Introduction
There are a number of people making significant incomes from courses that they have created for the Udemy platform. Udemy.com is the biggest online training website and it has millions of students and new visitors that are all looking for the right course. For you to make good money from Udemy you need to create the right courses. In this report we will show you the 6 steps that you need to take to create a winning Udemy course. Most of the instructors on Udemy do not follow the advice that we will share with you and as a result make very little, if any, money from their Udemy courses.
As you read through this guide you will see that all of the steps make sense and if you follow them you will have the maximum chance of creating winning courses time after time. So join the big money earners on Udemy by creating the best courses.
👉IS THERE DEMAND FOR YOUR COURSE
Before you start to create your Udemy course you must check to see if demand exists for it. It will take a lot of time and effort to put your Udemy course together and to do all of this for nothing will totally demoralize you. You may be an expert in sheep shearing but are there people on Udemy looking for a course on it?
One of the easiest ways to test for demand is to use the Google Keyword Planner.Come up with a couple of keywords for your course and then you can see how many people are searching for the subject on the Google search engine.
One of the other great things about using the Google Keyword Planner is that it will provide you with other keyword suggestions that you can use for course topics or even future courses. If your main keyword has around 1,000 to 10,000 searches per month then this suggests that there is demand.
Another way to check demand is to use Amazon.com. Here you are looking for bestselling books related to your idea. If you find some bestsellers then you can take a look inside the different books to give you ideas for your course content.
Udemy has a tool called “Udemy Insights” which you can find here. Just enter in your main keyword and it will tell you if demand exists for your idea. It will also tell you about competing courses and provide ideas for other in demand courses.
Go to Udemy.com and enter your main keyword and take a look at the existing courses on offer. Do any of them have thousands of students? If so then this is another strong indicator that there is demand for your idea.
Spend time conducting this research. You do not want to create a course where there is no demand. It doesn’t matter if there is a lot of competition as you can create a better course or use a different angle with your training. Competition is a good thing. Your idea probably isn’t worth much if there is little or no competition.
👉PLAN YOUR UDEMY COURSE
Now that you have found an in demand course idea you need to make a plan for your course. This is best achieved by creating a course outline that you can flesh out later. One of the most important things is to create a great title and subtitle for your course. Use one of your main keywords in these for Udemy SEO benefits.
Your title and subtitle must grab attention and tell people what the course is about and what they will achieve. Students on Udemy are looking for results so you must tell them what they will get by going through the whole course.
The next thing to produce is a list of steps that the course provides. You will use each one of these steps to create your videos and other content for your course. Let’s say that you are going to create a course on successful email marketing. Your steps could be as follows:
• Why email marketing?
• Autoresponders
• Squeeze pages
• Incentives
• Email sequences
• Legal
You may be able to think of some more steps but this is just an example so that you get the idea.
Spend time thinking about these steps as they will form the foundation for your course. You need to
look carefully at each step so that you can work out what training you will provide for each. So for the “Autoresponders” section you can flesh this out to:
What is an autoresponder?
• Autoresponder service or hosted autoresponder?
• Creating a list with your autoresponder
• Creating your opt in form for your list
• Adding an email sequence to your autoresponder
• Creating and sending broadcast emails
Again this is just an example. You need to do this for each of your steps so that you end up with a detailed plan for your Udemy course. If you are already an expert in your subject it should not take too long for you to create your course outline. Sometimes you will need to spend a bit of time researching so just use your favorite search engine for that.
We recommend that you create a detailed Udemy course. The courses that have more than 10 hours of lectures and many lessons usually sell a lot better than those that have less than this. People are always looking for the most that they can get from online training.
👉GETTING READY TO RECORD YOUR UDEMY VIDEOS
You must have the right tools to record your Udemy videos. It is fine to record your videos using your computer but it is not fine to use an inferior microphone and camera. The webcam and microphone in your laptop are not good enough. Your videos will be poor quality and you will end up with a ton of negative reviews.
Get a good quality USB microphone that you can plug into your computer like the Blue Yeti. Invest in Lan HD quality webcam from Logitech for great picture quality. Also get a pop filter for your microphone and a good stand for both your camera and your microphone. These things will not cost you that much but will help you to create high quality videos.
Another thing that you will definitely need is a video editing suite. If you are a Windows or Mac user then there are free apps available which are Windows Movie Maker and iMovie. You are going to need to learn how to use these applications so that you can edit out mistakes and add other things to your videos such as screen recordings, slide shows, entry and exit screens etc.
If you want to show people how to do something on the computer then you will need a screen recording app. There are free options available again with Cam Studio for Windows and Quick Time for the Mac. More features are available (including video editing) with Techsmith Camtasia but this will cost $199. There is usually a free trial available.
It is almost certain that you will need to include some slides in your videos so you need a good slide presentation app such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Keynote for the Mac. Google Slides is a good free alternative.
👉CREATING YOUR UDEMY VIDEOS
We have already said that a larger more detailed course will sell better than a smaller one. When you create a large course of over 10 hours and 50 lectures it shows that you really know your subject and this is very appealing to potential customers.
The most important thing to consider when creating your Udemy videos is student engagement. Nobody wants to be bored when watching these videos. When you keep your students engaged they will be far more likely to finish the whole course and purchase any new courses that you create.
Try to make all of your Udemy videos under 10 minutes long. If a student sees a video that lasts for 25 minutes then this will be a barrier to them watching it. Most people don’t have the patience to watch a video this long no matter how keen they are to learn something.
You also need to bear in mind that some students will use their smartphones to watch. A 25 minute video is a nightmare on a small screen. If you have a lot of things to say then break this up into smaller videos and call them Part 1, Pert 2 etc.
Keep all of your videos simple and to the point. Avoid the temptation to ramble and go off on tangents. Be focused and take the quickest time to get to the point. Your students will thank you for taking this approach.
With each new video add an introduction and conclusion slide. On the introduction slide tell them what they will learn and on the conclusion slide summarize the main learning points. This will help to reinforce the learning.
Add simple quizzes to your courses between videos or sections. This is a great thing for interaction and it will help your students test their knowledge and see how well they are doing. Multiple choice answers are always the best format to use.
Whether you like it or not your students will like and trust you more if you physically appear in your videos. A survey recommended that you should make a personal appearance at least 20% of the time.
If you are fearful of doing this then you need to practice. Think about the big picture here. You want to sell a lot of Udemy courses don’t you? Once you practice for a while you will get used to seeing your face on camera and will become more confident. Watch your body language and don’t do things like putting your hand up to your face.
Nobody is going to enjoy Udemy videos that are full of “ums” and “ahs” and other things people say repetitively such as “you know” and “like”. If you find yourself doing this then prepare a script for each video that you can follow. This will keep you on point and will stop you rambling.
Be humorous and light hearted in your videos. Let the passion for your subject shine through. You are not trying to be like your math teacher at school. Be as relaxed and casual as you can when you are recording your videos.
Avoid distractions that will turn your student’s attention away from what you are teaching. Don’t wear really bright clothes or patterns and check the background for distractions such as fancy curtains and clocks.
Give your students encouragement in all of your videos. Tell them that they have learned a lot in a lesson and that they are really making good progress. Students always react well to this kind of encouragement.
You can use a number of different formats in your Udemy course such as videos, audios, text, documents and what’s known as Mashup. Mashup is a combination of a slideshow presentation and a video. Make sure that your Udemy courses are mainly videos because that is what your students will be expecting.
When you are using slides in your videos make them simple and professional. Don’t use backgrounds with complex patterns that will distract students. Also introduce one point at a time so you prevent the student from reading ahead.
If you get the opportunity to use charts, graphs or tables to make points then do so. We recommend that you use one of these per slide unless you need two for a comparison. Add images and video clips as well as necessary. Mixing it up is good. Never use slide show animations in your videos – this looks cheap and nasty and nobody will be impressed.
It is great to record your screen for over the shoulder training on your computer. But there are a few things that you need to bear in mind with these recordings. Open all of the web browser tabs and load the pages before you record. Do the same with software applications. Why? Because you don’t want to record web pages and apps loading. This is boring for your students.
👉FOCUS ON YOUR LANDING PAGE
A lot of Udemy instructors put a great deal of effort into creating engaging courses for their students and treat their Udemy course landing page as an afterthought. Your Udemy landing page is so important. It can make the difference between selling a large number of courses and selling none.
It is understandable that teachers and educators are not good at landing pages as they don’t have the marketing nous. But this is no excuse. If your landing page doesn’t sell your course then you are in trouble.
There are six parts to your landing page on Udemy and you need to pay special attention to all of them:
1. Your title and subtitle
2. Your promo video
3. Your student goals
4. Your course description
5. Your course image
6. Your profile
Your title and subtitle are so important as we already discussed earlier. They are one of the first things that a potential customer sees and if they are not inspiring then your conversions will be low.
Create a few titles and subtitles and go with the ones that grab attention and inspire you to want to find out more about a course. Look at some other courses that have sold well for ideas on this. Make a promise in your title.
You have to make a good promo video. Research conducted by Udemy themselves showed that a good promo video will make a prospective customer ten times more likely to purchase a course.
You need to make an appearance in your promo video. Don’t groan about this because it will help to build trust with the potential customer. They want to know who you are and what you look and sound like. So just get over it and get yourself in your promo video.
Don’t make your promo video too long. The most effective ones are only 90 seconds to 120 seconds long. This doesn’t mean that you can just throw anything together. You need to plan what you are going to say and make it sell your course.
Be sure to include the benefits of your course in your promo video. Find out what questions your target audience has and answer these in the promo. Talk in the same language that your potential customers do and you will create a great connection with them.
People that purchase Udemy courses usually do so because they want to make their life better. So in your student goals you need to show them what results they will get. Your student goals need to excite your potential customers about the journey they are about to take and the end result they will get.
When a potential customer is thinking about your course they will ask themselves “what will I be able to do after I join this course?” This means that they want to know what they are going to get out of it.
They don’t care about you or your course just what it will do for them so always bear this in mind. Use action terms to describe student goals. Rather than saying “you will learn the basics of WordPress” say “you will be able to create a great WordPress blog in just a few hours” instead. All of your student goals must be action orientated and beneficial.
When it comes to course descriptions most Udemy instructors suck at this. They just provide a logical description of the course elements because they think that is what the student wants. Forget this –use your description as another way to sell your Udemy course.
In your description address the desires of your target audience. Also address their fears and answer their most common questions. Tell them how they will feel after joining your course. Appeal to their emotions.
You need a really compelling image for your Udemy course. If you don’t have graphic design skills then find someone on Fiverr.com or another freelancing website that can do the work for you for a few dollars. Never put up a poor image for your course. It will drive people away.
The last thing you need to do is to provide an author profile. Have a good picture taken with you smiling and looking confident against a plain background. Explain why you are the best person to teach the course and add some of your experiences. Talk about the results that you have achieved through the skills that you have. Always write your profile in the third person.
👉PROMOTE YOUR UDEMY COURSE
One of the great things about Udemy is that it will promote your course for you but don’t just rely on this. You need to do everything you can to get the word out. Before you launch your first Udemy course setup a few things first if you don’t already have them:
• Your own website or blog
• An autoresponder for list building and email marketing
• Set up social accounts such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. Set up the
most relevant accounts for your audience
To make your Udemy courses attractive to potential buyers you need student numbers and reviews.
Very few people will want to jump into a course that does not have a level of “social proof”.
You can create free coupons for your course within Udemy so your first step to achieving social proof is to ask your personal network of family, friends and colleagues to join your course and leave you a good review.
Reach out to your existing social media following (if you have one) and give them free coupons to try out your course as well. Don’t worry about not earning money at this stage. Your first priority is to get enough social proof so that you can make a lot more money later.
Once you have obtained social proof (at least 500 students with a percentage of good reviews) you can look at paid advertising for your course. Using Facebook Ads for example you can specifically target people you know will have an interest in your course.
Keep making regular posts on social media about your course. Also write blog posts for your own site about subjects related to your course and link to it in each post. Create a mini course as an incentive for people to join your email list. You can then send them emails promoting your Udemy course and telling them about future courses.
CONCLUSION
Now you know what it takes to create a winning Udemy course you need to take action. Start coming up with course ideas and validate them for demand and competition. Invest in a good microphone and webcam and learn how to edit your videos properly.
Once you have created one winning Udemy course you can then create more. Nobody ever got rich by having just one Udemy course so use the techniques in this report to rinse and repeat and make as many as you want
