Creating an eBook requires a break from traditional thinking, but learning how to monetize a book with online courses is a simple, effective way to introduce your eLearning offerings to potential students. Today’s LMScast with Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett discusses how to make your text content more readable and add interactive support media so that your information becomes far more accessible than ever before.  

Presenting text in quickly readable chunks instead of long paragraphs is a basic formatting technique for digital consumption. Online publishing provides low overhead costs for writing, publishing, and promoting your eBook, which can include existing course content through your WordPress learning management system using lifterLMS. This also allows potential students to get a feel for your online course environment.

Your ultimate goal is to provide students with whatever they need to succeed in your courses, and the eBook format allows you to provide content in a variety of media so each student can access your information in their preferred learning style. If you have already written a book you can expand it into a full online course offering. And if you have already created your online course, then you can easily create an attractive introductory eBook synopsis based on your existing course content.

033: How to Monetize a Book with Online Courses

Mike Weiss from the Client Engagement Academy joins Chris Badgett on this episode of LMScast. Chris and Mike discuss the current state of the online education industry. They talk about the low completion rate of online courses and how digital badges can help solve that problem.

Mike shares some statistics on the completion rates of courses and some tips and tricks as to how digital badges can help improve that rate. He also tells some of the strategies his company uses to raise the completion rates of their courses.

Chris and Mike discuss how digital badges are becoming relevant in not just the online workplace, but in the physical workplace as well. Employers are starting to use online courses in order to train employees. Some are also taking that to the next level and requiring it for application. The digital badge can act as a proof of a skill that is currently scarce in the online workplace. 

Mike also believes that it is essential to understand the statistical data of your company and your courses. You should set up a way to find out the velocity at which people go through the content in your course, and how tests and quizzes are a great way to do so. Providing options your students would like to have for the flow of content is important to their success as well.

127: The Current State of Online Education and the Engagement Opportunity with Mike Weiss

The social learning add-on for LifterLMS is here, and today we talk about how you can add social learning to your online course or membership site. Chris Badgett and Ali Mathis of the LifterLMS team discuss how you can implement social learning into your online products, and how that can help your students learn.

A lot of the best learning experiences we have come from times when we were working with other people in a group. Humans are social creatures, so learning is often enhanced when we are working in a social environment. The social learning add-on for LifterLMS gives you the ability as the course creator to create social learning groups of two or three people to as many as twenty or fifty people.

This is similar to what many people do with Facebook groups for courses or membership sites, but now you can integrate that group feature into the very fabric of your online product. Coaching is a big way people learn, and the peer coaching that can occur when you have a social learning feature worked into your online course can help personalize the content and learning experience to the individuals taking your course. This makes it more memorable, and they are more likely to ask questions and finish the course or participate in the membership site.

When you have more users on your site and you add more advanced functionality, you may face some complications with hosting. Chris and Ali talk about some of the different hosting options and what you will want to look for or ask about in your hosting company when you have a lot of users on your site.

The Social Learning add-on can be used in almost any type of course or membership environment, so head over to LifterLMS.com to check it out and feel free to shoot us a message with any questions you have about the product.

154: How to Add Social Learning to Your Online Course or Membership Website

Pippin Williamson of AffiliateWP, Easy Digital Downloads, and Restrict Content Pro joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss learning, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Chris and Pippin talk about affiliate marketing, delegating responsibilities, and competition in business.

Pippin comes from a family that is very nature and technology-oriented, so as a kid he spent a lot of time outside, and he developed a passion for software development. He shares his story for how he made his way into the WordPress space and how he goes about building businesses and creating products.

Affiliate marketing is something that poses a challenge to many business owners. It is important to vet your affiliates carefully and lay out clear guidelines for what they can write about and advertise. Chris and Pippin talk about how affiliates contribute to your brand in a major way, so you should set up careful rules and make sure your affiliates don’t do things that will damage your company’s brand or image.

Delegation is key to success in most businesses. Many entrepreneurs and business owners have trouble delegating the responsibilities within their business. Pippin shares his experience with delegation and the process he went through when learning how to take a step back and let his employees handle tasks and situations that arise within a company.

171: Learning, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship with Pippin Williamson of AffiliateWP

Josh Haynam of the revolutionary quiz building software Interact joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss how you can generate leads for your online course or membership site.

Josh and his co-founder Matt were working as web consultants building websites, doing SEO, and building content for clients. They noticed their clients only seemed to be concerned about one metric, and that was how many new email subscribers they had. Your email subscribers are reminiscent of a rolodex, so that is something they understood.

Noticing the clients’ emphasis on the email list gave Josh and Matt the idea to build a software company focused on building up email lists. The Interact software allows you to create survey-type quizzes like, “What type of fruit are you?” that you can put on your website and set up with Facebook ads.

Chris and Josh dive into the value behind online quizzes and how they can benefit you as a course creator. You can use quizzes to qualify your leads, so you can figure out what customers your course would be relevant to. Interact quizzes can also be used for personalization. You can set up a quiz and market to leads differently based on how they answered the questions by setting up what is called a sequence.

Head over to TryInteract.com and create a free account to check out all of the quiz templates and see if you want to build a quiz for your online course!

179: How To Generate Online Course & Membership Site Leads & Sales using Quizzes with Josh Haynam

Grant Weherley of MonetizeMyExpertise.com joins us in this episode of the LMScast podcast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss strategies for making courses, and how you can market courses once they are live. Chris and Grant cover all sorts of ground relevant to all types of course creators.

Chris and Grant talk about the five hats problem for course creation, and how the instructional designer hat plays a huge role in how well course content is communicated. Many experts believe they can create a good course solely because they know their topic inside and out. What they can forget to factor in is the instructional design, video editing, marketing, and all the things that are separate from the topic of the material.

One huge benefit to including others in the process is that they can give you insights on the perspective of a beginner. The expert’s curse describes the common misconception course creators have where it’s assumed that everyone knows what they do, and they assume knowledge the students do not yet have.

Educating customers before they purchase your course is huge for capturing engagement. Chris and Grant talk about some strategies you can use to earn the right to sell someone once you have your product in front of them. Grant also shares some considerations for pricing your course.

Grant shares the process they go through at Monetize My Expertise for content development and project strategizing. One very effective method he shares for generating course content is to have interview or teaching calls where someone can pick your brain about a certain subject to identify what areas are most confusing to people and what may need to be addressed in more depth overall.

To learn more about Grant Weherley be sure to head to MonetizeMyExpertise.com, and you can set up a call with a member of his team to learn more about if they can help you bring your course to the level you want it to be at.

223: How To Make and Market Your Online Course or Get Some Help With That With Grant Weherley

In this LMScast BobWP shares his story of how he entered the WordPress ecosystem and created a successful blog and podcast dedicated to helping WordPress users build thriving websites and businesses. Bob also shares his course creation failure case study, and he and Chris engage in an uncommon conversation around when to try something new with a course creation venture.

Bob started working in graphic design in 1989 and ran a marketing design agency with his wife Judy for 17 years up to the point where Bob started working with WordPress and doing live training dedicated to teaching others how they can get their sites functioning with the platform.

Bob decided to build a course around the knowledge he shares with his community, and it didn’t end up working out for him. People were not interested in paying for the content he was offering in his course. Chris and Bob discuss how having a course is not the only way to monetize a business, and Bob has proven that by working with more affiliate marketing strategies and leaving his core blog content free.

WIth Bob’s blog, he focuses a lot on WooCommerce. He noticed Google was sending him a lot of traffic for his posts related to WooCommerce, so he expanded his content in that direction. That is a great idea course creators can implement in their businesses. The idea of sticking to what works, focusing on that, and expanding in directions that add value and interest customers.

Tools like Analytify, ThirstyAffiliates, and Google Analytics have helped Bob out with link placement and figuring out the best directions to go and what content is performing well, so be sure to check those tools out.

You can learn more about Bob at BobWP.com and WPContentMarketing.com. He has a blog and podcast packed with information relevant to WordPress website builders, and he specializes in WooCommerce. If you’re working with those tools, be sure to find him there. Thanks for joining us!

243: Surprising Course Failure Case Study Transforms into Monetized Content Expert Business

Program creator and virtual assistant trainer Kathy Goughenour shares her journey from leaving the corporate world to earning over six figures by starting her business training virtual assistants in this episode of the LMScast podcast hosted by Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Kathy also shares some tips that will help you know what to look for in a VA for your online course or membership websites.

Kathy was not seeing the growth in her career that she was looking for as the marketing manager for a Fortune 500 company, so she ended up quitting her job and working as a virtual assistant for real estate agents. This was back in 2001, so Kathy was a real pioneer of the virtual assistant business. Around the housing market collapse in 2008, Kathy had a team of VAs and was working with 70 clients. She then decided that rather than training VAs for free she would turn her knowledge into an online course, and she has now been training VAs through her program for over 10 years.

Kathy started off small with her online course, and that is one best practice for building a successful online course. By starting with just a very basic program and a very basic website, you’re able to grow your program directly based on student feedback. And that is often the best way to design an effective and profitable program.

Kathy shares a few best practices for course creators on starting out with a virtual assistant, and she shares how her program can help you get in touch with a virtual assistant if you’re interested in taking on some help with your online course website.

To learn more about Kathy Goughenour and the programs she has created for virtual assistants, check out ExpertVATraining.com. If you’re interested in connecting with a VA for your business you can email Kathy@ExpertVATraining.com and she’ll hook you up with a 15-20 minute consulting call with one of her experts, and they will send you over a list of 3 virtual assistants that would be a good fit for you to interview and choose from.

254: What Virtual Assistants Can Do For Course Creators with Expert VA Trainer Kathy Goughenour

In this episode of the LMScast podcast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS, SEO expert and marketing strategist Brendan Hufford shares insights on how course creators can build up their SEO and marketing skills.

After earning a degree as a teacher, Brendan worked as an assistant principal. He thought teaching was fine, but he ended up gaining an extra 25 pounds and developing an unhealthy relationship with alcohol. He ended up switching to a different school to fill in a teacher role and ditching alcohol. Brendan had a friend reach out to him to ask if Brendan could help with SEO for his photography website, and after 6 months his friend made an extra $42,000.

Interacting with people and answering questions is something Brendan loves to do, so he ended up creating an online course after many people had been reaching out to him via Slack with questions about SEO.

One of the best ways to build your course content is to engage with the communities your audience engages with. If you go into Facebook groups with people you’d like to serve and search through what they struggle with, you can build solutions for those issues.

Brendan shares how he created a series of free live videos for an audience on SEO and how to get started. He used this as a method to test how people engaged with his content, and he built out his course from the ideas generated from his workshop.

Brendan speaks to the mentality of always selling even after the sale with your online course and teaching style. If you build each step of your course with the intention of selling students on moving onto the next module, you can create high engagement with your content.

At 100DaysOfSEO.com you can find Brendan’s 30-day challenge where he walks you through how you can upgrade your SEO. He also invites you to tweet any SEO questions you have for him on Twitter to @BrendanHufford, so be sure to check him out there as well. Thanks for joining us!

256: How to Grow Your Email List with an Email Challenge & SEO Course Case Study w/ Brendan Hufford

https://www.graycelltech.com/5-wordpress-plugins-you-need-to-create-killer-content/

WordPress Plugins You Need to Create Killer Content

These days you can get plugins for just about anything and everything, so it is important to know the best from the rest. You have so many options for plugins that do almost exactly the same thing, how are you supposed to know which one will give you the edge?

Thankfully there is plenty of research and knowledge available, so GrayCell Technologies have compiled a list that should get your WordPress blog the content boost it really needs.

5 WordPress Plugins You Need To Create Killer Content

GrayCell Technologies is a professional Web development, Web designing and Internet Marketing Company based in Chandigarh, India

LMScast is a podcast for innovators like you in the WordPress LMS e-learning community. LMScast is produced by Chris Badgett, part of the team behind the #1 WordPress LMS plugin called LifterLMS. Each episode brings you valuable insights with one goal: to help you generate more income and impact through a learning management system built on WordPress. LMScast is for you the entrepreneur, the teacher, the expert, or the online marketer.

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