Pick a topic that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. Passion really shows through in online courses and will boost your status and your audience. There is nothing more satisfying than reading positive student reviews commenting on how extremely passionate and knowledgeable you are about the subject.  

Make sure there is demand for your course. This is where you need to strike a balance between a high demand course with lots of similar courses already being taught and a very niche subject with no courses out there due to low demand. 
The problem with choosing a very high demand subject with lots of courses out there already is that, although your course might be much better than those out there already, it will take time to build your audience to a similar level. 
On the flip side of this, if your course is very niche, you may struggle attracting adequate audience numbers. So therefore, a balance needs to be struck in order to achieve success. This comes down to research. So, check what courses are already out there and see where yours can fit in. It may well be the case that there are lots of courses available on your subject matter, but they have poor reviews. This is a perfect opportunity to capitalise on this and launch a better course than the competition. 

Create a very clear aim in your Learning Outcome. It must be crystal clear to potential students what it is that they will learn. If a student feels misled by the course description and was expecting something different to what was delivered, this could have a negative impact on your reviews. 

Structure the course in a very straightforward and clear way. Explain exactly what you will cover in each section of your course. This is called framing. If a student knows exactly what is being covered in each section, they are much more likely to take onboard what is being taught. 

Breakdown your course into snippets of between 5-10 minute videos. Skill Share recommend 5 to 10 minutes of video as the optimum time for learning.  

Write a clear plan and gather all of your content before putting the course together. Once you have all of your content together, it will be much easier to start to create your course. 

Use engaging graphics and vary the content. If your course is just a series of boring slides, then this is unlikely to gather the huge following you are seeking. 

Use a high quality camera for filming the course. You do not have to show your face on your course if you do not want to. There are numerous very successful courses out there where you never see the creator. 
It is worth investing in an external microphone for talking over your video. Even with a very expensive laptop, the sound quality will not be good enough. You can pick up a decent microphone such as these ones from amazon which will do the job very well.

Price it right. This is a case of striking the balance between giving it away too cheaply and cheapening your brand and making it too expensive so that nobody buys its. I personally do not recommend giving it away for free initially to build up reviews as this devalues the brand and it’s a proven fact that when people get a course for free, they are less likely to actually complete the course as it has no value to them. You could provide a Free “taster” course to attract new students who will then be so engaged that they go on to purchase the full course. This is a very successful strategy. 

Gain maximum exposure: Once you have created your course, you can publish it on as many online learning platforms as possible. Our top recommendations being Skill Share, Teachable and Udemy.