40 Tips on Making a Great Online Course

Video Quality Time Saver: If you plan on making more than 5% of your annual income on Udemy, I recommend paying a professional $100-$200 to come to your house and set up your camera, lights and audio. 

There is a science to this process and video is much much harder than photography. I wasted a few months trying to get it right and then I caved in and hired someone, which saved me a lot of time. The expert videographer that I hired spent literally 5 hours just getting the light perfect as you can’t have 2 different shades of light (new to me)! 

Let your videographer look at your video camera and let them tell you if it is good enough (or ask them for a suggestion on the right video camera to consider buying). Also, the audio can be a nightmare if there are echoes and you might need to hang blankets on the walls to get it right (no joke)! Ask the videographer to help you out. Call your local camera store for names of reputable videographers that can help you.

Audio Quality Time Saver: I went through literally 8 microphones until I realized that the only one we should all buy is the Blue Yeti model:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1YPXW2/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 .

Also buy a ‘pop' for your microphone for better sound quality at this link:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008AOH1O6/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 .

Computer & Editing Software: Using a Mac is easiest. Start with iMovie, which is bundled for free on all Macs as it is super easy to use. Then by your 5th or so Udemy course, buy Final Cut Pro X, which is basically a higher end version of iMovie and easy to learn once you have edited a few Udemy courses using iMovie (and it’s super fun to use and saves you a lot of time). You can try Final Cut Pro X for 30 days fore free. 

Storage and Backups. I save all of my Udemy video files on this external Western Digital Drive, which is incredibly fast and robust: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00W8XXRPM/ref=twister_B01IU9UMVY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 . Make multiple backups (these video files are enormous).

Preparing to Record Your First Course: Keep sending Udemy your test video/audio file over and over and over again until they say it’s perfect (they are awesome in helping out). 

Re-recording Beats Over-editing: When you record yourself, if it doesn’t feel perfect, don’t just say to yourself that you will edit out the less perfect parts…always immediately re-record as over-editing takes much more time to do versus a simple re-record.

In this video I show my recording studio/setup.

Everyone Has A Skill That They Love and Can Teach: It's true; whether your skill is academic, practical, hands-on, sports-oriented, a cool recipe, extracurricular related, or just a novel way to do something in a more productive way, we all have at least 1 skill to share with others that can enhance their lives. 

Teach from your heart first as you are helping people improve their lives by teaching them what you love to do. If you are creating a course and it feels like work, consider scrapping it and making a different course that you actually enjoy making. Obviously be mindful that you need to target as large of a total addressable market as possible…but also make sure you have fun making the course and don’t see it as work or it won’t be awesome. Think of it this way: if a music company forced your favorite musician to create a certain type of album, it would be inauthentic, not from the heart and not a best seller. You be you.

How Do You Know What Course to Teach Next? The best/only way is to ask your students (who better to ask!). You can sign up for www.SurveyMonkey.com for free. Then for one of your 4 monthly educational messages send (over Udemy) your students this script which has helped me out a lot (check out the link I included below):

Subject Line: “Please Let Me Know What Courses to Teach Next. Thanks!”

Message Contents:

“Hope all is well. 6 months ago I sent out a survey asking what courses students would like me to teach next. The responses were to create a comprehensive course on getting your dream job and a course on hedge funds, finance & accounting, which I published over the past few months.

Please take this 1 question survey to let me know what courses you would like me to create over the next few months at this link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/HarounVentures

Thanks a lot! 
Chris"

Add Structure to Sections. In the first lecture of each section, explain What your students will learn in this section, Why we are learning this and How we will learn this (usually through an exercise at the end of the section).

Add Even More Exercises: The more exercises that you have that are not just multiple choice, the more students will appreciate it. Try to be innovative too. I found that by including workbooks and spreadsheets to complete, my student engagement (and feedback scores) increased a lot.

Less is More. Please don’t include more than a few bullet points on each slide. I show my in class MBA students this video from Steve Jobs’ iPhone release on the simplicity of his presentation/slides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qPAY9JqE4 .

After each point in a script or for each bullet point, ask yourself “so what” – as less is always more. Pretend that it costs you $100 for each word on a slide.

Quality. Never sacrifice course quality in order to meet a deadline. Delay the release. I am paranoid about this as it can take years to build a huge following and just one course to damage a reputation.

This Most Fun Part is Crucial… Spend a lot of time on the course image, the title and the trailer…I love this part the most as you get to be really creative with it. The trailer is the last thing you should make given the fact that you might use some video footage from the course. Watch movie trailers and get ideas of how to make your trailer (no joke)! I told you this part was fun!

Attachments. Give your students options; if you have downloads in Microsoft Word format, also include PDF versions. 

Best Udemy Instructor to Use as a Role Model for Course Structure and Consistency: Check out Rob Percival’s courses at this link: www.udemy.com/user/robpercival/ .

Use the News: When you watch TV news, movies etc, pay attention to who the most engaging speakers are and their techniques. I found that some of the more entertaining Oscar award speeches are helpful as actors are often brilliant at communicating (use their communication best practices when you teach on Udemy). 

Voice: Drink Gatorade while recording and avoid too much coffee. However, please make sure the Gatorade is clear and not blue or green as you can see in the first half of one of my courses that my mouth is green and in the second half my mouth is blue! My kids teased me when they saw me by saying “what the heck dad...did you eat a smurf?”

Edutainment Works. Be creative and artistic with the process of creating courses as edutainment works best.

Authenticity. Be authentic and self deprecating so that students can learn from my failures and not just our successes. Be personal too. Engage your audience. You are you and not a commodity. Open up and give examples from your life. It’s more fun for them and for you this way.

Best Udemy Instructor to Use as a Role Model for Production Quality: Check out Jimmy Naraine’s courses at this link: https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?q=naraine&src=ukw&lang=en .

Best Udemy Instructor to Use as a Role Model for Creative Genius of Content Delivery: Check out Evan Kimbrell’s courses at this link: www.udemy.com/user/evankimbrell/ .

Less is more in promotions. Try to use bullet points and try not to ever have more than 3 sentences in each paragraph (this is how my editor trained me for my Inc. column).

Monthly Promotion Timing: Time your monthly promotion messages appropriately. I try to do mine at 10 am Pacific Time as my US east coast students are just coming back from lunch and many of my overseas students are still awake. Side note…when determining how many coupons to create for your promotions, I bet you are a dreamer just like me as you add many extra zeroes even though you and I know that only 1% of the coupons will be used ; ) 

Be Consistent with Your Promotions. Once you come up with an established routine for the release timing of your courses, be consistent. For example, Rob Percival (the top Udemy instructor and a great dude) releases all of his courses on Thursdays with a message to his students and then he sends another message 24 hours before the promotion is done on Monday. 

I am getting a bit better at this…the key is to send one message saying that the sale of the course is for a certain amount of time (for example 48 hours) and then send another message 24 hours before the promotion period is finished in order to have a sense of urgency / call to action (optional). 

Advertising Your Course: Don’t bother advertising your course outside of Udemy unless you already have an email list as Facebook, Twitter, Google and LinkedIn advertising is a waste of money (I tried them all many times). The beauty of Udemy versus other education platforms is that Udemy is not just an education platform, they are a big data analytics and marketing machine as they have over 100 engineers focused on getting you customers. Don’t bother re-inventing the wheel and wasting money advertising outside of the Udemy ecosystem (again unless you already have a following or an email subscriber list). 

Dealing with Negative Customer Reviews: 2 data points make a trend. If you get two or more negative comments in reviews about a certain aspect of your course, then make the change if you can and then reply to the reviews. The customer is always right.

Automatic (Welcome & Thank You) Messages: Please don’t forget to set these up as they are a nice touch when you publish your course. 

Here is a Sample of One of My Welcome Messages:

“Welcome to the 30 Day Challenge to a More Productive and Much Happier You! I want to thank you for your time and commitment to this course. 

Please complete the entire course and all of the 30 exercises as I promise you that it will significantly help you to be much more productive as well as more focused, more successful and much happier too! My goal is to humbly inspire you to pursue your dream goals in life so that you can live life on your terms. 

Thanks - let's do this! : )
Chris"

Answering Questions: Answer all questions in the course from your students as thoroughly as possible as they are indexed and students will search them before asking a question. Because of this, I rarely get the same questions asked twice in a course.

Piracy and Monitoring News Stories on Your Courses: Set up Google key word searches to update you daily if there are any news stories or comments on your courses or if there is a piracy breach. Set up the alerts at this link: https://www.google.com/alerts .

I get alerts a few times each month of piracy breaches on my books and other media….and the first time this happens, don’t worry because I promise you that 90%+ of the time, when you click on the pirated link in order to download your book or course, they then ask you to enter your credit card….which means it is a scam and they almost definitely don’t have your I.P.

* Copyrighting Your Course (meaning the content can’t be copied…not the name): You can copyright protect your course for only $35 in the US at this website: http://www.copyright.gov/ - you need to mail them DVDs of your course or you can hire www.legalzoom.com for $200 and they will do all the paperwork and you just send your large video files to them over Dropbox. 

* Please note that for international (non US) copyrighting and trademarking, www.legalzoom.com might be able to recommend who you should speak with. By the way, Legal Zoom is awesome – I pay $35 a month for access to talk to lawyers and get all the advice I need. I only pay for the months that I need to speak to the lawyers. 

* Trademarking Your Course Name (meaning protecting the name and not the content of the course). You can do this at this website in the US: https://www.uspto.gov/ for a minimal fee or just use www.legalzoom.com for $200. 

Also, there is something called the Madrid Protocol, which was created at a meeting years ago in Madrid by the leaders of most countries in order to come up with a way to honor each other’s copyright and trademark laws. Ask a legal advisor about this if you want to protect your course in most or in many countries. I did a call to do this several months ago and the only region where you can’t get copyright or trademark advice is the U.K. (temporarily) given the near term uncertainty of Brexit. 

* Please note that for international (non US) copyrighting and trademarking, www.legalzoom.com might be able to recommend who you should speak with. By the way, Legal Zoom is awesome – I pay $35 a month for access to talk to lawyers and get all the advice I need. I only pay for the months that I need to speak to the lawyers.

Teaching on Non-Udemy Platforms: Udemy is Google and everyone else is Bing. The cool thing about the Udemy ecosystem is that it’s not just a platform, it's a big data analytics and marketing machine. Other platforms won’t market your courses and your courses sit there idle; the loneliest place in the world is page 2 of Google search rankings! I have wasted too much time on other sites – largely because they kept calling me to do so. Don’t bother. 

For the new Udemy teachers out there, you will get plenty of inbound messages about hosting your courses on other platforms. I tried a few and it is a brutal time suck. If you get approached, ask them if they have over 1 million users (vs Udemy at close to 14 million) and you will see that they will either say no or they will find a way to not answer the question. If they do answer the question, then follow up with – do they do any marketing at all of courses. If they say yes (unlikely), then ask them how much the #5-#10 teachers on their website make per year. If they don’t answer the question, then you know it’s a waste of your time bothering to put your courses on their site.

Please don’t think that I am trying to be biased as I am posting this on a Udemy course, I just want to be honest and transparent as always and save you a lot of time.

What if Your Course Isn’t Selling? Try one of the following: 

i. Change the title of the course and see if it comes up in Udemy searches. 

(As a side note, I have to be honest and say that I always screw up the titles of my lectures as I often forget that certain words like “the” and “or” etc. are not capitalized…copy and paste your title into this website and it will fix it for you: http://titlecapitalization.com/) 

ii. Change the course image (brighter colors like orange and green resonate well).

iii. Ask your students for feedback. 

iv. Ask yourself if there is a call to action or enough activities in the course so that the student walks away knowing that they learned a core tangible skill that they can immediately put to work upon completion of your course. If not, consider adding more relevant activities. 

v. Are the first 5 lectures engaging and edutaining enough? If you see that students only watch the first few lessons (using the Udemy teacher analytics tool), then try jazzing up the first few lectures. Have fun with it too!

Am I Breaking Rules? For new teachers (myself included), if I am not sure if I am allowed to do something (like links to external resources etc), then I check online at Udemy.com and then I send an email to trust@udemy.com and ask for guidance. They are awesome with responding.

Revenue: Don’t annualize one month of sales : )  - always take a 3 month trailing average for personal budgeting (and don’t include November, which is Udemy’s Black Friday sale month). 

Time to Market. You will be amazed how much faster you will make your courses once you get the first 5 or so courses under your belt. In fact, your 6th through 15th courses might take you less time to create and be of much higher quality than your first 5 courses. The more courses you make the faster you make them. You will look back on your first few courses and think gosh my production quality has improved a lot (just like comparing the Beatle’s early albums to Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper). 

The Easiest Way Ever to Write a Book Version of Your Courses!!!! 

Step 1: Get your course closed captioned at www.rev.com .

Step 2: At www.rev.com you can select an unlimited number of formats for your closed caption files at no extra cost. Udemy uses a format called VTT. However, you can also get the TXT or text files of all of your lectures at no extra cost, which you can include in the free version of your book that you include in your course (with minor editing). 

Step 3: For all of my 6 by 9 inch books, please use my template, which is attached to this lecture. This template will explain the incredibly easy way to publish your book in print, on Kindle and on Audible.com and the cost is literally $0! Use my template please because it works. All you need to do is pay someone at www.fiverr.com to make the cover of your book for $10-$20.

Here is the guy I always use and he is awesome: https://www.fiverr.com/ultrakhan22 .

It Takes Time… Rome wasn’t built in a day. Don’t worry if you don’t get many sales in the first few months...just keep cranking out quality content and you will succeed. There are so many incredible success stories of those that created content that nobody cared about for ages, including J K Rowling, Jay Z, Agatha Christie…and pretty much every rock star ever! If you are passionate about what you are doing, then you will be incredibly successful (please keep at it). 

Enjoy the process because edutainment and being creative is not a job, it’s a passion; have fun creating courses in incredibly unique ways that the world has never seen before and have fun putting a dent in the universe doing it! If you change a handful of lives through your awesome courses, then it is completely worth it  : ) 

“It always seems impossible until it's done.” -Nelson Mandela

Foreign Translation of Courses: I am still trying to figure this out. I have translated my flagship course into several languages and I added subtitles myself (using a Final Cut Pro X plug in called Sugarfx) and I have had another instructor translate one and teach it without me and we do a revenue share (he is great). 

I don’t know if our customers pay for the content first or for the delivery first…I bring this up as many movies have subtitles for a reason. For example, Star Wars has subtitles…but making a localized non-English version of Star Wars without Harrison Ford as Han Solo wouldn’t be as successful. Tough call as there are exceptions to aforementioned logic. In my next version of this course (will which be out in November of next year), I will provide an update on this topic (work in progress). 

End Note…. The next time you watch a movie and see the ridiculous number of credits at the end of the movie…remind yourself that what you are doing by creating a course all by yourself that is potentially longer than that movie is damn near heroic and that you alone are making a difference by helping so many of your students!

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”  -Nelson Mandela

For official Udemy course creation advice, please see this link: https://teach.udemy.com/ and this link: https://www.udemy.com/user/udemymanager/ .

Thanks, 
Chris