You have just spent hours of your life, pouring your heart and soul into an online course. Now, you must decide where to sell it. Ultimately you want as much control as possible, so you should sell your online course from your own website. However, you don’t want to make the mistake of trying to build a membership site or protected area on your own website by yourself. It can be a very painfully slow and frustrating experience.
If you have made an online course, or intend to, the platform you choose to sell your online course will impact conversion, delivery, user experience and customer loyalty. With so many third-party options out there it is hard to know what platform or software to use.
The Problem with Course Platforms and Marketplaces
The problem with shared course platforms like Udemy and Skillshare is you have to play by their rules. To channel years of your life/work experience and hours and hours of your time into creating a course to then hand it over to a marketplace or shared platform that will dictate pricing, conditions and how it is featured on their website is just crazy. Giving away control of the asset you have worked so hard to create for the convenience of publishing your course is a bad business decision.
It is also a big newbie mistake.
So I don’t recommend you sell your online courses on marketplaces like Udemy or Skillshare. As previously mentioned you want as much control as possible, but at the same time, you don't want to be spending hours of your valuable time creating a protected members area for your course using various plugins on a platform like WordPress.
Should I Sell Courses From WordPress Website?
I love WordPress and use it for all of my websites, but it is not an ideal solution for creating online courses or membership sites.
WordPress is perfect for building an authority website or blog. And with a page builder like Thrive Theme’s Page Architect, it can create wonderful landing and sales pages.
WordPress is the most powerful blogging and website content management system (CMS) in existence today. It is an open-source CMS, meaning it is free for you to use. You just need a hosting company to host it on the web for you. I recommend WPX Hosting.
What you need to understand is WordPress was never designed to be a membership site or to house online courses. You can’t do this on a WordPress installation alone. You need to install various plugins from various software companies. While it is certainly possible to sell courses on WordPress, there are many potential problems that you need to know about.
The WordPress Plugin Problem
To house courses, create a protected members area, accept payments and integrate your email marketing service on WordPress you need to use plugins. There is no one plugin that can do all of this, so it means you have to invest in various subscription plugins and hope they all integrate smoothly.
Too many plugins on your WordPress website causes problems - plugin conflicts, slow page load speed, vulnerability to malware and brute force attacks and design problems.
Uploading them all and getting them to work together can be painful. As I mentioned earlier, WordPress was never designed to be an online course or membership site platform. I made the mistake of trying to create an online membership with a members forum on WordPress, and it didn’t go well.
So……..What is the Best Solution?
Well, let’s define what we mean by "the best" solution.
The best solution would be one platform that could provide all the software solutions you need in order to market, host and sell your online courses with automation and security.
One single solution that could provide:
- Lead Page Software
- Funnel Software
- Deadline Software
- Shopping Cart Software
- Membership Site Software
- Private Forum Software
- Automation Software
- Webinar Software
- Countdown timers
Well, that solution exists and I now use it for all my online courses, my membership sites and my paid membership forum. It is called KLEQ.
KLEQ.COM
KLEQ, previously known as 10XPRO, is SaaS (software as a service feature) packed platform that provides course makers, online coaches and small business owners a stress free solution to selling course online.
If ease of use, speed to to market and peace of mind are what you are looking for when selling courses from your website then KLEQ is the all in one solution you will want to experience.
Why Do I Recommend KLEQ So Highly?
The real mark of trust in a business is in the founder. If he or she is accessible and transparent you know you can trust them. The founder of KLEQ, John Lint hosts a live Q & A support session every week. He will personally answer emails. He and his team will go out of their way to help you succeed. Your success is their success.
Having direct access to the founder of a quickly growing software company like KLEQ is unheard of in the online space. .
The peace of mind that comes from knowing you are being looked after by a company that deliver on the promises, love what they do and are constantly improving and upgrading both their product and service.