINE COURSE YOU
CAN BE PROUD OF
Hello!I am Kathleen Celmins
I teach people how to monetize their blogs without losing their voice.
You can find me at:forprofitblogging.com
Anne (Unique Gifter) and I created a course. It’s called Catapult: Pinterest Strategy for Bloggers.
It’s awesome. But it wasn’t easy, and anyone who tells you otherwise deserves to get a box of glitter mailed to them as soon as possible.
“So, we thought we’d highlight the twelve-step process we
used to create our online course. We hope you’ll learn from our mistakes (and our triumphs!) when you set out to
launch your first online course. Find the blog post at http://forprofitblogging.com/create-online-course/
Step 1:Figure out your topic +
total brain dump
Pick a topic
Here’s where we get to get creative. Think about the things people have asked you for help with. What comes naturally to you, but makes you look like a wizard to your friends and colleagues?
Anne and I found that we both know a lot more than the average blogger about Pinterest strategy, so we chose that.
Total brain dump
Once you nail down your topic, it’s time to do a lot of research. Find out everything you already know about your topic, and research the rest.■ What are other people in this space
saying?■ What are the knowns?■ What are the unknowns?
Step 2:Create your outline
(aka organize the brain dump into logical sections)
From messy to “a lot less messy”
First, figure out which topics go together. Then, much later, figure out which order you want to arrange them in.
When we were building Catapult, we had a much easier time organizing topics together, and were constantly rearranging the order, even at the end.
Step 3:Enlist beta members before your course is
ready
Enlist beta members
Enlisting beta members before you’re ready accomplishes two things:1. It lights a fire that makes you launch
before you’re ready2. It tests the market to see if there’s any
interest at all in your topic before you’ve spent too much time on something nobody will buy
Step 4:Create content for each lesson (aka:
round out the outline)
Flesh out that outline!
Make notes in every section. Rough notes here are fine, but write down everything you want to say.
It’s at this point that you’ll realize that creating an online course is a lot more work than simply writing blog posts. But people already paid you money, so keep truckin’.
Step 5:Create slideshow,
complete with pretty pictures
Turn your outline into a presentation
Am I in a safe enough place to admit that I really like creating presentations?
I do. I created the Catapult presentation in Keynote, but I won’t do that again on a presentation where I’m collaborating. In fact, it’s all Google Drive from here on out. Their presentations are lovely.
Don’t forget to add images!
Images go a long way toward helping your audience stay focused during a presentation.
I really love my iStock subscription, but I can understand why people don’t want to shell out that much money, which is why I created this guide to gorgeous, free, attribution-free stock photos.
Step 6:Create a workbook so
good it could stand alone
Creating a workbook isn’t that hard
Our notes quickly turned into the backbones of our course, which then became a supplemental workbook for the course.
But here’s the thing: the workbook was so good it could stand alone. So we decided: why not sell it separately?
Step 7:Record videos (best if
you’re in the same location!)
Take the opportunity to go visit each other
Anne and I met in Calgary and recorded 90% of the course in a three-day period.
We recorded videos of ourselves introducing each module (which all had to be redone!) and videos that were screenshares that we both contributed to. These are my favorite videos. They’re helpful, and our personalities come through.
Step 8:Release your course to
your beta members (but only the first
week)
Our course’s layout
We split Catapult into nine modules:● Module 1: What You Can Expect● Module 2: Start Where You Are● Module 3: How to Look Like You Belong on Pinterest● Module 4: How to Brand Your Pins● Module 5: How to Get People to Stay on your Blog● Module 6: How to Grow Your Audience with Pinterest● Module 7: The Pinterest Crock Pot Strategy: Set it and
Forget it!● Module 8: How to Use Pinterest to Help You Monetize Your
Blog● Module 9: Wrapping it Up with a Nice Bow
The idea: release one module per week
We told our beta members that the course would be ready on Monday.
What that meant for us was that the first module had to be ready on the first Monday, and we had a week to get the second module ready.
This was a sanity saver.
Step 9:Edit all videos, making notes of the ones that
need redone
Remember: editing takes more time than you think
Watch and listen to every video you edit. Take out awkward pauses. Trim the beginning and the end of each video.
Then, go make popcorn or something while your video exports, then watch a movie while you’re uploading to YouTube.
We used Adobe Premiere to edit videos.
Step 10:Move your course to a new URL, learn a new learning management
system
Maybe this shouldn’t be your tenth step...
After we released the beta, we realized that the course was getting lost on ForProfitBlogging.com, and I really didn’t like the course software we were using.
So, we bought a new domain (CatapultForBloggers.com), I learned a new LMS, and now it can stand alone without getting lost.
GOING FORWARDWe’ll set up a new domain for every course we create.
Step 11:Promote your course
before you launch
Promotion should be separate from creation
Promotion strategies for Catapult include:■ Recruiting affiliates■ Scheduling social media posts■ Creating webinars■ Sending emails
Promotion of a course could be a course in itself, which we’re not qualified to teach!
Step 12:Launch!
Done is better than perfect
Once your ducks are in a row, launch your course! If you’re anything like me, you’ll never feel “ready” to launch your course, but you must. I’m proud of Catapult because I know that if people follow the steps laid out, they’ll get more traffic from Pinterest. That matters more than how perfectly my text is aligned.
