Online Courses: How To Write High-Quality Content Students Will Love

Online courses are a great way to generate residual income while sharing your knowledge and experience with others and the purpose of my blog is to help you speed up the process.

However, to get your message across, you need to structure your content in a specific way so it motivates people to take action.

Here is my question:

Want to learn and apply the exact model I used to receive over 2000 positive reviews from happy students?

Well, if you've answered "YES"  then you must read every single word in this blog post.

During the past two years, I've been communicating with a lot of online instructors and their primary concern is "how can I get more students to my courses".

While there is nothing wrong with that, I've noticed that very few of us ask the question "how can I get better at presenting information in a way that will get my students results?"

If the quality of your e-course is low, it would be extremely hard, in some cases impossible to make it a best-seller on platforms for education such as Udemy, Skillshare, Curious, and Amazing.

For that reason, my advice is to invest time in developing and sharpening your online course creation and marketing skills.

As an online instructor who has received over 2000 positive reviews, I've learned a lot about creating high-quality lectures for e-courses.

Skillshare:

Udemy:

As you can guess by yourself, these results didn't come by chance. I used very specific models and frameworks for creating the content for my lectures that I'd like to share with you here in this blog post so you can get similar or even better results!

Plus, as you might know, Udemy has changed their "test video review process" and here is the feedback I got. Please, keep in mind that Udemy is at a stage where they don't need tons of new courses, they need high-quality courses only.

Udemy Feedback

This is the power of the concepts you are about to learn in a minute. By the way here is the question I ask would-be entrepreneurs who joined my community:

“What is the number-one fear you're experiencing when you think about establishing an online teaching business? In other words, what's holding you back?”

And the #1 response I get is this: "I'm afraid that students are not going to like my content"

How sad is that? I thought, If I don't do something about it, many people will not start their online teaching businesses because of this mindset or self-limiting belief.

Are you ready to learn how to write content that students love?
Did you say "YES"? Nice, let's get down to the point.

If you want to produce high-quality content (lectures for your online course) you need to pay attention to three general points. Create content that:

These three points are the key to my success and will become the key to your success as an online instructor as well. Because the ability to create high-quality online courses means you'd be getting a lot of positive reviews or in other words social proof. And this is what will help you sell more of your online courses because your prospective students think...

"If a lot of people do something, it must be the right thing to do" - this is the underlying idea of the concept of social proof.

That's why the number of students enrolled in your online courses matters, the number of reviews matters as well! And because I really want to help you grasp the ideas and concepts from this blog post and put them into practice, I'd share with you an exemplary script from my best-selling online course on Success Habits.

Success Habits: Top 3 Habits Of Extremely Successful People

Plus, I wrote comments on the script itself, so you can see precisely how I applied the APE Model and my favorite structure for lectures.

Let's get down to the point!

The best way to motivate people to take action is by using a proven model that works. Fortunately, I’ve created such a model, introducing The APE Model®!

And these are the qualities your content should have. It has to be accurate, practical and exciting.

Accurate

It’s very important to present accurate information. Information that works. You don’t want to mislead your students because this will get you negative reviews. Accurate in this sense means also timely information because what worked in the past might now work today. For that reason, if the content you create and present doesn’t come from an evergreen market, you will have to be doing the necessary updates.

Practical

It’s very important to present practical information. Meaning, people can easily apply it and see results. Complex concepts are challenging I know but your job will be to simplify and express them clearly. Forget about the academic writing style and voice. Forget about super complex, rarely used words. The real power comes from simplicity!

One definition of the word practical is this “Connected with real situations rather than with ideas or theories”.

One way to make information practical is when you structure it. This will be your job. Use the step-by-step approach and the psychology of small wins, and your students will be able to apply the knowledge. Small wins are nothing more than progress points on your students’ way to the outcome they want to achieve.

And the psychology behind these progress points is that people experience the feeling of accomplishment. That motivates them to go further and accomplish more and more until they get to the desired outcome.

Exciting

One of the rules in copywriting is this “never be boring, never write boring copy” by the way the #1 reason why people don't read or watch something! Nobody wants to spend time on something boring. So, another task you have when creating content is to add a bit of excitement.

To create exciting lectures, you have to be positive, conversational and polite. Now I will remind you of something you already know - emotions are contagious! Use that to your advantage, if you want to excite your students, be excited yourself. Talk passionately and confidently... that's the best way to go!

Did you say you need a break?! Wait a second we are not done yet. We've covered the first aspect "Create content that motivates people to take action", now we'll talk about "create content that it's easy to follow and understand".

The Perfect Structure For Your Lectures

You will be able to create content (lectures) that is easy to follow and understand when you follow the same structure for all your lectures. I’ve tried a lot of things but here is the one I found works best...

First of all, your lectures should have clear objectives. Strive to do one technique or concept or tactic or idea per lecture. Don't overwhelm your students. At the end of the post, I will share the perfect length for your video lectures.

But first, here is the framework you need to follow:

Sounds simple you say? Yes, it is but I guarantee it is deadly effective. And this is the kind of information you need - effective and ready to implement immediately! Now let's learn how to "create content that is succinct and clear".

The Importance Of Scripting

The best way to achieve that is by using a script! Scripts are great in many ways. They will:

Plus, you already have a structure for creating lectures which means you will be able to produce high-quality content quickly!

I didn't know about these benefits when I started using scripts and I've been doing that from day one! My reason was that I'm not a native English speaker and I felt safer by reading (and recording) a text (lecture) I already wrote.

I had a chat with the most successful online instructor at Udemy. His name is Rob Percival and he teaches web-development. A really nice dude. I asked him...

“Rob, I teach people how to create and launch their online courses. If you could give one piece of advice to a beginner, what would it be?

Rob said: "Make sure you script your curriculum so it is concise and structured. Being an expert and passing on your expertise are two different things!"

I thanked Rob for his honesty and finally, he said: “It’s the best way to make a good course!”

As for the length of your video lectures, try to keep it from 3 to 10 minutes long. I'd want to give you a number of words but that would very because of the reading speed. I usually go for 800 to 1300 words per lecture.

If an idea or concept takes more than 20 or 30 minutes to explain, I'd recommend you create Part 1 and Part 2. Plus, if you will teach on Udemy, they don't approve lectures above 20 minutes. This is not a hard rule, but generally, that's the case.

Conclusion

Are you still unsure that students are not going to like the content of your online courses?

I’d bet that by applying the information from this blog post, students will not only like your content, your lectures, students are going to love it!

Do not forget to download your bonus! If you have any questions or comments, please write them below and I will answer them!

Want to create and sell online courses but don't know where to start?

Well, the first thing is you need to do a research. Second, you need to master the skill of copywriting to sell thousands of your online courses.

Thank you for reading and remember...

Stay Purposeful!