Uncover the Secrets to Building a Stream of Passive Income Through Online Courses!

ONLINE BUSINESS
Making Money with Online Courses: The Easy Way
By
Jake Lang
Updated
September 25, 2023

Online courses are a great way to make some extra cash on the side. You’ll be surprised at how simple and affordable it is to start. To get going, all you need is a little knowledge about something specific, a basic website, and your initial lesson plan.

But why should you sell online courses? Here are three reasons why:

1. High-Value Product

An online course can bring in big bucks. For example, instead of selling 50 eBooks at $10 apiece, it might be easier to sell a single online course for $500. Courses like these are seen as premium products, and you can sell them for a pretty penny. My own online courses go for $400 each. If you sell just five every month, you could be making $2000 on the side in no time. Sounds easy, right?

2. Passive Income

The best kind of income is the one that keeps coming without you needing to do much. With online courses, you do the hard work at the beginning by creating and setting up the course. After that, you keep making money without lifting a finger; it’s pure passive income.

3. Getting Started: It’s Easier and Cheaper Than You Think

Starting an online course business is convenient and cost-effective. All you need is a unique idea and some determination. For example, my courses which now earn at least $5,000 every month only cost me $50 at the start. All it takes to kick off is an idea, website hosting, and a domain name, which costs a mere $2.95 per month from Bluehost.

Now let’s move on to how I created online courses that provide me with passive income.

I run online courses on my website, AssociatePI.com, within the insurance field. These courses assist insurance employees in passing their exams and getting their Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter Certification. The entire course is text-based and self-hosted on my WordPress website using the WPLMS theme.

I sold my first course in June 2015 and since then, I’ve made nearly $200,000. Currently, I make around $7,000 in monthly passive income from these courses. The best part? I only spend three hours per week managing this online business.

And you can do this too. You can create online courses within your area of interest and make a steady income every month.

Here are 5 simple steps to get started:

1. Choose a Subject: Find something you’re good at and that people are interested in learning. If you already have a social media following or subscribers on your website, ask them what kind of courses they want.

2. Pre-Sell Your Course: Before you spend hours developing your course, make sure there’s a market for it by pre-selling it. This means selling your course idea to people before it’s even built, usually at a discounted price. If people buy, this validates your course idea and you can proceed to build it.

3. Choose a Platform: Once you’re confident about your course idea, decide on a platform to host your course. There are many options available, such as WPLMS, Teachable, LearnDash, Thrive Themes, Kajabi, Thinkific, Udemy, etc. Each has unique features and pricing structures; choose the one which suits your needs.

4. Build Your Course: Convert your knowledge into a course. Think about the main issues your target audience is facing and how your course can solve these problems.

5. Passive Income: Finally, set up your sales funnel. Write a series of automated emails that will encourage subscribers to buy your course. As long as you keep driving traffic to your site, sales will keep coming.

Starting up an online course is a fantastic way to achieve continuous passive income, and it’s a lot easier than you may think. It’s as simple as finding a topic, pre-selling it to gauge interest, building the course, and setting up a sales funnel. You can start today and make money from your expertise!

Keen to find out more about online courses? Check out a detailed 7-step plan for launching online courses successfully which resulted in selling 394 online courses in two weeks!