Last updated - May 24, 2022
Learning online is a fantastic experience. The ease of learning on the fly from anywhere and working through each topic at your own pace is incredible. You have access to endless related materials online in case you wanted to research some more on a topic. Also, if you ever need to make more references, you have the entire online community to assist you. The benefits of learning online are exhilarating, and the few points mentioned are only a few of them. Well, what if you want to create an online course and have others benefit from them as well?
Learning Management Systems (LMS), like WordPress, give us the ability to create quality online courses and market them online. Because of its minimalist requirements, anyone can handle the process from start to finish, whether you’re a beginner or pro. You can easily make several customizations to suit your style and preference throughout your work. For beginners, it might take a few steps to gain mastery. However, this article will guide you and make all that faster.
How to Create Quality Online Courses with WordPress
WordPress makes it simple for everyone to share their knowledge with the rest of the world online. There are several features, including a wide variety of themes, plugins, and lots of other tools at your disposal. These tools can make it easy for you to create and share courses on your WordPress website. You’re probably asking by now, “what do I need to create my WordPress website?”
What Do You Need To Create Your Online Course
To create your online course, you will need the following:
- A domain name: (your web address. Example: mywordpresscourse.com).
- A WordPress hosting account: (This will hold your website’s data).
- Learning Management System (LMS). (This plugin that helps you to create and manage courses).
- A suitable WordPress theme. There are several premium WordPress themes to try out.
- Your 100% attention to finish reading this guide until the end.
How to Setup Your WordPress Website
You will need to integrate a web builder to help build your website. There are several web builder tools from which you can choose. However, WordPress is an excellent choice. WordPress offers you the flexibility to channel your website in any direction you want in the future.
There are two types of WordPress: wordpress.com, which is a hosted service, and then there is the original wordpress.org (self-hosted WordPress). WordPress.org is a recommendable choice as it will give you access to all the WordPress features you will need.
Domain Name (webpage)
To start your self-hosted wordpress.org website, you will need to get a domain name. It will cost you about $14.99 per year. WordPress hosting goes for $7.99 per month. You will also need to get an SSL certificate; this will help you to accept online payments; it goes for $69.99 per year.
If this does not fit into your budget, you can use a recommended WordPress hosting provider. Bluehost is a trusted provider that offers its users a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a 60% discount on web hosting. Bluehost hosting plans start at $2.75 per month.
Install and Setup Your LMS Plugin
After securing your WordPress website, you will now need to install a Learning Management System add-on. LMS plugins will help you to create your online course and integrate it into your website. Several plugins can combine for LMS; some good picks are LearnDash, LearnPress, Sensei, WP Courseware, Zippy Courses, LifterLMS, WPLMS, BuddyBoss, Academy, Course Cats, LMS, etc. Each of these software incorporates various all-in-one first-class solutions for creating online courses on WordPress. They also come with complete course management tools like lesson plans, assignments, course progression, quizzes, and lots more.
Let us use LearnDash as a test example for our LMS plugin (procedure may differ for other LMS plugins).
LearnDash Installation
LearnDash offers an all-in-one solution for creating your online courses on WordPress. After activating LearnDash go to the settings page, click on the LMS license menu, and enter your email address and your license key.
Click on “Update License” to save your settings. After this, go to the PayPal settings option, enter your PayPal information (this will allow you to receive online payments for your course). Don’t forget to save settings again. If you do not want to use PayPal, you can select between the other two options, 2checkout or Stripe Payment.
As soon as you have finished customizing your settings, you are ready to start creating courses with WordPress using LearnDash.
Create Your First Course:
First, you must go to the LearnDash “Courses” page and click on the “Add New” button. The system will immediately direct you to the “add new course” screen. Input a title for your online course and then add a detailed description in the relevant field. You can integrate the post editor blocks function to create amazing course pages. You can also include course thumbnails, tags, course categories, etc. to make it more interesting.
From here, you can move on to the “Settings” tab on the course editor. In this tab, you can set up various options for your course, including price, course status, and so on. You can set your course status to Free, Buy Now, Recurring, or closed.
After that, you can also set course pre-requisites, access expiration, points, alter access-list options, and so on. You can also go on to explore other options as well.
Once you have finished with all your settings, you can click the Preview option to view your course. If you are satisfied, you can go ahead to hit the Save or Publish button.
Add Lessons To Your Course:
After successfully creating your course, it is now time to add lessons to your online-course. You can add very interactive lessons to your course. With LearnDash, there are two ways you can do this:
- Switch to the “Builder” tab. You can find it in the course editor toolbar. You can add topics, lessons, quizzes, etc. to your online course. Click the “add lesson” button to add lessons to your course.
- The other way to do this is by going to the “Lessons” tab and click on the “Add New” button. The system will direct you to the lesson editor, where you can add titles and other details.
Adding Quizzes:
This helps your course to be more interactive. To add a quiz, go to the “Quiz” option and then select “add new.” Afterward, provide a title, descriptions, and other details you want.
Assignments:
You can add assignments by going to the “lesson option” menu to edit your lesson, check the “Assignments Uploads” option. When users upload assignments you can view them when you visit the “assignments” page.
- You can issue certificates upon course completion by visiting the “certificates” menu.
- You can integrate a powerful tool like “MemberPress” if you want to create a robust membership community for your course.
- You can integrate “woo-commerce” if you want to integrate a reliable online store for your course.
Conclusion
It is super easy to create an online course using WordPress, if you incorporate the right tools and plugins. You can make original and captivating content using simple few steps. The tools recommended in this article are capable of helping you produce quality course materials using a very minimalist effort with WordPress.
