Are you thinking of creating your own digital course, but having troubles coming up with online course ideas? No problem, I had the same difficulties at first, too. Below you will find my 6 tips that should make your life easier! 🙂

Coming up with online course ideas

1. Consider your results first

When you’re trying to come up with online course ideas, the very first thing that you should do is to look into your past.

As Amy Porterfield puts it in her Digital Course Academy, as long as you have done something in life that has gotten you great results, or you have helped someone else do something that has gotten them great results, you can make an online course around that subject.

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In other words, what have you done in life that made you feel pretty darn proud of yourself? Have you helped someone learn how to play the guitar? Are you fluent in a foreign language? Can you understand Latin? Do you do magic tricks? A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G goes as long as you have solid results with it.

2. Write those course ideas down

Another simple thing to do when coming up with online course ideas is to brainstorm and write everything you come up with on a piece of paper. But as you write things down, don’t analyze them, you’ll do it after.

For quite some time, the idea of me creating an online course sounded crazy. There is absolutely nothing I can teach to anyone, I thought to myself. There is nothing I know well enough that people will pay me for, I mumbled to myself…

But you know what helped me eventually? That’s right – taking a piece of paper and writing down everything I enjoy doing. ENJOY here is the keyword.

I came up with about 15 different things. Once I started going through them, I realized that I’m actually pretty good at some stuff, especially the techy things.

I never thought of it that way before. Because I enjoy doing certain things, I have been doing them for a long time, which means that I am actually much better at them than those people that have never ever done them. For example, I like computers, so I am pretty good with them. A lot better than the average person.

Eventually, this very simple method helped me choose my course topic. The struggle was finally over. 🙂

3. Ask your friends

You know how they say that talking to your friends always helps, regardless of what it is? Well, it’s true, and this case is no different.

Being too critical about yourself? Ask your friends to help you! “Jim, is there anything in your opinion that I am good at? Maybe something that you would come to me for help or advise? Anything I do better than others?” It’s as simple as that.

4. Look at what you are currently already doing

Let’s imagine you already considered your hobbies and all of the other things you enjoy doing from time to time… but have you thought about your career, your business, maybe? Sometimes the things that are right in front of our noses can get left unnoticed.

Do you do one-on-one coaching? Could you turn that into a course so that you no longer have to trade time for money?

If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die. – Warren Buffett

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Are you a stylist, a carpenter, a business analyst, a software developer, like I once was? Can you create a course around that?

Let’s be honest here, just because we want to have our own digital course business does not mean that we shouldn’t love the things that we studied and worked for in the past. If you love history, for example, then, by all means, create an online course around history. You can even go one step further and create an online course that teaches parents how to teach their kids history.. because ya know.. not all kids want to learn history. 😁You get my point, the options are endless.

5. Research the internet

When it comes to doing anything online, research is an ABSOLUTE MUST! And coming up with online course ideas for your online-digital course is no exception.

How to Come up with Online Course Ideas - Your 6 Easy Tips 2

For example, you are a big fan of dogs. You have always owned dogs, you know how to clip their nails, cut their fur, which food they require, etc. You want to make a course about that. The very first thing you should do is go to Google and research what types of courses already exist on the subject.

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How many digital courses on dogs are there in Google? Are they more general or are they about specific dog breeds? What are they about?

Once you have googled enough, go to various online course platforms, such as Udemy.com and have a look there. You can also do your research by looking through popular forums, such as Reddit.com.

6. You must VALIDATE the digital course ideas

Now that we briefly mentioned researching the internet prior to creating an online course, we come to the last, but not least tip – validation.

This is something I learned from Digital Course Academy. No course shall ever be created without you first validating the course idea. As Amy puts it, the last thing you want is to create a course that nobody wants to buy. This happens quite often with newbie course creators.

So how does validation work? Well, find someone that you think would be genuinely interested in your course. Although better than nothing, try not to pick people that couldn’t care less about the subject of your future online course.

Once you find the right people, ask them questions, create questionnaires for them, interview them. The more work you put into this stage of online course creation, the surer you can be that your course will be successful.

So as you can see, coming up with online course ideas is not too difficult, but you do need to put some time into it. If you rush through that stage, you are risking it. People may simply have no interest in your course, which means you have spent time and effort and gained nothing in return.

This was it for today. Hopefully, you found these 6 tips on how to come up with online course ideas useful.

P.S. Since Digital Course Academy is going to be launched soon, you can already now take Amy’s new quiz that will help you decide on which type of course to create, and whether to create one at all.

Thank you for stopping by and good luck!

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