Should your online course be good-looking?

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Today I want to talk about something which you may or may not agree with but it’s something that I have encountered often.

It’s about how good your online course should look.

I mean the aesthetics of the presentation, the video effects, the colors, etc etc

I have a slightly different opinion on this.

Apart from creating online courses, I’m always doing some or the other online course myself to improve my skills.

For example, last week I bought a $79 course on learning HTML, CSS and Javascript programming languages because I want to learn how to develop websites.

Now here’s the thing.

This course looks fantastic when it comes to aesthetics.

The instructor of this course has spent a lot of time on making it look appealing. The video effects, music and transitions that have been used are absolutely amazing.

But but but….

I was not happy with the content itself.

The basics were not taught in a convincing manner and often times I had to watch a single video multiple times to understand a simple point.

I then bought a Rs.499 course on Udemy which was made by a fellow Indian guy.

His delivery and presentation is not good but the course content has been absolutely fantastic till now.

I’m simply in love with this guy even though his course doesn’t look appealing aesthetically.

And this is not the first time I have experienced something like this.

It’s always been my experience that if the instructor puts in too much effort on the aesthetics, he or she is not able to put that much effort into the content itself.

But isn’t it the content what matters ultimately?

In this case I want to learn these programming languages in the quickest and easiest way possible. I couldn’t care less if there are beautiful videos, audios and transitions in the videos.

I want to reach my end goal of creating a website and the Rs.499 course is helping me do that more than the $79 course.

This is something you may have found in my own online courses too.

Even in Online Course Launchpad, I don’t do anything fancy.

Not because I don’t want to.

But because I simply did not have the energy.

Because all my energy went in creating content which was well researched and easy for a complete beginner to follow.

Another advantage of focusing on the content and not too much on aesthetics is that you are able to produce videos quickly.

So this approach works better both for you and your students.

Another example of this is my Photography course that I released in 2018. I can safely say now that this is one of the highest selling online photography courses in India.

But even now very rarely I get one or two students who tell me to improve the background in my videos.

But I don’t do it because for every one student who says that, I have 1000 who tell me how much they love the course.

Why? Because my focus again was on creating easy-to-understand content and not just on aesthetics.

I’m not saying you create a poor looking course but don’t spend too much time on aesthetics.

For instance, for a long time (before I got Canva PRO), I just used to use black PPT slides with white text when it came to presentations.

Just good enough was enough.

And it still is.

Always remember the greatest aesthetic you can strive for is the smile on your students face when they do your online course, knowing that the money they spent was more than worth.

I hope this tip helps you and takes some pressure off you.

Regards,

Kush Sharma

Click Trainers