How to Create Online Course Free – Guide for Beginners

MotoCMS Editorial 31 January, 2022

Online courses are incredibly popular these days. With more remote or hybrid work, the field never left behind has received a massive extra boost. The current demand for online courses is growing, so there is a need for many more creators. However, many people get the idea of creating online courses out of their minds because they think it needs huge investments. Here, we’ll show you the truth that states the opposite. We’d like to share much-needed information about how to create online course free, as well as other aspects concerning every stage a successful online course launcher passes.

Why Go for Online Course Creation – The Fastest Growing E-Learning Market

The digital world gives those who’d like to learn and teach many opportunities. We’re now witnessing the ever-growing nature of online learning with promising profitable prospects for creators and students. The global virtual learning market is estimated at $100+ billion and has shown sustainable growth over the past years. Moreover, the future increase will probably be even more intensive. Online courses demonstrate their capability to dominate the E-learning market as the fastest-growing field. Thus, most people are starting to wonder how to create online courses for free.

Businesses of any kind or size can benefit from online courses. And positive outcomes concern both participants or recipients and creators. Modern online course authors include teachers, tutors, lecturers, mentors, coaches, and many other people or educators who’d like to share their successful experiences or up-to-date knowledge with the world. The whole idea of creating an online course is based on all kinds of possibilities. If you lack money to invest in it, learn how to create an online course for free and be ready to invest your time and efforts. If you have a budget, you can invest in faster online course creation, effective promotion techniques, or other activities, simplifying the path to success. No matter your choice, a responsible approach will lead to fruitful results – with or without any financial injections. You can check Exam Snap, which is a good online source of the latest exam dumps that match the actual test.

How to Create Online Course – First-Time Experience

If you’ve never tried to launch an online course, please study our precise checklist of things you should consider before proceeding to the creation itself:

choose an attractive, up-to-date topic and identify your niche;
determine your target audience;
monitor and gather all necessary information;
make a structured course plan;
explore effective tools, choose software or a platform to create an online course;
create online course content;
go online, sell;
improve it constantly.

Let’s further discuss each of the items in particular.

Online Course Topic Ideas

Here, you can go two ways. One way is to choose a topic based on your previous knowledge and expertise. Then, you know the field, and your task is to identify a hot, up-to-date topic by investigating the Internet and analyzing the market. Each time you come up with an idea, take note of it. After you have made up an extensive list of ideas, you need to cross out or specify those that seem to be overcrowded. Please remember to pay attention to what makes the best combination for you to teach and for others to learn.

Another way is for those who want to create and sell online course content but don’t know what to teach. In this case, you can choose among boosting fields, dig deep to find the niche you can investigate, and create a profitable online course. Let’s have a look at the areas or industries that are very popular among online course creators:

business and marketing;
technology;
career;
self-development;
home and lifestyle;
health & fitness;
creativity;
relationships.

After research, no matter your choice, move on to brainstorming to generate topic ideas and pick the best.

Target Audience Identification

Now that you have a topic, move on to your target audience – those you create an online course for. The main characteristics you need to identify include general information about age, gender, educational background, work experience, and employment. Afterward, you can start some activities on social media websites to estimate the interest and identify the target audience more precisely. You can utilize some interest groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., to post your topic and information and see the response. Or launch a pre-course survey. Nevertheless, get a considerable responsibility for approximate objectivity and analyzing the data.

Research the Topic

Initially, you may not be an expert in your chosen field. However, you need to spend some time and make efforts to become an educator who can share what you really know. We don’t recommend stealing or presenting someone’s results as your own or without proper references because sooner or later, students will guess, and you’ll fail. Online courses represent an incredible chance to ruin borders on the way of education, so what people seek has to be genuine. It is a door to infinite possibilities for those who respect themselves and others.

In most cases, people look for practical and valuable knowledge. You know the topic; you see the audience; now, you need to think about the quality of the knowledge your students will get. Consider the best strategies for knowledge acquisition based on the online course data you already have. Mind its structure and presentation.

Online Course Outline

Let’s see what you already have: a niche topic; a target audience; deep, structured knowledge of the field; effective strategies for knowledge acquisition and presentation. Now it’s time for the online course outline. This will help you finally realize what and how you must teach your course.

Determine the primary learning outcome (value).
Identify particular skills to reach the result.
Create learning modules with specific goals to achieve.

By the way, you can easily use an AI course outline generator to create detailed outlines quickly.

How to Create Online Course Free and Easy

Up-to-date tools can show you how to create online courses that are free, fast, and easy. See the list of free software to create online courses below. Apart from these platforms designed specifically for online courses, you can also find plenty of multifunctional tools for certain features, like animation, image optimization, video, including the best online video editors, graphics, and audio, interactions, and assessments, etc., that can save you a lot of time and energy.

Free Software to Create Online Course

EdApp. It is award-winning free online course creation software that enhances the training experience. Their editable course libraries contain high-quality material for many ready-to-use courses. This online training platform offers extra features like gamified quizzes to make the courses more engaging and enjoyable. Enjoy its benefits, including the creation of unlimited lessons and unlimited learners’ deployment, with a free package for signed-up users. Or try paid plans for free before buying – no commitment required. Cancel anytime.

Thinkific. It is an online course builder that helps you quickly create digital learning products for any audience. No coding or technical expertise is required. Thinkific can become a fully-customizable tool to start or improve your knowledge business. Or you can integrate it with reliable tools. It also features great automation capabilities. You can choose from such pricing options: free (limited courses and unlimited students) and paid (Basic, Pro, Premier), starting from $39 per month. Teachfloor is a powerful and intuitive platform that allows you to create and deliver engaging online courses, with a special focus on cohort-based courses. With its user-friendly interface and customizable features, Teachfloor make it easy to design and deliver high-quality content that meets your student’s needs. Whether a beginner or an experienced instructor, Teachfloor has everything you need to build a successful online course, from multimedia content and quizzes to peer learning activities and community features.

LearnWorlds is an all-in-one eLearning platform that helps you create, market, and sell online courses. It’s perfect for individuals – educators, instructors, entrepreneurs, coaches, creators, and training managers, who want to monetize their skills and knowledge, but also companies and enterprises. With LearnWorlds, you can build a beautiful online academy in minutes while making use of premium features like a fully branded mobile app, an advanced Website Builder and Assessment Builder, in-depth analytics, interactive videos, live sessions, and more. The fully customizable platform offers a white-label solution to educate customers, train employees, partners, and associates, or sell high-quality training programs to a wide audience.

Teachable. A platform is a beginner-friendly option for online courses and coaching services creation. It has enough features to create an engaging online course that beginners may highly appreciate. The developers think hard about users’ (teachers’ and students’) comfort making the tool as simple and state-of-the-art as possible. The platform has 100+ thousand creators with a total profit of a billion dollars.

Free-Trial Platform to Create Online Course

iSpring Suite. This is one of the best online course software on the market. It represents a cost-efficient investment. iSpring Suite is full of unique features for the most up-to-date interactive lessons. Although many functions are of no need for your first experience, they made the software so intuitive and user-friendly that a beginner and a pro can feel the same level of comfort. They state that you can create your first course within a minute. It’s perfect for individuals and teamwork. The toolkit shares the best templates and ready-to-use blocks for you to finally share your expertise with the world and take what you deserve.

Also, you get a 30-day free trial period without sharing any extra sensitive data like credit card numbers or commitment requirements. The tool makes it simple to use and easy to teach and learn. And for any matter, you can always reach out to their efficient 24/7 technical support.

FreshLearn. FreshLearn is the perfect Kajabi alternative for anyone looking to create digital learning products. With FreshLearn, you can easily create online courses and sell digital products and other learning materials without any programming knowledge. Plus, FreshLearn offers a wide range of features to help you engage your audience and track their progress.

Kajabi. This tool is also on the top online course software list. It presents an all-in-one platform with websites, products, payments, marketing automation, analytics, media, and communications. They promise to transform your business in the most innovative way. Also, you can use just one platform with all the features. Or enjoy its excellent integrative capabilities with your favorite tools.

Tools That Work for You

Now you have a step-by-step checklist of things to deal with when you are planning a new online course. You’ll go the same route when you get some experience in online courses creation, but it’s essential to have it all covered from the first time for the smoothest future projects. You’ve already seen the examples of free software to create online courses above, and one more point to add is that they are pretty similar in the very core. So, how to create online course free when you are a beginner and want to choose the best tool? We can’t say it’s simple, but the best way is by trying. And here are some tips to narrow the list:

mind your budget;
study the restrictions free tools apply and search for potential vulnerabilities;
check out the features of a platform and avoid those that don’t have enough functionality even for a beginner, or suggest too many features (you may return to them when you’re more experienced);
feel comfortable at every step – how easily you can find something, when you use it, etc.

Promote Your Product Successfully: Create an Online Course Website

Now that you know the basic information about how to create online course free, we’d like to finish our post with useful tricks to promote your product efficiently. Think over an idea to create an online course website. You can gather all your achievements there. It can work as an advertisement and a store 24/7. With the unlimited possibilities modern website templates offer, you will certainly build a website that can satisfy your expectations and your customers’ needs.

One more argument for the idea is that there are many up-to-date website templates designed specifically for online courses. The MotoCMS team can offer particular niche websites like this e-Learning website template for online language courses or more versatile options such as this online course website design or distance learning website design. You should also consider whether to opt for a multipage website or a landing page like our free online course website design. Both options will deliver the best results. Moreover, a landing page can serve as a great tool for your pre-sale preparation. No matter which option you choose, all our products provide you with a highly intuitive admin panel, up-to-date functionality, advanced SEO possibilities, and much more. And all that is available to try for free – with (14-day free trial) or without (live preview) creating an account.