The last years have speeded up our transitions to digital education. The worldwide online learning market is projected to be worth $325 Billion in 2025, and the US e-learning market is set to grow by $12.81 billion in 2024.
The numbers speak for themselves, but how can you benefit from this increasing marketing?
As a student, you can learn high-income skills for very reasonable prices, at your own pace, and faster than a traditional tech or professional degree would take you.
On the other hand, you can profit from teaching some valuable skills you already have. Consider soft skills as well as hard skills, both are valuable for recruiters and potential employees who look forward to bringing only the best candidates to their companies.
Online Course Ideas by Categories
Today we want to provide valuable insight on the best online course ideas to learn or to start your online course business, as well as some tips to make and market your online courses.
Ideas for Online Courses on Marketing
Online marketing is, in fact, the future of marketing. It is the best way to connect with your target audience and provide them with relevant, accessible information about your brand and products.
Digital marketing also helps you get relevant conversions from your website.
Use digital marketing to drive traffic to your website, optimize it for better rankings, create engaging content, build a relationship with your customers, and more.
If digital marketing is your niche, consider these courses:
Social Media Marketing
In today’s competitive professional environment, it’s critical to master social media marketing.
The variety of platforms that exist in the market can be confusing, so profit from your experience and build your online courses.
You can create an online course targeting Facebook marketing, Instagram marketing, or Twitter marketing.
Another profitable idea is to create a course covering all the major social media platforms.
Teaching others can be both, profitable and enjoyable. Just make sure that your course is complete and professional, make it accessible for all levels of audiences, and set up for success.
Personal Branding
A Personal Branding course teaches you how to optimize your image and reputation to become successful online and get more visibility, and leads to help you increase your sales.
You’ll teach how to craft a personal brand, how to use social media to build presence and credibility, how to write compelling sales copy, and more.
In short, a Personal Branding Course is the ultimate course for becoming the top-quality expert in your field and having businesses fighting to work with you!
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing is a profession that demands fast thinking and passion.
It is both fast-growing and in high demand, so you already have an audience ready to learn.
Prior knowledge is valuable but not mandatory, so this is a skill targeted at a wide audience.
Focus on the high flexibility and space for remote work that the industry offers, the versatility, and the potential to unleash human creativity.
Market your knowledge and recruit the next generation of successful marketers!
Affiliate Marketing
If you already know the benefits of affiliate marketing, it is time to share your knowledge with others.
Affiliate Marketing has been growing in popularity because you can do it from home and because it is a passive income. Still, many people don’t know where to start.
It can also be a great way to build your brand name recognition. A basic course should include: how to find affiliate programs, how to promote products, and how to make sales.
Start by offering a free starter course and then market more specialized skills.
Online Business Courses
Business skills are for everyone, time management, project management, and other productivity courses are pillars for professionals in all areas. Polish your best skills and build a niche with business-oriented online courses.
Time Management
There’s no doubt that acquiring these skills is one of the most difficult things to do.
We all know how busy we have to be and how much we need to get done on a regular day. But with the right management skills, anyone can learn how to be more productive and efficient.
A good course idea would be to educate others about time management methods such as goal setting, task prioritization, and time blocking. You can also describe your techniques and techniques for staying organized and on target.
Teaching others how to effectively manage their time can even enhance your time managing skills.
Project Management
Project managers are responsible for the planning, execution, and completion of a project.
A project manager is in front of the entire project and handles everything related to the project itself, the team, and the resources.
As you can imagine, there are excellent reasons for companies to hire project managers and, of course, to pay the big salary that comes with such responsibility.
Besides, project managers have a lot of freedom to do their jobs, often working remotely or with flexible schedules.
That said, make sure you create online courses including these topics:
Time management because it is a crucial skill that all project managers need to have. Managing your time and resources efficiently will help you complete your projects on time and with the best results. A task management tool can help to manage this time and resources accordingly.
Communication, because an efficient project manager has to be able to articulate the vision of a project and communicate it.
Leadership, because project management is a team effort. Understanding your team’s strengths and weaknesses is crucial for managing them effectively and getting the best results.
Consider that project management is highly competitive and a field in evolution. It’s fundamental to stay up to date with the latest developments to maintain the quality of your course and content.
Real Estate
Think about your strengths first. Are you an experienced real estate agent? Then teach others what you know.
Teaching others how to buy, sell, or invest in property can become your niche.
Your audience is broad, it could be the young couple buying their first house, the busy mother of two who wants to make an income in real estate, or young professionals thinking about a career change.
Include fundamental topics in your course and teach people the basics of negotiation, property management, and the different types of real estate and market projections for each type.
Teach your business and build a new profitable online business while doing it. It’s a win-win situation.
Entrepreneurship
A course on entrepreneurship is the crown jewel for any online business course creator. There are still many talented individuals thinking about sharing their business ideas with the world but they don’t know where to start.
Based on your experience, you can help those individuals channel their creative forces toward giving life to something they can call their own. A course in entrepreneurship should include:
- Trends that drive innovation
- Common Barriers to innovation
- Human-centered innovation design
- Innovative business models design
Online Course Ideas for Creatives
Human creativity is endless! If you have experience in the creative field, we recommend you consider creating online courses on
Blogging
People can make a good income with decent writing skills and a little guidance on how to create and make a profit from blogging.
If you have experience with WordPress, Search Engine Optimization, and traffic generation you are ready to start teaching others how to build and grow a blogging business.
You can begin with the elementary stuff like finding a niche, creating a WordPress site, and planning and creating high-qulaity content.
Remember to include in the topics for your online course the different ways to monetize a blog, so your students can generate revenue as soon as possible.
Drawing, Illustration, and Digital Art
Bussy working hours can leave no time for regular academy training. Give people the opportunity to express their creative side by providing quality online courses like drawing, illustration, and digital art.
You could segment your offer on the level and the student’s intention. For instance, you could teach drawing for self-growth or illustration for high school teachers, just a couple of ideas.
Do a little research, find your niche and you will earn some extra income while helping other fellow souls express and bring art into the world.
Graphic Design
There is no need for a college degree in design to start selling your online courses. You may be an expert in Canva or Sketch for your business, social media, or blog.
Consider using your experience and skills to teach others how to design using these (or other similar tools) to improve their design skills.
Your online course must include color theory, web design, and illustration. Share your knowledge and help people make their businesses and brands look better and convert more.
YouTube Channel
Video is the king of content creation because it is convenient, enjoyable, and the fastest lane to information and entertainment. We can’t talk about video content without taking YouTube into the equation.
Youtube is accessible and easy for content creators to get started and share their content with a large audience. But its multiple monetization methods can be confusing for inexperienced content creators.
Use your experience and knowledge and create a course to guide newcomers in the process of building and monetizing a YouTube Channel with the help of an online video editor. Make sure you have a section of your online course dedicated to finding a niche, building an audience.
Course Creation
Yeap! Teach people how to create successful and marketable online courses.
Online courses come in all different shapes and colors, everyone has the potential to create online courses to market their skills but how do they start? – this is your chance! Leveraging professional education software development can streamline the creation and delivery of your online courses, ensuring a seamless learning experience for your students.
Help people identify their niche and teach them how to create and market it. Make sure you teach your students all the different types of online courses, from a degree in early childhood development phase to a course on how to start a travel blog, the possibilities are limitless. this will help them select the format that better suits their needs and preferences.
It can be a rewarding adventure, and who knows, you may even become a permanent consultant for online course creators.
Personal Development Online Courses
Life is busier than ever! But our recent history reminded us of the importance of being present, taking care of ourselves, and taking the time to build a better version of ourselves. You can help people on this path to self-expansion and self-discovery with the following online courses.
Healthy Lifestyle and Fitness
Your healthy lifestyle can become your inspiration to create successful online courses on health and fitness.
Think about how you managed to succeed and build a healthier happier life for yourself. You can focus on the psychological part of fitness and help people set realistic goals they can achieve. Online courses are flexible, that’s part of what makes them attractive.
Depending on your expertise, you can market a program where you teach people to eat clean, treat their bodies with respect, and strengthen their bodies and mind in the process of finding a healthier version of themselves.
Emotional Intelligence
Our lives are stressful, but we can’t afford to lose ourselves in the process of making a living. Emotional intelligence and stress management are skills that will help you find your center and succeed in your everyday tasks by acknowledging and reacting to your emotions properly.
Some of the reasons why emotional intelligence is so important are:
- Makes teamwork easier
- Helps people deal with change
- Teaches you to handle conflict
- It is an essential skill in the workplace
- This is a characteristic of a strong leader
Emotional intelligence is fundamental in personal development if you are an expert in mental health or a related field you can sell courses to help, people, small teams, and even companies that care about the well-being of their teams.
Online Courses on Personal Finance and Credit Repair
Personal finances play a fundamental role in your financial success and your future life and possibilities. Every school on the planet should include personal finance since the early stages of elementary school, but it doesn’t. Share your skills and help people organize their finance and build a better life by selling these profitable online course ideas.
Personal Finances
There are multiple reasons to teach an online course on personal finances. It is a great way to help people improve their financial situation, online courses can be a profitable investment – especially if you create a well-designed curriculum tailored to your audience.
If you’re interested in teaching personal finance online, there are a few things you need to consider. Create a well-designed course that is easy to navigate. Your online course must be complete and comprehensive – it should cover all the main topics of personal finances, from budgeting and investing to debt and retirement planning.
Finally, ensure your course is profitable. By providing high-quality content to engage students you can generate good revenue.
Credit Repair
Credit repair can be a very profitable online course. Many people who take the course end up raking in profits of hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Why? Because credit repair is a skill that never goes out of style.
As the economy continues to strengthen, more people are starting to experience difficulty getting loans and credit cards.
This means that the market for credit repair is growing exponentially. And because online courses are self-paced, people can fit them easily even into a busy schedule.
Do you think you have the skills? Go ahead and start building your online course on credit repair today.
Online Course Ideas on Technology
It’s time for technology courses, again you have a big audience in this category. The key is to deliver the information in an accessible language that speaks to your audience and engages them.
Coding
Learning to code can be difficult but not impossible. And that’s where online coding courses come in – they make learning to code easy and accessible.
Remember that these courses are designed for anyone, regardless of experience or knowledge, because the objective is to teach the basics of coding in a fun and interactive way.
Create your course thinking that by the end of the course, your students should be able to you’ll be able to create their websites and apps using coding language.
So if you’re interested in teaching to code, online courses are the perfect way to start.
Web Development
There are many people interested in learning how to build a website to their liking. If you are skilled at coding, then you have a market to teach online. Include in your topics list HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Don’t forget to make a quick stop on different types of web development, like front-end development and back-end development. You have to make sure to cover all the basics.
Programming Languages
There is a good market for online classes that teach people how to code in different programming languages. You can start one if you’ve got plenty of experience in Python or Java.
Make sure you cover data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented programming in your online course. Python and Java are the most popular programming languages, so don’t forget to dedicate some time to studying them.
Create an online course, share your knowledge, and help the next generation of software and applications developers craft their way to success.
Trade Skills Online Courses
According to a report by the US Department of Education, people with vocational, technical, and professional training are more likely to be employed than those with a college degree. Not only are employment rates higher, but highly skilled workers are more likely to work in their field of study. Take a look at the following trade skills and you’ll probably find your next online course idea:
Dog Grooming
There’s a growing trend among dog owners to groom their pets themselves. And, with good reason, because it’s both fun and rewarding.
If you’re looking to teach dog grooming as a hobby or career, this is a great opportunity for you to create a great online course for all pet lovers.
The best online courses offer both comprehensive coverage of the subject and high teaching quality. It’s also important to provide lots of resources so your students can get the most out of your training.
So if you’re interested in teaching dog grooming, be sure to start on the right foot, check your market, and find the element that makes your course valuable and unique.
Dog Training
You have more chances of succeeding when you follow your passion. If you are an animal behaviorist or have extensive experience working with dogs dog training courses can become your niche.
New dog parents can be lost when they bring fido home, start with the basics of dog care, and then move to more advanced subjects, like potty training and obedience training.
Dog training courses are a great online course idea since you can pick a massive target audience (those who own dogs) and help them train their best friends!
Hair cutting
It may sound strange at first, but haircutting is one of those skills that everyone should know. Therefore, it is an opportunity you can take advantage of. Make sure to cover all the basics of hair cutting, like tools, products, and techniques.
Another course idea could be to teach people to take care of their hair according to the specific type, for instance, curly hair needs care according to texture and weather conditions.
A must for this type of online course is a step-by-step guide with good visuals to help your students understand and follow each instruction without hesitation.
Wrapping Up
Now that you have a list of profitable online course ideas and how you can make them work for you, it’s time to start building your course!
Select your topic. Maybe something related to your industry, your expertise, or your passion. The good news is that you don’t need to be a Ph.D. in the field to create an online course about a subject. You just need to be able to speak about it interestingly and engagingly, and of course do your research, because quality is fundamental in online course creation.
Once you have a topic that you want to teach, it’s time to decide on a delivery method. You can either create an online course that is delivered in an online course platform, like Coursera, or you can deliver the course as a video, or downloadable PDF. It’s up to you how you want to do it.
Once you have a topic, delivery method, and platform in mind, you can set up a course by connecting it to your account on that platform. That’s it!
You now know all the essential components of an online course and how to build one. Now it’s time to make it awesome.
