In short, I like the design of Teachable and find it fast to get set-up. Thinkific is a solid platform and comes in a close second. Podia (used to be called With Coach) used to be a little confusing to set up and add courses so this is still in third at the moment. The key factors when choosing free over paid plans are usually transaction fees on courses (around 10%) and custom domains.
Now back to my deep dive. Why are you looking to create an online course? It’s the most fundamental question to ask as it makes your choice 10x easier if you know the main reason you want to chop up your information in a specific way and deliver it via an online course.
Let me explain with a few examples.
Sami is looking to create an online course
Mark is looking to create an online course
Rohan is looking to create an online course
Timmy is looking to create an online course
They all look similar until you find out why…
Sami is looking to create an online course so she can train new employees on how to use the software in their company
Mark is looking to create an online course so he can build authority in his profession
Rohan is looking to create an online course so he can make money as a side hustle
Timmy is looking to create an online course so she can teach sewing skills to her cousins and also make a little money for extra sewing materials.
What format (apart from jumping into creating an online course) might be the best for each of the people above?
For Sami, she could record herself using Screencast-o-matic, Screenflow or Camtasia, publish to Youtube (unlisted or password-protected) and then upload into Podio for staff to view. She could also record the videos, store them in Dropbox and use Dropbox Paper or Dropbox Showcase to create a single document with each video embedded for training
For Mark, he could start by signing up to Udemy, learning from the course acceptance process, make a better course than he would have, have his course exposed to more people, offer the course for free to build numbers then switch to paid and offer his course to potential clients with a free coupon code
For Rohan, he could create his course, post the online course preview on Youtube and link to his own course platform site but also publish his course to Udemy & Skillshare to increase his earning potential. He could speak to other instructors in his field and see if they’d like to create courses and publish them on his course platform (with him earning a % of the revenue)
For Timmy, she could post some of her shorter courses on Youtube and enable upfront display ads or she could publish to Skillshare and invite friends with free coupon codes whilst still earning money from other students who enrol
As you can see from the above, sometimes building it and seeing if they come is too narrow an online course strategy and can mean that you’re not getting enough reach or you’re not serving the material in the best format for your chosen tribe. If it’s still the best model, test out one of the free plans above to see if it suits, otherwise get advice or seek to get deeper understanding as to how to best serve the people you’re reaching out to.
This is the default text shown when someone completes a standard, partially-configured website form. To change it means you have to click through a few tabs and find what text to update. Does it ever matter that someone sees this? Consider the customer journey from when they read some of your social media posts then …
Question: I’m looking for an app to streamline my surfboard shaping process. We are focusing on a process that is easy for surf shops to fill a order form out then we get the order form printed out, design the file from one of the shops models then cut the board, outsource the shaping and …
Getting quality reviews is notoriously hard. Getting a large quantity of great reviews is even harder. Most review websites showcase the extremes – the customer who had the outstanding experience and the once-off, disgruntled customer who will never come back to your business again. We started thinking about this problem by asking the following questions: …
Additional details of question I’m looking to update the design of my Weebly website so that it looks nice for mobile viewing. Should I buy a custom Weebly theme or update one of the existing Weebly themes? Answer A problem that we hear about with Weebly websites is that people aren’t confident to update the …
What is the best platform for hosting your online courses and why?
I had this question recently and want to dive a little deeper into it that the standard list post of DIY online course platforms.
Just in case, if you don’t have time to read the deeper why behind choosing an online course hosting platform, go and check out (in this order):
In short, I like the design of Teachable and find it fast to get set-up. Thinkific is a solid platform and comes in a close second. Podia (used to be called With Coach) used to be a little confusing to set up and add courses so this is still in third at the moment. The key factors when choosing free over paid plans are usually transaction fees on courses (around 10%) and custom domains.
Now back to my deep dive. Why are you looking to create an online course? It’s the most fundamental question to ask as it makes your choice 10x easier if you know the main reason you want to chop up your information in a specific way and deliver it via an online course.
Let me explain with a few examples.
They all look similar until you find out why…
What format (apart from jumping into creating an online course) might be the best for each of the people above?
As you can see from the above, sometimes building it and seeing if they come is too narrow an online course strategy and can mean that you’re not getting enough reach or you’re not serving the material in the best format for your chosen tribe. If it’s still the best model, test out one of the free plans above to see if it suits, otherwise get advice or seek to get deeper understanding as to how to best serve the people you’re reaching out to.
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This is the default text shown when someone completes a standard, partially-configured website form. To change it means you have to click through a few tabs and find what text to update. Does it ever matter that someone sees this? Consider the customer journey from when they read some of your social media posts then …
Workflow for a surfboard manufacturer
Question: I’m looking for an app to streamline my surfboard shaping process. We are focusing on a process that is easy for surf shops to fill a order form out then we get the order form printed out, design the file from one of the shops models then cut the board, outsource the shaping and …
Are you looking for better online reviews for your business?
Getting quality reviews is notoriously hard. Getting a large quantity of great reviews is even harder. Most review websites showcase the extremes – the customer who had the outstanding experience and the once-off, disgruntled customer who will never come back to your business again. We started thinking about this problem by asking the following questions: …
How do I customise my Weebly theme?
Additional details of question I’m looking to update the design of my Weebly website so that it looks nice for mobile viewing. Should I buy a custom Weebly theme or update one of the existing Weebly themes? Answer A problem that we hear about with Weebly websites is that people aren’t confident to update the …