The Full Guide to Creating Your Own Online Course
By: Jovan Cicmil
Tags: Learning, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Teaching, Work

The Full Guide to Creating Your Own Online Course

image: author

When I was still new to blogging, I wrote an article about my success on Upwork as a freelancer. I didn’t think much would come of it at the time, but it turned out to be quite successful. This demonstrated that there is tremendous interest in the topic, and I came up with the idea to create an online course about it.

This article is an outline of my journey from that moment to the moment I published the course on Udemy. During this journey, I found that you need 4 ingredients to craft a quality course:

Content

Equipment

Presentation

Perseverance

I hope that my experience can help encourage you to take the same leap, share your knowledge, keep viewers interested, and make money in the process.

Content

I started the creative process by writing a curriculum. I named the lessons after the most important and interesting aspects of a successful Upwork career, in chronological order: from creating your profile all the way to managing your freelance career in the long run. The comments and highlights on my first article about Upwork helped greatly by letting me know what the readers are most interested in. It is a good idea to take the same approach with the topic you want to teach — write a few articles about it to gauge public interest and pinpoint the parts that get the most traction.

Infrastructure

I set up a directory on Google Drive to keep everything in one place and readily available from different devices/locations. I created a file for each lesson, where I kept the relevant notes and ideas. I would often get ideas on the go, and I would slowly fill in the documents with notes.

Scripts

Eventually, when I felt the notes for a particular lesson were good enough, I would sit down and turn the notes into an actual script for that lesson. In each script, I also added reminders for when to switch from camera to screen recording, when to show additional content on the screen, and other useful tidbits that will find their use in the editing phase later on. Later on, I thanked myself for this foresight.

At that point, I was undecided whether I would be reading the full script from a page or improvising based on the notes. While I was pondering this, I realized something: writing a script is useful even if you plan to improvise most of the text, because it helps you form a structure and identify parts that are difficult to present, out of place, or not clear enough. A good script also has the potential to turn into an article, or become the foundation of an ebook chapter, someday.

Establishing authority

At the very beginning of your course, it is good to establish two things:

Your authority on the subject

What viewers can expect to learn in the course

It’s best to be honest and up-front about both — we are not in this game to trick or delude anyone. Real information and practical advice backed up by years of experience have true value, and your viewer should understand that value from the get-go. After learning that Udemy lets you make the first lesson free and open, I put all this information in that lesson.

Setting the tone

Consistency is important. The first lessons should set the tone in terms of professionalism, style, and substance. Then, the entire course should maintain the same tone.

The tone of your course comprises your personality, your style of teaching, your diction, your ambiance, and your material. I found that it’s useful to have a sort of refrain throughout the course to tie it all together. For me, the refrain was that, in every lesson, we are seeking ways to stand out from the competition.

Filtering information

Fitting everything you know about a subject into a single course would be difficult for both you and the viewers. Knowledge must, then, be distilled before being presented. The formula that presented itself naturally to me during this process is:

Clear principles + personal experiences + original perspective = quality lessons

I found myself cutting most of the stuff that didn’t fit into this formula along the way. Your students will be grateful to you for not wasting their time, and your course will be more dynamic as well as more informative.

Recording equipment and editing

Regarding the editing process, you have two basic choices: you can edit the audio and video materials yourself, or you can hire someone to do it. This is largely an economic decision. Namely: how does the fee you would pay the editor compare to the value of your time that you would spend doing this?

In order to make an informed decision, I created a project on Upwork for editing an online course, and I included several important questions in the project description. The answers I received from about 10 freelancers helped me understand the process better and make my choice.

The questions I asked were:

Can you recommend some recording equipment (video and audio)?

How many hours roughly do you think this might take?

Should I record video and audio separately?

What is the normal order of moves with this sort of project? Do I record everything first and then you start working, or do we do it piece by piece somehow?

Any other tips before I start recording anything?

Here is a breakdown of their answers, per category.

Recording equipment

The consensus regarding video equipment was that a quality phone camera is enough for most purposes. Since my wife was gracious enough to let me borrow her iPhone 11 Pro, this problem was quickly solved. If your phone camera isn’t that good, you can still make it work. My Samsung was a decent option as well, and lighting will play a big part (I will cover this later).

There was less agreement between the professionals regarding audio recording. Some insisted that audio and video should be recorded separately, while others argued that the iPhone microphone would do just fine.

I tested 3 options:

Audio and video both from iPhone. Video from iPhone, audio form a mid-quality collar microphone I borrowed from a store (with an option to buy if I find it useful within 24 hours). Video from iPhone, audio from my Macbook, which was positioned right next to me.

Option #1 requires the least work in terms of syncing. The problem was, the mic was a few feet away from me by default since I can’t quite place the camera right in front of my face. This caused two problems: lower sound quality and more echo.

Option #2 produced better quality and almost no echo. The only small problem was — I had to keep a bit too still (for my taste) in order to stop unwanted noises from creeping into the recording. I am not sure whether this was due to the quality of the hardware, but it was the best collar mic they had in the store.

Option #3 was similar to option #2 in terms of quality. There was slightly more echo, but no concern regarding freedom of movement.

I went with option #3. The iPhone mic was the poorest performer. Between the collar mic and the Macbook mic, I chose the Macbook because I could live with a tiny bit of echo while maintaining solid sound quality and freedom of movement. Also, the cost was $0 since I already owned the Macbook.

If your laptop doesn’t have a good microphone, collar mics aren’t too expensive. If you want to invest more money into sound quality, then a studio mic is an option.

Hours of work

The answers here were as vague as you might expect, seeing how little information the freelancers had at this point. The ones that dared a response agreed that it should generally take no more than twice the length of the recordings, as long as the quality was good and there weren’t an insane number of cuts and syncing required.

In the end, it turned out it took about three times the length of the recordings to complete the editing.

Order of moves

Most freelancers advised against recording the whole thing and then sending it for editing. Recording in small chunks makes it much easier to edit, as well as easier for me to provide feedback on their work. The overall workflow ended up looking like this:

Record the first lesson (audio and video) and send it to the editor. The purpose of this is for them to provide tips regarding quality, lighting, the angle, the distance, and the framing. They edit it and provide feedback, then I re-do the first lesson. Rinse and repeat until we are both happy with the result. In addition to syncing the audio and video, a good editor can do a bit of noise cancellation, play with the contrast, colors, etc. Record and send audio/video, one lesson at a time. Longer lessons can be chunked into smaller pieces. However, in order to avoid unnatural cuts in the final recording, it is good to make cuts at the moments when you want to show a screenshot, screen recording, or image on the screen. That breakpoint can be used to stitch multiple video files together seamlessly. After receiving each edited video, watch the whole thing to make sure the syncing is good throughout, the screenshots/images appear in the right place and time, etc. Iterate until everything is complete.

Conclusion: DIY or hire a professional?

Based on all the information above, I chose to hire someone. It didn’t make sense economically for me to spend time learning how to use editing software, and then doing the editing. I also highly doubted whether I could reach the same final quality of output as a professional.

I ended up hiring one of the people I spoke to, and I was happy with the outcome.

Presentation

The subtle technicalities of video and audio should not be underestimated. Along with the aesthetic of your backdrop and your appearance, they are the backbone of your presentation.

Video

If your course will feature video of you talking, rather than just a screen recording, it’s good to make an effort to have a good backdrop and good general appearance. When I say “good backdrop”, I mean something professional (but not too starchy), visually pleasing, and in line with the topic of the course.

In my case, I chose to show a part of my library, my desk, and a little bit of art for good measure. You will probably not be filming the whole thing in one sitting, so it’s important to be able to keep this frame the same across different lectures. Nothing says “I’m an amateur” like having a different level of zoom or different lighting on every video.

My wife was understanding when I placed my desk in the middle of our living room for this purpose and shuffled the rest of the furniture around. The TV was on the floor in the corner, the flowerpots were on the dining room table, and the living room table was in a place where it had no use whatsoever. If you plan on recording in a small apartment, it’s good to prepare your family for what is to come so they wouldn’t think you’ve lost the plot.

Lighting is important. In principle, you want natural light coming from the side, or at a 45-degree angle, but you don’t want direct sunlight because it’s hard to control the reflections and keep it consistent across recording sessions. For me, the position in the center of the room was perfect, with a window and a balcony door both on my left. Still, one or two recordings turned out darker than I would have hoped.

While most of the course was a recording of me talking, I added some screen recordings and screenshots. Not only is this useful for transmitting visual information, but it also makes the final product more dynamic.

Audio

When I showed the first draft of the first lesson to my wife, she laughed for five minutes. I was making way too much effort to enunciate every word while reading from the script, and the result came off as artificial and aggressive (and, once I swallowed my pride, funny). We all have blind spots for our own weaknesses, and it’s good if you can get constructive criticism early on in the process.

A couple of versions later, I had made the following changes:

Gave up on reading from the script. Replaced the full script with hand-written bullet-points, then improvised on each point. This made the output decidedly more natural and friendly. Did diction exercises before each recording to loosen the tongue and warm-up, then did my best to remain laid back during recording.

The result was much better, so I kept this approach for the rest of the course.

Depending on your personality, you might have the opposite problem. Many presenters have too little energy. This is just as bad as being too aggressive. There’s a Goldilocks zone somewhere in between, and you should take the time to find it.

Another thing that’s important for audio is echo. Everybody knows to avoid noise, but echo is a different beast. It depends greatly on the acoustics of the room and the configuration of your recording equipment.

My first recording had more echo than I liked. After doing some research, I learned that I mainly needed to prevent sound waves from hitting hard surfaces head-on and coming back at me. For this purpose, I tried piling up some pillows on the wall directly across from me. It didn’t do much.

Then I experimented a little more and found that the problem comes mainly from the kitchen (which is located about 8 feet to my right). It is concave and entirely covered in ceramic tiles, so sound waves have nowhere to go but back. I came up with a DIY solution that reduced the echo dramatically: hanging a soft blanket over some clotheslines that I placed between myself and the kitchen.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your first recordings to find the right position, configuration, and delivery. Then, all you have to do is keep it consistent.

Dealing with the unexpected

I started recording these in June, in sunny and warm weather. My neighborhood was quiet and I was on a role. Perfect recording conditions. I had even grown the perfect beard. Then, everything fell apart.

First, I contracted Covid-19 and had to take a week off for recovery. Then my wife contracted Covid-19 and it was impossible to record in our living room while she recuperated.

Then, my quiet neighborhood suddenly turned into a bustling beehive because construction started on a new building next door. The noise was so loud that it was impossible to record anything during daylight.

Then, the rains came. Day after day of rain, which halted construction, but turned the atmosphere gloomy, and added its own range of unwanted sound effects. On rare sunny days (weekends included), the construction company made good use of the weather to be very productive and very loud.

In short, taking what was supposed to be a quick break for Covid recovery turned into a 2-month long hiatus, followed by a period of 1 month in which I took every opportunity to record a lesson or two before the noise and/or dark weather befell me again.

It is smart not to take good recording conditions for granted. If you’ve got a place with good audio and video, don’t expect it will last forever — get as much done as you can while the things you can’t control are on your side.

Putting it all together

Finally, the course was complete. After the editor was done, I had him fix some minor issues: flatten the audio volume a little bit across different recordings, fix a few glitches, change the position of a few screenshots. Ready to publish!

On Udemy, it took me a day or two to create the course landing page — the course title, description, image, and instructor profile are all important factors for the conversion rate (the ratio of people who visit your course page to the people who actually watch the course). This should be treated with some care. Don’t throw away all your effort in creating the course by making it unappealing.

Udemy also auto-generates English captions for your videos. You should take the time to manually edit them, as this will help many of your future students.

As for promotion, I am experimenting with various channels. I expect I will be writing about the outcome a few weeks from now.

The final product