Want to learn how to sell courses on your author’s WordPress website? Look no further!
As an author, you’ve dedicated yourself to creating stories that touch, inspire, and stay with readers, with every detail expressing your distinctive vision. But why limit yourself to only book sales?
You can diversify your income sources and strengthen your connection with readers by taking advantage of the power of online courses.
WordPress is the ideal platform for efficiently selling courses, whether you’re a seasoned author trying to monetize your skills or a first-time writer looking to expand your reach.
This article provides a step-by-step guide for selling online courses from your author’s WordPress site.
Why Sell Online Courses as an Author?
Before we get into the details, it’s important to understand the numerous benefits of selling online courses as an author.
Creating and promoting online courses can be a strategic decision to broaden your reach and interact with your audience in new ways, as well as a source of revenue.
The following are six convincing reasons why authors should take this approach.
✔Monetize your knowledge.
As an author, you’ve gained a plethora of knowledge—whether in writing, storytelling, or a particular niche. Online courses enable you to commercialize your expertise by transforming it into valuable content that others may benefit from, creating a new and scalable revenue source in addition to book sales.
✔Build Deeper Connections with Your Audience:
Offering online courses allows you to connect with your audience more personally. Sharing your thoughts, methods, or creative processes can offer value, converting casual readers into devoted fans who feel linked to you and your work.
✔Use Your Existing Platform:
If you have a blog, an email list, or a social media presence, you may use them to promote your online course.
When you have a loyal following, you can market your course to people who are already interested in what you have to offer, making the sales process more efficient and natural.
✔Position Yourself as an Expert:
Creating courses enables you to establish yourself as an expert in your subject. Whether you teach, your courses can help you establish a name and attract a larger audience of students and aspiring authors.
✔Increase Your Income Sources:
The publishing industry may be unpredictable, so relying entirely on book sales or royalties may not always be viable.
Selling online courses broadens your income base, providing financial security and consistency even during slow periods or market swings.
✔Offer Long-Term Value:
Unlike books, which have a finite shelf life and audience, online courses can be timeless. Once developed, they can produce cash for years, particularly with regular upgrades and promotions.
This long-term potential makes them an excellent investment of your time and work as an author.
Steps to selling WordPress online courses for Authors
Step 1: Set Up a WordPress Website
Setting up a WordPress website is the first step towards building an online course-selling platform. WordPress is a simple, adaptable platform for hosting and selling online courses.
It’s a wonderful option for authors looking to combine writing with course creation. Here is how to start:
▪️Choose a Domain Name:
Your domain name should reflect your status as an author and your niche. Make sure it’s easy to remember and matches what your courses will cover, so potential students can locate you online.
▪️Choose a hosting provider:
Choose a reputable hosting company such as TrueHost, Bluehost, SiteGround, or WP Engine.
Many of these provide features that are specifically designed for WordPress, ensuring a smooth installation and continuous maintenance.
▪️Install WordPress:
Most hosting companies give a one-click WordPress installation, making the procedure straightforward and fast.
After installation, you’ll have access to the WordPress dashboard, where you can begin developing your website.
Step 2: Set up an LMS plugin.
To sell courses on your WordPress website, you must first install a Learning Management System (LMS) plugin.
These plugins provide the functionality needed to develop, manage, and sell courses. Some of the most popular WordPress LMS plugins are:
1. An Overview of LearnDash.
LearnDash is a robust LMS plugin for WordPress. It is designed for both new and seasoned course creators, providing an easier and highly adaptable platform for creating and selling courses online.
Key Features:
🔸️Course Creation:
A drag-and-drop builder allows you to easily create multi-tier courses, lessons, quizzes, and assignments.
🔸️Monetization:
Compatible with PayPal, Stripe, and WooCommerce for easy money collection.
🔸️Advanced Quizzes and Certificates:
Offers timed quizzes, different question formats, and automated certificate generation.
🔸️Drip Content:
Lessons are supplied in stages using automated content release schedules.
🔸️Student Management:
Create detailed student reports, track progress, and manage memberships and organizations.
Best for:
Those looking for a robust, all-in-one solution that values scalability and customization.
2. LifterLMS Overview:
LifterLMS is an excellent choice for building a powerful, scalable online learning platform. It offers both free and paid versions, allowing you to choose based on your budget and preferences.
Key features:
🔹️Multimedia Lessons:
Supports text, video, audio, and file-based lessons, making it simple to accommodate varied learning styles.
🔹️Memberships and Subscriptions:
You can set up membership levels, and subscription models, and provide unique material to paying subscribers.
🔹️Certification and Badges:
When students complete courses or reach specific milestones, they should be awarded certificates, badges, and diplomas.
🔹️Drip Content:
This method allows you to gradually present content, which engages pupils while avoiding content overload.
🔹️Third-party integrations:
Works with popular email marketing tools, payment processors, and other key marketing platforms.
Best for:
It is for anyone searching for a powerful, feature-rich plugin for producing beginning and advanced courses.
3. Teachable Overview:
Unlike WordPress plugins, Teachable is a cloud-based platform that integrates smoothly into WordPress websites.
It’s a simple solution for creators who need a full system for building, selling, and administering online courses.
Key Features:
🔸️Course Creation:
A simple drag-and-drop course builder that accepts multimedia content, quizzes, and surveys.
Teachable provides a powerful back-end dashboard for managing students, tracking progress, and analyzing purchases.
🔸️Sales and Marketing Tools:
Built-in coupon codes, affiliate marketing, and email marketing integrations to increase course sales.
🔸️Payments & Monetization:
Accepts payments via PayPal and Stripe, and connects with your WordPress site for simple course enrollment.
🔸️Custom branding:
You may personalize your Teachable site with your logo, colors, and domain name.
Best For:
Those who prefer a fully managed, cloud-based platform with minimal technical maintenance and want to integrate it into their WordPress site.
4. Tutor LMS Overview:
Tutor LMS is a strong and user-friendly WordPress plugin that creates a feature-rich learning platform. It offers advanced course creation facilities and a user-friendly interface for both administrators and educators.
Key features:
🔹️Course Builder:
A drag-and-drop builder that allows you to create complex courses, quizzes, and assignments with ease.
🔹️Multi-Instructor Support:
This feature allows many instructors to post and manage their courses, making it ideal for multi-author platforms.
🔹️Payment Integration:
With WooCommerce, you can sell your courses and manage transactions smoothly.
🔹️Advanced Quizzes:
Build multi-question quizzes with time limits, grading systems, and results pages.
🔹️Student Dashboards:
Provide a personalized student dashboard that includes course progress, quizzes, and certifications.
Best for:
Course creators seeking an accessible, customizable plugin with advanced features such as multi-instructor support.
5. WordPress Courseware Overview:
WP Courseware is another user-friendly WordPress LMS plugin that lets you create and sell online courses. It provides drag-and-drop course-building tools, making it simple for instructors to design learning materials.
Key Features:
🔸️Course Creation:
Create courses, modules, and lessons with a simple drag-and-drop interface.
🔸️Quizzes and Assessments:
Design custom quizzes and tests to assess student knowledge.
🔸️Drip Content:
Spread out lesson delivery over time to keep students engaged and prevent content overload.
🔸️Monetization:
Sell courses and manage payments with full integration of WooCommerce and PayPal.
🔸️Advanced Reporting:
Produces extensive reports on student progress and quiz performance.
Best for:
Anyone looking for a simple yet effective way to create and market online courses that do not involve complex setups.
6. A review of the Sensei LMS.
Sensei LMS was created by the same team that created WooCommerce. It’s therefore, an excellent option if you’re already familiar with the Woocommerce platform.
It simplifies the process of developing and selling courses using your WordPress website.
Key features:
🔹️Course Management:
Easily construct courses, lessons, and quizzes that are fully integrated into the WordPress editor.
🔹️WooCommerce Integration:
You may sell your courses with WooCommerce, which provides powerful eCommerce capabilities such as subscriptions, discounts, and product add-ons.
🔹️Student Tracking:
Provides a simple and user-friendly interface for tracking student progress and organizing assignments.
🔹️Quizzes & Certificates:
Provides basic quiz-building functionality as well as customizable certificates to reward students for completing assignments.
🔹️Easy Monetization:
WooCommerce makes it simple to sell courses by supporting multiple payment channels and pricing types.
Best for:
WooCommerce users who wish to expand their course offerings and interact with eCommerce features.
Step 3: Create and organize your course content.
Once you’ve installed your LMS plugin, you can start creating course content. As an author, you probably already have a ton of content that can be converted into a structured course.
Here’s how to build your course effectively:
▪Plan the Course Structure:
Divide your content into small modules or classes. If you’re teaching writing methods, you might break the course down into sections on narrative building, character creation, and dialogue.
▪Use a variety of media:
Don’t limit yourself to text. Consider adding videos, downloadable PDFs, quizzes, and other interactive components to your course to help students engage and learn more effectively.
▪Set Course Prices:
Determine a price plan for your course. You can pay a one-time price, subscribe, or use a tiered pricing structure that provides varying levels of access to your work.
Step 4: Adding Payment and Checkout Functionality
To effectively market your courses, you must first establish a trustworthy payment method. WordPress and its LMS plugins provide a variety of payment gateway options, making it easy to accept payments:
▪PayPal:
Most LMS plugins work smoothly with PayPal, allowing students to securely pay using their PayPal accounts.
▪Stripe:
Stripe is a very common payment gateway, particularly for credit card transactions. Many LMS plugins support Stripe, allowing your customers to complete transactions quickly and easily.
▪WooCommerce:
If you want more control over your sales, WooCommerce is a strong eCommerce platform that complements LMS plugins. It lets you handle products, orders, and payments right from your WordPress site.
Step 5: Promote Your Course
With your course set up and ready to sell, the next step is promotion. Attracting students to your course requires an effective marketing strategy:
▫️Use Your Author Platform:
Use your blog, email list, or social media following to promote your course. To attract your fans to enroll, provide them with exclusive material or exceptional deals.
▫️Offer free samples
Consider providing a free mini-course, sample lesson, or booklet to give potential students an idea of what they can expect. This can help to improve trust and conversions.
▫️Run Paid Ads:
If you have a marketing budget, paying for ads on sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or Google can help deliver targeted visitors to your course landing page and increase enrollment.
Step 6: Engage with your students
To ensure long-term success, you must have an ongoing relationship with your pupils. Engaging with them promotes loyalty and keeps them returning for future courses:
▫️Provide Excellent Support:
Be responsive to student inquiries, answer questions promptly, and provide additional resources to help learners succeed.
▫️Offer Additional Content:
Consider hosting webinars, live Q&A sessions, or creating a community forum where students can interact, share insights, and continue learning after finishing your course.
Step 7: Monitor and Improve Your Course
Once your course becomes online, the work does not stop. Regularly assess your course’s performance, acquire feedback, and make modifications.
▪️Collect Feedback:
Ask your students to provide feedback on the course content, delivery, and overall experience. Use their opinions to improve and change your course.
▪️Update Content Frequently:
Keep your course content up to date by making updates, adding new lessons, or editing existing information. Regular updates can help to keep students motivated and ensure that your course is current.
Conclusion
Selling online courses through your WordPress site is a great way for authors to grow their business and engage with their audience.
You may build a profitable business based on your knowledge by using a strong LMS plugin, structuring your content, implementing payment methods, and marketing your course.
Furthermore, by connecting with your students and constantly developing your courses, you can ensure that they remain successful for years to come.