How to Create an Online Course that People Will Buy

Judging by the number of ads for online courses you are likely bombarded with every day, you might think that this industry has hit saturation point. But really, it’s only the beginning – e-learning is expected to become a $325 billion dollar industry by 2025.

Therefore, if you want to make some passive income, creating and selling an online course is probably your best bet.

But your course won’t sell just because you put some information together. You need to meticulously research what your audience wants and only then conceive of, record and publish your course. Only then can you get started packaging and presenting it in a manner that will convince people to make a purchase.

So, to help you out, I have created this easy guide to creating an online course people want to buy…

Research what your audience wants

To create an online course that people will want to buy, such as a online medical course if you are in the medical field, you need to first figure out what they want. This will not just help you with creating the course, but also with selling it.

Start by looking up the topic you specialise in online. You can use tools like Social Animal to see what topics get shared most and you can use an SEO research tool to see which keywords get searched most.


This will give you a good idea on the topics people want to learn more about.

Next, use this information to see if people have created any course on those topics. You can search for this on search engines and on sites like Udemy. On course marketplaces, you can actually get a lot of information. Like the number of people who have attended a given course, and you can read reviews from students.

This will help you learn more about what they liked about the course and what they didn’t. You can also buy a few courses to see what they are like on the inside.

Once you gather plenty of information about the courses, the curricula and their buyers, you should create a survey to find out even more about what your target audience wants to learn on this topic.

In the survey, also include questions that enquire about what type of content they consume (webinars, ebooks, blog posts, etc.) and the platforms where they discover this content. This will help you figure out how to promote your course after you set it up.

Record the course

Once you know what your audience wants, you can write up your lesson notes and then begin recording the course. How you record it will depend on what you plan to cover in the course.

For example, if you were creating a course on cooking, you will need to spend more time recording yourself and your kitchen counters with a camera. On the other hand, if you are creating a course about marketing on Twitter, for example, you will need to create more videos with screen recordings using a tool like Camtasia, that show people how to use the network.

Recording is probably the hardest part of creating the course, as you will need to attempt several takes and pick the best. You then need to edit and assemble them together. It might be best to hire an editor for this.

You should also hire a designer who can create professional looking cheat sheets, templates and ebooks. These can make it easy for people who buy your course to execute what they learn. It can improve the success rate of your course.

Set it up

Once you have recorded the course and created all the videos and documents, you should set it all up using a learning management system (LMS) like Kajabi.

However, as an all-on-one platform, Kajabi does a lot more than simply allow you to build course experiences out of your content. You can use it to set up your course website, landing pages, subscription billing, a blog and even complex conversion funnels.

You can also create quizzes that course registrants can take part in. This will help them assess themselves and help you gather more information for course updates.

It also comes with Wistia-powered video hosting, so you don’t need to host your videos on another platform.

Package it

The next thing you must do is package the course in such a way that more people will want to buy it. A great way to do this is to create bonuses that complement the lessons. These can range from templates to extra video courses.

You can even team up with other influencers and create short courses on topics they specialise in and offer them as a bonus. If people who buy your course need to buy some software or tools, you can work out discount deals with these companies. You should then sell your course as a package with all these benefits. Make sure you include plenty of images and copy about all the free bonuses and discounts people get when they buy this course.

For some ideas on how to package a course properly, checkout Michelle Schroder’s course, Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.


Michelle packs a lot of relevant bonuses into her course. They will play a vital role in driving more sales.

Promote it

Once your course and the promotional material like the landing page are set up, you can begin promoting it. For this, again, use the data from the survey. It will show you what type of media your audience consumes.

Some of the best methods are blog posts, email funnels and webinars. All these can be set up with Kajabi too.

After that, the only thing left to do will be to drive traffic using methods like ads, SEO, affiliate marketing, etc.

Now create an online course people will want to buy…

This is the step by step process you should follow to create a course that flies off the shelf. Start by researching your audience and finding out what they want to learn, then record the course and set it up. Make it look as professional as possible.

You can then begin promoting it.

What steps do you take to create an online course? Did I forget to add anything important? Please leave your comments below.