What are the 12 Steps for Developing an Online Course?

So you want to create an online course. COOL! You can totally do this. But I see you have been Google searching "How to develop an online course" and you are not yet satisfied with the answer.

Well, I, Lisa am here to help. I've created over 25 online courses just this year (and it's only August). Stick with me and we will do this together!

Now, only people who do each one of these steps is genuinely serious about creating an online course. If you do not do every single step in this blog you will be doing yourself, your course and most importantly your students a massive disservice.

I hear you say "WHATEVER, YOU DON'T KNOW ME. I'M GOING TO CREATE MY ONLINE COURSE IN 2 WEEKS AND SELL IT FOR 1 MILLION DOLLARS. CREATING A COURSE IS NOT HARD LISA SHEESHHH".

The percentage of my clients who come to me with HALF a course and need me to not only create the 2nd half but also fix the 1st half is about 50% of my business. If you do it right the first time you don't need someone like me to fix it for you (but I'm very happy to of course!).

So strap on your course creation pants, grab a pen and paper because the following is an exact to-do list on creating your online course.


1. DECIDE ON WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO TEACH​
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Think about your students' gap in knowledge. What is your unique skill or knowledge that only you can teach them?

Write this down.

2. WHAT IS THE END GOAL?

What is the end goal of your training? This is what your students will take away from your course.

It will either be one of two things:

• Behaviour change. They will learn to DO something.
• Information dissemination. They will learn ABOUT something.

Example: a mobile photography course that teaches you how to take a killer selfie.

Write your answer underneath your answer for point 1.

3. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

What age range are you targeting? Where do they hang out? Will you find them on LinkedIn or on SnapChat? What language do they use? What colours do they like? Will they prefer to learn via a 5 minute video rather than long text?

Write down your answers to all of these questions.

4. CREATE HIGH LEVEL TOPICS

Most courses are broken into lessons or modules. This means a series of smaller bits of information (sub-topics) will be placed under a common heading or title. It is a good idea to place these high level topics in an order that makes sense to your course content. You might want to consider chronological order or sequence order. See below for an example of high level topics.

Example:

Course Title: Mobile Photography
Module 1: Introduction to your camera phone
Module 2: Enhancing your images
Module 3: Photographing people
Module 4: Photographing items and landscapes

Note: See how the "Introduction to the camera phone" is Module 1? Imagine placing it after Module 3... Absolute lunacy!

5. CREATE YOUR SUB-TOPICS

This step is where you create your chunked-down bits of information headings (sub-topics) that people will learn within your modules. Have a look at the example below to make sense of this step.

Ps. I know you are screaming, "BUT LISA, YOU HAVE NOT TOLD ME TO WRITE MY CONTENT YET! WHEN AM I GOING TO MAKE MY AWESOME VIDEOS OR GET THIS THING ACTUALLY WRITTEN!"......calm down bro, it's coming up. Trust me...you need to do these steps first. It's called creating a framework.

Example:

Course Title: Mobile Photography
​Module 1: Introduction to your camera phone

• Overview of features
• Overview of settings
• Overview of what you can create

Module 2: Enhancing your images

• Filters
• Lighting
• Subject Matter

Module 3: Photographing people

• Positioning
• Colours
• Angles
• Lighting

Module 4: Photographing items and landscapes

• Lighting
• Positioning
• Angles

6. CREATE GOALS FOR EACH HIGH LEVEL TOPIC AND SUB TOPIC

Yes, you need to create more goals. These are called 'learning objectives'. The whole point of a course is to LEARN SOMETHING SPECIFIC. If you do not know what the goals are then why are you teaching it? It is pointless? If so get rid of it!

Write down the goals for each of your high level topics and sub topics. Always start with "By the end of the module/lesson you will know how to..." Always use action words. Also, you are starting to write your content now - yippee!

See below for an example of Module 1, Sub-Topic 1 only. Repeat for every topic and sub topic.

Course Title: Mobile Photography
Module 1: Introduction to your camera phone (high level topic)
By the end of this module you will be able to:

1. take photos using the camera on your phone
2. describe common features and settings

• Overview of features (sub-topic)

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to...

1. locate the camera on your phone
2. describe the common features of the camera
3. take 5 photos of 5 things around your house or out in nature.

7. ADD WELCOME AND SUMMARY HIGH LEVEL TOPICS

Before your first module and after your last, pop in a Welcome high level topic and a Summary/Conclusion topic.

The Welcome topic sets the scene and gets your students acclimated to the course and the Summary is a round up of what was learned, their feedback and a great time for you to upsell.

Example:

Course Title: Mobile Photography
Welcome
Module 1: Introduction to your camera phone
Module 2: Enhancing your images
Module 3: Photographing people
Module 4: Photographing items and landscapes
Summary

8. WRITE/FILM/CREATE YOUR CONTENT

Go forth and create your content under each sub-topic. Stick to those learning objectives. Make sure what you are saying DIRECTLY links back to the learning objectives. If you say the student is going to learn how to take an awesome selfie then you must explain and show them how to do it.

Videos are great - they can be super engaging and give the student a sense of a training facilitator. If your videos are a little long or complex, make sure they are engaging and follow up with an activity (coming next) or break them up.

I like to structure the content in my lessons (sub-topics) like this:

1. Learning objectives
2. Video or text
3. Example, case study or demonstration
4. Student activity
5. Recap of learning objectives

Write a couple of sentences for each of your sub-topics now.

9. CREATE ACTIVITIES

To change behaviour you need to add actionable activities for each sub-topic.

Looking back at the learning objectives for the mobile photography course in the examples you will notice that one of the objectives is to 'take 5 photos of 5 things around your house and out in nature'. This is an activity.

Explain to your students WHY you want them to do this activity (adults always need to know why they are doing something) and HOW to do it. Maybe you can add a bit of extra-ness and get them to post their images to your Instagram page or Facebook group.

10. GET FEEDBACK

Find an honest friend, colleague, neighbour and ask them politely (and maybe bribe them) to physically do your course. Your course is probably in a Word document format right now (if you have not jumped 50 steps ahead and plonked it directly onto a learning platform). Give them the document and ask them to do each step. Ask them to pretend they know nothing about your topic (bonus points if they actually don't!) and give you feedback on every single sub-topic, video, text, activity.

When they give you feedback make the changes and give it to another person to test for you.

​Feedback, amend, feedback - REPEAT until you have a course that is the best fricken thing your uncles mother-in law has ever completed!

11. CHOOSE YOUR ONLINE PLATFORM

I bet you are asking why I didn't tell you to do this in step 1....I'll tell you why mister/missus/them/they......

If you are not committed enough to complete the first 10 steps in this blog then you are not committed to creating an online course. IF you tried to find the PERFECT platform to host your course BEFORE completing the first 10 steps then you would have wasted time, energy and potentially money. Also, you need to do the hard work first because a course hosting platform is pointless if YOU DON'T HAVE A COURSE. Feel me?

So now that you have your bloody awesome 10/10 A+ 5 Star course, you can look at course hosting platforms. They will all range in price and options but some I think are great are listed here.

All platforms allow videos, text, images and quizzes. You just need to work out what the best price is for you and decide if you need a payment system for people to buy your course. I suggest trying lots of free trials on different platforms and have a crack popping in some of your course content. If it's complicated move on! If it's easy then go with that platform.

12. IMPLEMENT YOUR COURSE
Test your platform and course works PERFECTLY before you launch. I cannot stress this enough. TEST TEST TEST. Get old mate down the road to test it, your father in law, your high school sweetheart...just test it.

Then press Publish and away you go!

If you want to sell your course and you need help with advertising, I highly recommend Space Digital in Brisbane. They help my clients sell their courses all over the world. ​

I hope this has not been a traumatic process for you. But I can guarantee, if you follow these steps you will have one bloody awesome course that people will learn from and love.

If this is all too hard and you need a professional to help you, email me Lisa@sparkleelearning.com or book in a free initial convo with me via the contact page.
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Good luck!

​Lisa :)