Profitable Online Course Ideas You Can Launch In 2023

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Raise your hand if you feel that teaching people how to make money blogging was the only profitable course concept…

The truth is that you can launch and sell a successful online course in just about any industry. But we understand that you’re still hesitant, so we’ll give you a tonne of examples of online courses to get you motivated and enthusiastic about making your own.

Finally, we’ve listed specific actions you may do to locate successful online course ideas (in your niche).

This post will show you how to develop concepts for your next or first online course that will be successful.

Let’s go for it!

Ideas for lucrative online courses for this year, 2023

You could still be debating whether or not to provide online courses for your company or if you can develop a successful course concept for your industry.

We previously said that we would provide actual examples of courses (outside of the conventional learn-online-business environment) to demonstrate that you can develop a successful course this year in any market. Here are a few samples directly from the minds behind ConvertKit.

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Travel

If you’re in the travel sector, there are still ways for you to make money online, even though many people aren’t taking significant vacations right now.

Additionally, since planning and developing a course can take a while, you can utilise the time between now and when it’s safe to go to ensure your course is prepared.

Kristie Wolfe created a course about running a successful AirBNB:

“I built the #1 most wished-for Airbnb listings in Hawaii and Washington! 30x consecutive Superhost on all my properties. Over 1000 FIVE STAR reviews! Now I’m putting together a course with everything you need to know about running a successful Airbnb!”

While this course teaches you how to become a travel agent:

Both courses are ideal illustrations of how you can construct an online course in the travel sector without focusing on teaching about particular locations.

More Profitable Course Ideas for Travel:

How to travel with Kids
Travelling with Pets
DIY Van/Bus Life
Making Money while Travelling
Budges Travelle Tips

Health and Wellness

There will always be those trying to get healthier. People will pay to hear your knowledge if you are competent to offer health and wellness advice.

Take this course on grief, for example:

Or this course on hair loss (for alopecia sufferers), which caters to a very specific niche:

The following fitness course was designed for everyone who wants to be in shape. You may also make an online course that appeals to a bigger audience:

You decide how broad or specific your audience should be.

Ideas for more lucrative health and wellness courses:

Cooking for Specific Diets (Keto, Caliacs, Low-Carb, Vegan)
Nutrition for Specific Demographics
Yoga for Different Levels or People (Beginners or Post-Partum)
Different Types of Dance (African, Hip-Hop, Ballet)
Specific Fitness Goals (Bigger Gluts, Six-Pack, Abs, Toned Arms)

Arts and Creativity

People are constantly looking for new creative opportunities. You have something special to give if you are creative.

Beginner Photoshop users who want to learn how to create a book cover can check out Photoshop Wizardry:

Users may create printables using InDesign thanks to instructions from yet another graphic design course:

Take note of how, even though the latter two classes are about graphic design, they teach very different things.

Here is another inventive course that teaches you how to become a professional singer:

Ideas for more lucrative ideas for Arts and Creativity courses:

Home Decor
Home Improvement
Makeup
Parenting
Plant Care
Finance and Investments
Money Management

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Home and Lifestyle

A wide range of subjects can be included under “home and lifestyle.” Consider this course on home organisation:

Additionally, some wish to learn from you if cooking is your passion. This programme teaches working parents how to take pleasure in preparing meals for their families.

And since fashion is always evolving, it might be challenging to stay current. Women may put together a capsule wardrobe with the aid of the Capsule Plan course to look fashionable all year long:

Ideas for more lucrative lifestyle courses:

Instrument-specific (vocal classes, flute, piano)
Songwriting
Musical Skills (sight reading)
Photography and Photo Editing
Videography and Video Editing
Graphic Design
Drawing and Painting (Charcoal, Watercolor)
Art Techniques (Shading, Realism, Cartoon)
Sewing
Knitting / Crocheting

Tech

Many of us wish we had the helpful ability to be technically savvy (and want to learn). If you are computer smart, think about educating your audience!

With the DIY Website Starter Course, people may learn how to create a WordPress website independently.

And this course will show students how to create an app from scratch:

Ideas for more lucrative Tech courses:

Analytics Setup and Use
HTML/CSS
Programming Languages (Javascript, Python, C++)
Website Backup
Website Creation
Website Maintenance
Build a Plugin
Improve Website Speed

Personal Development

People are becoming more and more aware of the advantages of personal growth; after all, being happier will make you feel better.

In Chan Crawford’s course, students learn strategies for overcoming physical and emotional barriers:

Ideas for more lucrative Personal Development courses:

Networking
Career Guidance
Manifestation
Achieving Goals
Overcoming Burnout
Overcoming Mental Barriers
Productivity
Meditation

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3 simple steps to find online course ideas

It’s crucial to produce ideas, refine those concepts, and validate them before you begin your course.

So that you are clear on what to do for each stage, let’s go through each one in detail.

Step 1: Idea Generation

With or without a large audience, you can come up with concepts for online courses. I advise coming up with five to ten distinct concepts so you have a sufficient number to choose from.

Google Analytics (GA)

You’re in luck if your website receives visitors since Google Analytics (GA) is a treasure trove of insightful data.

Finding your best-performing content—or, to put it another way, what your audience is already interested in learning—should be your first move.

It’s simple to locate your most well-liked material.

Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages on the left side of your GA dashboard.

You may get a preview of your most popular pages here.

Set a time frame to monitor the performance of your content over time. I like seeing which of my works have been read the most during the past month, six months, and year.

You can determine which content generates continuous traffic and which may be anomalies by looking at different dates (i.e., you had a piece go viral).

Applying the period will enable you to order the most to least popular results. Sort your distinct page views in decreasing order.

There you have it, then! You now know what topics your audience is already interested in (and might want to learn more about).

Find Market Gaps

There are likely existing courses (or resources) in your field because there are so many online courses available.

That’s okay!

You’re going to take advantage of it.

Online product reviews for your rivals’ goods can provide helpful information. A reviewer will frequently include what they enjoyed and wished they had learnt.

Go to Amazon and look for ebooks in your niche if your competitors don’t have any websites where you can check online reviews. There are several reviews available for you to read.

Look for Reviews that say things like:

“I wish I learned…”
“I wanted to know how…”
“This was missing…”
“I really like how…”
“This helped me…”

The positive reviews may help you understand what your rivals are doing right in their instruction, and the negative ones can assist you to identify what is missing.

Next, scroll down to view your data. For easier viewing, I like to change Visualization to Data.

Answer the Public provides a list of standard search terms so you can see what your potential course participants are thinking and determine what they want to learn more about.

There are numerous questions concerning which “Keto Diet” is the finest in our “Keto Diet” example. According to online course suggestions for this market, the greatest “Keto Diet” is the most effective for people.

FAQs

My elementary school teacher instilled in me the value of asking questions because if I have a question, chances are someone else does too.

There is a good chance that other members of your audience are looking for the same information if you often receive the same queries. Make the most of your FAQs to come up with possible course ideas!

Ask your Audience / Customers

Why not address your audience directly if you don’t want to wait for them to pose questions?

You should find your audience’s top pain points or areas of interest. Additionally, significant information can be gained without a large audience. You should start to observe patterns and trends after asking a few individuals what they want to learn.

Step 2: Focus on a few online course concepts

Alright! Now that you have a list of potential themes, it’s time to cut the excess and focus your thoughts.

You may cross certain items off your list by asking yourself one of three key questions:

Which course concept do I know the most about? It should go without saying that you are knowledgeable about the subject you choose for your online course.
Which course concept is the most exciting to me? It’s a good idea to be enthusiastic about the subject so you don’t run out of steam since an online course can take anywhere from 25 to 500 hours to complete. (PS: Read over our online course timetable resource to properly plan your course development.)
Is this a year-round or seasonal course? Evergreen content is never outdated. Most courses will always be relevant, but some topics (like gardening) may only be attractive to your audience at specific periods of the year. This isn’t a problem, but if you can’t maintain your course open all year, it will reduce your income. You can see on Pinterest Trends whether or not particular subject ideas change at particular periods of the year.

You’ll have an idea for an online course once you’ve whittled down your choices! However, to be sure that your concept will be well-received by your audience, you must first verify it before developing your course.

We’ll go through four simple ways to verify your hypothesis.

Trends

You may check Google Trends to see if interest in your proposed online course is rising or falling.

For instance, when we look up bodybuilding, we can observe that its popularity has decreased over the past five years:

If interest in a course is dwindling, consider if there will still be a need for it. If a trend is seasonal, prepare right before the season begins.

Survey

Surveys may be a quick approach to producing insightful data! You may use Google Forms, a free survey tool, to gather information.

You should include both open-ended and closed-ended questions in your online course survey. For instance, “would you take a course on topic X?” and “what do you know about topic X that you wish you knew?”

You have a multitude of options for surveying your audience:

Send a Survey to your Email List
New email subscribers should be directed to a “thank you” page with a link to your survey.
Put a survey on your social media pages.
Become a member of relevant Facebook groups and, as long as the rules let it, publish your survey there for participants to complete.

Remember that a survey should last between 6 and 10 minutes while you create your questions.

Interviews

You may also request direct communication with your audience, email subscribers, or survey respondents. Additionally, interviews assist you in developing the plan for your online course so that you will know what materials to add.

Because interviews can take a lot of time, in the past, I’ve seen course designers give candidates a free or heavily reduced copy of their course.

Live workshop/webinar

What better strategy is there to expand your email list while also studying your audience? You may provide a free mini-course through a workshop or webinar and evaluate interest depending on the number of attendees.

The moment has come to create your online course.

Let’s bring your recently discovered online course topic to life! You may sell your course on various internet sites, including our own (ConvertKit Commerce)!

Without the effort of creating a website, you can sell digital things using ConvertKit Commerce. I’ll demonstrate how simple it is. Create a product by clicking on Create a product on the Products page after creating an account with ConvertKit Commerce.

Your online course can be ready to sell in just three simple steps! Fill out the form by entering your course’s name and price.

Upload your course files next. (When a consumer purchases your course, they get this.)

Finally, pick the URL for the landing page you’ll use to advertise your course.

You’re done! Your brand-new course is now prepared to draw customers and make sales.

Do you want to test it? ConvertKit Commerce may be used right away.

Do you have any advice for us? Let’s discuss this in the comments.

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You deserve to be compensated for your creations as an artist. ConvertKit Commerce is a pre-built tool to assist you in selling digital goods.

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Latest Update on January 21, 2023

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