How to create an online course, even if you suck with technology!

Do you want to create an online course, but struggle with technology?

This article is for you if you: 

• Are entering a new season of your career. You’ve put in the time and achieved great success in your field, but you now want to do what makes you happy.
• Want to make an impact on people’s lives with what you’ve learned in yours. 
• Just discovered the world of online course businesses and want to get started but don’t know where to start.
• Want to do something fulfilling and rewarding! 
• Are ready to launch an online course and become known! 
• Know you have the right knowledge and can make a living at this if you could just figure out the technology part.

In this article, you’re going to learn how to get an online course up and recorded and uploaded in just 3 steps no matter how bad you are at technology.

Here at Kajabi, we have helped users in their 60s like Tina Marchel and her husband Peter create online courses!

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If you follow these steps exactly and use the suggested technology, you will have an online course up and ready to sell in just a few days. 

Let’s get started! 

Step # 1: Plan Your Course. 

The very first thing you’re going to do is plan your course by creating a course outline.

Because this article is specifically focused on getting a course online even if you suck with technology, we’re not going to focus on things like picking the right market, audience, and subject for your course. 

We’ll just assume you already know that stuff.

If you don't check out our ultimate guide on how to create and sell a course online here!

What you’re going to do here is create an outline you can follow as you record your course.

The first step is to do a giant brain dump onto a piece of paper or word document of everything you want to teach in your course.

After you get through writing everything you want to teach down, you’re going to group the subjects that are similar together.

From these groupings, you’re going to organize modules. 

Your first course should be between 3-5 modules long. 

Once you have your modules, you’ll want to then add in what you’re actually going to teach about each subject in the modules. 

For example, let’s say you are creating a course on building confidence.

You might have twenty subjects you want to teach like body language, affirmations, dealing with negative self-talk, etc…

Then you would group those subjects into modules and add supporting materials.

It would look something like this:

Module 1: Finding the root of your confidence issues

• Negative self talk - examples - 3 most common types of negative self talk 
• Negative experiences - Trauma - Embarrassment - Belief forming experiences 
• Living in the past or future - Living in the past - living in the future - being present 
• Pessimism - Negativity and disease - Positive attitude stats 

Module 2: Dealing with Negative Beliefs

• What are negative beliefs - Definition 
• How to find your negative beliefs - 3 ways to find negative beliefs exercises
• 13 ways to deal with negative beliefs - 13 ways- reframing, exposure, visualization, reinforcement learning... 

And so on. 

Once you have an outline filled out you’re ready to move to step # 2

Step # 2: Record Your Course

All video and editing equipment is not made the same. 

Some of it is super complicated and requires a lot of time, energy and patience to learn.

You don’t need that.

You’re not making Casablanca here. 

What you need is something that is EASY to use, and creates great looking professional quickly and easily with minimal editing experience necessary.

In other words, something you’ll actually use rather than have it sit around for 6 months collecting dust while you “figure it out.”

Here’s what you will need: 

• An HD video camera. While you can in theory record with your laptop, Ipad or phone’s camera, I don’t recommend it. The Canon VIXIA is a great low priced option that is easy to use. As is Sony HDR.  

• Lighting. You don’t want a dark badly lit video that makes it look like you are recording in a bunker so you’ll want to get some professional lighting. Lighting rings are a great cheap way to light yourself easily for online course videos. You might also want to get a studio lighting kit on Amazon. That will have everything you need and costs around $100. 

• A Green Screen. The green screen is the key to high production value as it will allow you to swap out the background for any image you want and will make it easier to add images, graphics, and b-roll footage. If you want to create professional-looking online courses you MUST start recording in front of a green screen. 

• Wevideo. If you have minimal editing experience or none at all this software will allow you to learn to make professional-looking videos with graphics, royalty-free music, background images and more with less than an hour of training time, even if you have never edited a video before in your life. It is by far the easiest and best video editing software on the market for non-professional editors and is relatively inexpensive at only $15.99 a month. 

• If you don’t want to get on camera OR you have something that needs technical walkthroughs like designing a website or setting up online ads then you can create a screencast video. Use a program like Screenflow or Camtasia and create videos of presentations, slide decks and more. 

Place the green screen on the wall behind you, then set up the camera on a tripod in front of you and place the lights behind the camera. 

Voila, you are ready to record and edit your videos. 

Step # 3: Use An All In One Platform To Build Your Course:

The last step is often where most people who struggle with technology run into the most problems. 

Getting your online course on the internet where people can access it. 

If you struggle with technology this task can seem both simple and impossible.

It should be super easy to get your course online right? 

Just upload it onto a website and that’s it.

Except you have to deal with things like uploading your video onto different platforms.

You can upload it onto a free platform like Youtube but what if you want to charge for it and limit access?

You could pay for a secure platform like Wistia, but that’s $99 a month and it won’t look very professional if you sell a course that is just 3-5 videos on Wistia.

So you need a website to host it on.

And a way to brand it. 

First, you need to build a website, which seeing as you struggle with technology has just created a whole new set of problems.

Not to mention if you want to sell or market the course down the line.

Yikes.

If you’re already breaking out in a cold sweat don’t worry.

There is a very simple, affordable and easy to use solution.

It’s called an Online Course Platform.

What is an online course platform?

Like you might have guessed from the name it’s an online platform that allows you to do everything you need to do to create an online course. 

Online course platforms come in 4 basic types:

• Standalone Platforms. Stand-alone platforms are designed for entrepreneurs or small businesses that want a simple way to sell branded courses online.
• WordPress Platforms. Wordpress plugin platforms are tools that allow you to create and sell an online course with an existing WordPress site
• Marketplace Platforms. Marketplace platforms provide you with all the tools you need to create an online course. In addition to tools, education and support marketplace platforms also provide you with a marketplace to sell it in. 
• All-In-One Platforms. All-in-one online course platforms provide everything you need to create a complete web presence in addition to hosting an online course.  

To learn more about what type of platform is right for you and see a feature by feature comparison of 15 online course platforms, check out our Ultimate Guide to Choosing The Right Online Course Platform.

If you suck with technology, an online course platform will make it so easy you can’t fail.

Seriously.

These platforms feature drag and drop systems, premade templates for webpages, one-click video hosting and more.

If you can make toast in the morning or work a cable box you can get your online course uploaded with professional branding using these online course platforms. 

You can have your online course uploaded and ready to start marketing in just a few days if you follow the simple steps we have outlined for you in this course.

Step # 1: Plan your course. Get everything you want to teach, group them into modules then add supporting evidence, examples and research. 

Step # 2: Record your course. You’re not making Casablanca, so you don’t need to spend a lot of time and energy picking a 4K high def camera system you don’t know how to use. Instead, you want to get something simple and easy to use like the setup we recommended above. Once you have your setup it’s time to record from your outline. 

Step # 3: Use an online course platform to build your course. Finally, you’re going to pick an online course platform and use that to easily get your course uploaded and ready to sell.

Remember what Kajabi Hero Mel Abraham says “Creating a course, makes you the expert!” 

Don’t let technology keep you from your dreams! 

Use the 3 simple steps in this article to launch your online course and become an expert in your field! 

Want to see how easy technology can really be? 

See exactly how easy it is to get your online course uploaded and ready to sell with Kajabi!

But that’s not all! 

With Kajabi you have the tools to create a complete online presence.

No coding or tech skills required.

Create simple drag and drop websites.

Easily capture leads to build your email list.

Automatically send sales and marketing emails.

And much much more! 

We truly believe that Kajabi is the absolute best, easiest way to create, market and sell an online course and we’re willing to put our money where our mouth is with a FREE 14-day trial.

Still researching?

Check out Kajabi’s free downloadable ebook guides on launching and growing a knowledge commerce online business!

Read the 2022 State of the Creator Economy Report to get the latest data on industry trends and growth for knowledge content creators.