man and daughter learning online
distance learning guitar

Course Contents

Module 1:  Welcome to the course

Lesson: Meet Your Tutor

Lesson: Sharing Your Knowledge Online

  1. Why take the plunge into online teaching?

  2. Most people prefer face-to-face training, don’t they?

  3. Examples of ways to share your knowledge online

  4. Do I really know enough to teach? (imposter syndrome)

Exercise 1 – Why do you want to teach online?

Module 2:  First Steps

Lesson: The Importance of Market Research

  1. Identifying your target market

  2. What is your competition up to?

  3. Ask around

Exercise 2 – Research your market

Lesson: Key Issues to Consider Before Starting

  1. How much interaction do you want with your students?

  2. Sales tax implications

  3. What format should your training take?

  4. Open enrolment or application process?

  5. Certification and accreditation

  6. Trading structure & insurance requirements

  7. Choosing your working price point

Exercise 3 – What will your training look like?

Lesson: Getting a Web Presence (asap)

  1. Why do I need a holding page?

  2. Naming your course

  3. Choosing a website provider

  4. Securing a good domain name

  5. Designing a logo

  6. Stock images

Lesson: Setting Up Your Email Account

  1. Email addresses – what’s in a name?

  2. Which provider should you use?

Lesson: Building Your Holding Page

Lesson: Inviting Search Engines to Index Your Page

  1. Locating your sitemap

  2. Registering your sitemap with Google & Bing

  3. Building backlinks

  4. Hiding pages from search engines

Exercise 4 – Get a holding page up

Module 3:  Course Design

Lesson: Structuring Your Course

  1. Lesson types

  2. Developing your syllabus

  3. Using other peoples’ content

  4. Supporting materials

Exercise 5 – Design your course

Lesson: Choosing a Hosting Platform

  1. Do I really need to use a hosting platform?

  2. Which platform is right for me?

  3. YouTube channel membership

  4. Udemy

  5. Squarespace members areas

  6. Thinkific

Lesson: Setting Up a Course Portal 

  1. Creating a Thinkific account

  2. Your Thinkific course landing page

  3. Thinkific subscriptions

  4. Using the Thinkific mobile app

  5.   Setting up a Squarespace Member Area

  6.   Squarespace Member Area subscription

Exercise 6 – Configure your course portal

Module 4:  Building Course Content

Lesson: Text-based Lessons

  1. Simple text lessons

  2. Formatted text lesson

  3. Proof-reading

  4. Creating & protecting PDFs

  5. Using PDF lessons with Thinkific & Squarespace

Lesson: Desktop Capture Lessons

  1. When to use Desktop Capture (DTC) lessons

  2. DTC software

  3. Equipment

  4. Recording tips

  5. Doing DTC with Movavi Screen Recorder

Lesson: Shooting Video Lessons

  1. When to use video lessons

  2.   Making good videos

  3.   Equipment

  4.   Planning the video

  5.   Filming tips

  6.   Editing software

Lesson: Editing & Uploading Video Footage

Lesson: Recording Audio Lessons Part 1

  1. Introduction to audio lessons

Lesson: Recording Audio Lessons Part 2

  1. Introduction to audio lessons [transcript]

  2. Equipment

  3. Recording & editing software

  4. Editing audio recordings using Veed.io

  5. Using audio recordings with Thinkific & Squarespace

Lesson: Slideshow Presentation Lessons

  1. When to use slideshow presentations

  2. Various formats of slideshow presentation lesson

  3. Creating slideshow presentations

  4. Giving a good presentation

Lesson: Creating & Using a PowerPoint Presentation

Lesson: Using Exercises & Testing

  1. “You only really learn by doing”

  2. Practise exercises

  3. Submitted homework?

  4. Multiple-choice tests/quizzes

  5. Setting assignments

  6. Creating fillable pdf documents

Lesson: Downloadable Content

  1. Why offer downloadable content?

  2. Distributing files

Exercise 7 – Build your course lessons

Module 5:  Making Money

Lesson: Income Generation from E-learning

  1. Setting your price

  2.   Seasonal variability

  3.   Sales & discount codes

  4.   Upselling to existing students

  5. Other income streams

Lesson: Payment Processing

  1. Choosing a payment processor

  2.   Processing payments with Thinkific

  3. Setting Thinkific course fees & creating discount codes

  4.   Thinkific post-payment process

  5.   Processing payments with Squarespace Member Areas

  6.    Creating discount codes for Squarespace member Areas

  7.    Squarespace Member Areas post-payment process

Exercise 8 – Configure your payment system

Module 6:  Letting People Know

Lesson: Digital Marketing Basics

  1. How do we find our students?

  2. The Sales Funnel & Rule of 7

  3.   Marketing 101

  4.   Word of mouth

  5.   Connecting with students

  6.   Organic vs paid marketing

  7.   Realistic expectations

Lesson: Email (Direct) Marketing

  1. Building a marketing database (mailing list)

  2. Spam filters & email deliverability

  3. Email marketing applications

  4. Setting up your mailing list with ConvertKit

  5. Email design for effectiveness

  6. Add your custom domain to ConvertKit

  7. Creating your first ConvertKit email campaign

Lesson: Advanced Email Marketing

  1. Single or double opt-ins?

  2. Welcome emails & lead magnets

  3. Automations & email sequences

  4. Cleaning your database

Exercise 9 – Set up your mailing list & mailout system

Lesson: Developing Your Web Presence

  1. Search engine optimisation (SEO)

  2. Search keywords

  3. SEO site design

  4. Building backlinks & monitoring ranking

  5. Web analytics

  6. Further learning

Lesson: Website Design

  1. Site structure

  2. Design tips with Squarespace

  3. Managing visitors’ actions

  4. Homepage content

  5. Legal requirements, consents & policies

Exercise 10 – Develop your website

Lesson: The power of the blog

  1. Is writing a blog still worth it?

  2. Adding a blog to your Squarespace site

  3. Tips for writing effective blog posts

Exercise 11 – Start a blog

Lesson: Using social media & building a community

  1. Leveraging social media

  2. Building a community

  3. Creating a Thinkific Community

Exercise 12 – Establish your student community

Lesson: Advertising

  1. Why pay to generate leads?

  2.    Search engine advertising

  3.    Setting up a Google Ads campaign

  4.    Launching & managing your Google Ads campaign

  5.    Social media advertising 

  6.   Setting up a Facebook Ads campaign

  7.    Launching & managing your Facebook Ads campaign

Exercise 13 – Set up your advertising campaigns

Module 7:  Running your course

Lesson: Budgeting & Cashflow

  1. Overheads vs cost of sales

  2. What will our outgoings be?

  3. Projected income

  4. Cashflow spreadsheet

Exercise 14 – Complete your cashflow forecast

Lesson: Managing Students

  1. Terms & conditions

  2. Student support

  3. Advanced support methods

  4.   Keep good records

Lesson: Launching & Your First Year

  1. Pre-launch checks

  2. Time for launch

  3. Liftoff!

  4.   Going forward - Student feedback

  5.   Going forward - In emergency break glass

Module 8:  Course Conclusion

Lesson: Now it’s your turn!

studying with distance learning
using a tablet for elearning course