Post by shukla on Nov 3, 2024 22:51:53 GMT -5
Udemy, SkillShare, Coursera, Teachable, Podia – these platforms allow you to sell your online courses to millions of people. However, they heavily restrict sellers: controlling pricing, taking a commission of 30-75%, and retaining certain rights to the course content. That's why more and more users are opting to create their courses on their own websites, but they often face difficulties due to a lack of knowledge. However, in this article, you will find answers to frequently asked questions and a step-by-step guide to developing a website for selling online courses from scratch.
Advantages of Selling Online Courses on Your Own Website
Selling educational materials on your own website requires on page seo service more effort in creating the platform, technical support, and marketing compared to using third-party services. If you don't have a regular audience, you'll need to invest a lot of effort in promoting the project, including search engine optimization and paid advertising.
However, such investments are worthwhile, as selling online courses on your website has many advantages:
Complete Independence: you can create an educational program from scratch, quickly change it at any time, put it up for sale without additional checks, and set your own price;
Advanced Online Courses: a properly chosen topic and plugins allow you to create educational programs with a sound structure, add images and videos, create tests, grade them, issue certificates, and more;
Higher Profit: there's no need to pay commissions to platforms (for example, Udemy takes 50-75% of each sale);
Useful Reports: you can receive valuable data about students and their behavior on the site, and then use this information to improve educational materials and marketing strategies;
Additional Income: along with your educational programs, you can sell other people's courses, earning a percentage of the sales.
A special mention deserves the ability to create a marketplace with online courses. You can enable teacher registration to sell their educational programs, and you can receive a certain amount or percentage of each sale monthly. Alternatively, you can join an affiliate program, select popular courses, describe them in detail on your website, and place a referral link. Once a person clicks on the partner's website and pays for the course, you'll receive a certain percentage.
Which CMS is Best for Creating a Website to Sell Online Courses
If, after studying the advantages, you are convinced of your desire to create a website for online courses, you should immediately choose a CMS. A Content Management System (CMS) is software that allows you to quickly create and manage a website using separate themes and plugins. It processes content automatically, so you don't even need to know how to write code, yet you can create large-scale educational platforms like Udemy.
Let's consider the top 3 CMS options for a website selling online courses:
WordPress – impressive collection of themes and plugins. WordPress boasts a large community with forums, hundreds of videos, and articles for beginners, as well as numerous ready-made themes and extensions. However, the use of too many extensions can lead to slower page loading speeds, so it's important to monitor their quality and quantity.
Drupal – used by leading educational websites. Harvard, Stanford, and Yale due to its high level of customization and flexibility, reliable security model, and many built-in modules. However, it may be more challenging for beginners compared to WordPress.
Joomla – suitable for creating small educational websites. CMS Joomla offers simplicity and ease of use, but it may not be suitable for scaling up to a large number of online courses or creating a full-fledged marketplace due to its smaller ecosystem and scalability challenges.
It's also worth mentioning the option of creating a website for selling online courses using a custom CMS. A custom CMS allows you to add unique features, integrate any tools, ensure maximum security, and easily update and scale the project.
However, developing your own content management system requires a lot of money and time, and maintenance requires the constant intervention of a professional, which means additional costs. Therefore, if you do not have enough resources, it is better to choose a ready-made CMS.
Read also: What sites are created on WordPress
Which LMS to Choose for a Website Selling Online Courses.
Advantages of Selling Online Courses on Your Own Website
Selling educational materials on your own website requires on page seo service more effort in creating the platform, technical support, and marketing compared to using third-party services. If you don't have a regular audience, you'll need to invest a lot of effort in promoting the project, including search engine optimization and paid advertising.
However, such investments are worthwhile, as selling online courses on your website has many advantages:
Complete Independence: you can create an educational program from scratch, quickly change it at any time, put it up for sale without additional checks, and set your own price;
Advanced Online Courses: a properly chosen topic and plugins allow you to create educational programs with a sound structure, add images and videos, create tests, grade them, issue certificates, and more;
Higher Profit: there's no need to pay commissions to platforms (for example, Udemy takes 50-75% of each sale);
Useful Reports: you can receive valuable data about students and their behavior on the site, and then use this information to improve educational materials and marketing strategies;
Additional Income: along with your educational programs, you can sell other people's courses, earning a percentage of the sales.
A special mention deserves the ability to create a marketplace with online courses. You can enable teacher registration to sell their educational programs, and you can receive a certain amount or percentage of each sale monthly. Alternatively, you can join an affiliate program, select popular courses, describe them in detail on your website, and place a referral link. Once a person clicks on the partner's website and pays for the course, you'll receive a certain percentage.
Which CMS is Best for Creating a Website to Sell Online Courses
If, after studying the advantages, you are convinced of your desire to create a website for online courses, you should immediately choose a CMS. A Content Management System (CMS) is software that allows you to quickly create and manage a website using separate themes and plugins. It processes content automatically, so you don't even need to know how to write code, yet you can create large-scale educational platforms like Udemy.
Let's consider the top 3 CMS options for a website selling online courses:
WordPress – impressive collection of themes and plugins. WordPress boasts a large community with forums, hundreds of videos, and articles for beginners, as well as numerous ready-made themes and extensions. However, the use of too many extensions can lead to slower page loading speeds, so it's important to monitor their quality and quantity.
Drupal – used by leading educational websites. Harvard, Stanford, and Yale due to its high level of customization and flexibility, reliable security model, and many built-in modules. However, it may be more challenging for beginners compared to WordPress.
Joomla – suitable for creating small educational websites. CMS Joomla offers simplicity and ease of use, but it may not be suitable for scaling up to a large number of online courses or creating a full-fledged marketplace due to its smaller ecosystem and scalability challenges.
It's also worth mentioning the option of creating a website for selling online courses using a custom CMS. A custom CMS allows you to add unique features, integrate any tools, ensure maximum security, and easily update and scale the project.
However, developing your own content management system requires a lot of money and time, and maintenance requires the constant intervention of a professional, which means additional costs. Therefore, if you do not have enough resources, it is better to choose a ready-made CMS.
Read also: What sites are created on WordPress
Which LMS to Choose for a Website Selling Online Courses.