Should you use WordPress to sell online courses? (Pros & cons) |
Do you think WordPress a good solution for selling online courses? Discover about the advantages and drawbacks of selling courses on an WordPress site, plus alternatives for course creators.
If you've ever started your own blog or developed websites, odds are that you've heard of WordPress.
One of the most prolific hosting platforms in the world, WordPress powers 60 million websites -- that's 40 percent of all websites.
The answer may not be so simple as you imagine. With a variety of plugins to help issues, selling online courses with WordPress comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.
We wrote this article to help you determine which WordPress is the best option for your needs. This article will discuss the benefits and drawbacks to using WordPress for selling your online courses. We'll also discuss alternative options if you don't think it's an ideal fit.
Let's begin by highlighting some of the platform's biggest advantages.
Three advantages of the use of WordPress for selling online courses
1. An enormous plugin library
One of the major positives of WordPress is the extent to which you can customize your site. The WordPress official WordPress Directory of plugins currently contains over 58,000 plugins.
A plugin is an application that allows you to add more functions or features to your WordPress website. The top WordPress plugins provide you with the power to transform your website from a basic one to something completely yours.
When it comes to selling online-only courses in particular There are a lot of Learning Management System (LMS) plugins to choose from. Searching on Google for "online course" yields 29 pages of outcomes, including apps such as Learnpress, LifterLMS, Learndash, MemberPress, and hundreds of others.
One of the most popular ways to market everything through WordPress is the WooCommerce plugin.
With over 5 million users, WooCommerce is the most well-known eCommerce checkout that is open source.
For WooCommerce to use Paid Courses You also need to set up an WordPress LMS plugin Sensei LMS and comes with the premium extensions.
Phew.
Yes, I realize it's supposed to talk about the benefits of using WordPress. And looking past online course plugins, the WordPress collection of plugins is truly unparalleled.
As an example, bbPress lets users add a discussion forum to your website and control it via the WordPress website's dashboard.
On the marketing side of things, WordPress extensions and plugins are truly impressive.
AddToAny Share Buttons permit users to connect a post or page on your site to over 100 social media and sharing apps.
You enter the keyword or word you'd like your webpage or blog post to rank for. Yoast analyzes your blog or website's contents and informs you if you're using the keyword enough (or too often), and in the right spots.
Thanks in no small part in no small part to Yoast, SEO is one WordPress's biggest strengths as an online platform. It's so fantastic, in fact, that it's the next section of benefit.
2. Search engine optimization
Organic search is responsible for the majority of web traffic . The first five results on any Google search are responsible for 67.6% of the clicks , so it is important to get the top spot in the search results is crucial.
What exactly does SEO look like in action?
Imagine selling programs that focus on teaching parents who are busy how to budget.
The busy mom struggling to keep their family's finances in check could Google an expression like "budgeting for moms who are busy".
And when that busy parent visits your site, they'll discover your content will be able to see the knowledge they're seeking, and maybe even sign up for your course.
The snippet of text that is featured for the phrase "budgeting to help busy mothers" illustrates this article taken from Simplified Motherhood, a site dedicated to providing educational contentwhich includes online classes and digital downloads -- to help busy moms keep their lives in order.
WordPress is built using Google-friendly technology, so there's no need to worry about technical issues in the background that can hinder you from getting that top spot.
It doesn't matter if you're brand new to SEO or are planning to create an online class for SEO, WordPress has an edge for out-of-the-box search engine readiness.
Now, let's examine a 3rd major plus for WordPress that is its low monthly maintenance costs.
3. Low monthly maintenance cost
This third benefit is very short (and very delicious).
WordPress is, in and of itself, free and the majority of WordPress templates, themes as well as templates are licensed on an an annual basis, so there's no need to worry about high charges for maintenance following the initial costs for startup.
WebsiteBuilderExpert analyzes the costs per month and annually of starting and running the WordPress site.
That said, many premium marketing tools charge monthly. If you'd rather keep your monthly costs down to just marketing and hosting and selling online courses on WordPress is a viable option.
With a myriad of options for customization as well as SEO done for you, along with low monthly costs allow WordPress an excellent choice to market your online courses however, it's not the full picture.
To do that, it is important take into consideration the disadvantages as well. There are three things to consider.
Three disadvantages to using WordPress for selling online courses
1. Limited creator support
If you're using several different plugins for selling online courses, you end up dealing with a variety of avenues for assistance. Many plugin creators offer dedicated technical support, but they can't fix an issue at WordPress's end.
Some plugins do not work when combined with most recent WordPress release. Additionally, using too many plugins can slow your website speed of loading that can cause really harm for your business's bottom line.
26.9 percent of online customers are waiting less than four seconds for a page to load, and 45.4 percent of users said they would be less likely to purchase things if loading times were less than what they expected.
One in three customers will quit a brand that they love following just one negative encounter, while 92% of them will leave the brand after one or two negative experiences.
Concerning security, our third WordPress issue is centered around WordPress' security weaknesses.
2. Security weaknesses
WordPress's open-source code makes it susceptible to hacks. Open-source means anyone can dig into the architecture of the website. This feature allows for tons of customization and plugins However, it does create certain security concerns.
Many hundreds of thousands of WordPress websites are hacked each year.
The WordPress team is quick to catch and fix security issues However, you will only receive those fixes if you update to the latest version of WordPress. Also, fewer than half of WordPress sites are currently using the most current version.
On average, WordPress releases new major versions every 152 days . And when WordPress changes, developers must to update their plugins too. By skipping just a few updates to a plugin could expose your customers to threats.
That's a lot of updates to keep up to.
A final note regarding the security aspect: WordPress websites don't automatically have SSL encryption. SSL is a must-have for websites selling e-commerce to ensure that customers' information protected.
Although you've probably never heard of SSL certificates, chances are you've observed them at work. has an SSL certificate, and offers them for free to all of our clients to ensure that your and your students' information secure.
In an effort to improve the security of the Internet, safe place to be, Google also gives the SEO benefit for websites that are encrypted.
Limited support and security vulnerabilities aren't all the major disadvantages that come with selling courses using WordPress. Not to mention we need to speak about the technical aspects of the WordPress education curve.
3. A steep technical learning curve
If you're not a fan of digging into the code, then you aren't likely to enjoy the technical burden of setting up your courses using WordPress.
If you're creating your own blog , WordPress doesn't require hacker-level technical skills. And because WordPress is so popular it is easy to find free tutorials out there to assist you in learning the basics.
When it comes to building custom websites for selling classes, WordPress has a pretty high learning curve that makes difficult to get hang of for new creators.
WordPress utilizes shortcodes , a type of markup which lets you type in a quick command to activate various features in the frontend.
Some themes and plugins use their own shortcodes, which is where things get much more difficult. If you've constructed entire pages out of shortcodes, it could take hours to download a new theme or plugin , and tidy up the code.
It's not a drag-and-drop-based interface, so if you want to completely customize your website, WordPress requires HTML and CSS skills. And if your coding is not efficient, it could slow down your load time or cause your site to not be compatible with mobile devices.
Google has announced in the year 2018 that they're increasing the rank of websites optimized for mobile within their results for mobile searches therefore having a mobile optimized or responsive website can aid to improve your search engine ranking also.
It is possible to check the site's current mobile-friendliness with Google's mobile-friendly checker tool .
In light of all the pros and cons that come to mind should you consider whether WordPress an effective platform for selling your courses?
If you're comfortable with working with technology and several high-cost startup expenses, WordPress may be a suitable option to sell online courses on your website.
Let's discuss them.
What alternatives are there for selling course content using WordPress?
If selling online courses on WordPress doesn't seem like an ideal fit There are two major options:
Selling on a digital marketplace
Selling using an all-in-one platform
1. Online courses can be sold through a marketplace for digital goods
A digital marketplace is any website where several merchants list products for sale. For example, Udemy offers over 150,000 classes online with a vast selection of instructors.
marketplaces work well for consumers who want ease of use. However, for creators it can be more difficult.
The process is different between marketplaces, it typically works like this:
Make a seller account
You must pay a cost to include items
Make sure to list your products
Payment transaction fee
Wait for feedback from customers
Receive payouts on the marketplace's timeline
In a marketplace, you don't get the course's own website and you have less influence over the students' experiences learning. Also, you don't have access to students' personal information and it is difficult to build a long-term relationship with would-be loyal clients.
OK, onto our second option (and my personal favorite due to evident reasons) A complete platform similar to .
2. Selling online courses with an all-in-one solution
includes all the course creation tools you need with none of the hassles with technical aspects that come with WordPress or the complexities of an online marketplace.
You can do:
Pay your bill via Stripe or PayPal payment processors with no additional fee for transactions with paid plans.
Contrary to WordPress, creating and launching an entirely new course no coding is not a problem, and it's simple to start quickly.
It's easy to include new content from your course to your site.
On the dashboard On your dashboard, you can click "Products" in the top right corner of the navigation. After that, select "New item" on the right side of the page.
Select "Online course" assign the course a title, then select "Create the product".
On"Availability," under "Availability" tab You can choose the course's visibility along with availability, start and dates.
When these data are entered into and uploaded, simply click "Publish" in the upper-right corner. Then, select "Publish". Just as that, the course is live.
It's that easy.
Do not just believe me for it, though. Join a free account to test it out for yourself.
Choose an online course platform which is suitable for you
If it's about hosting services, WordPress dominates the internet. Does that mean it's the right platform for selling online courses?
There's no universal online learning platform. They all come with pros and cons -- and WordPress is no exception:
With over 58,000 pluginsto choose from, WordPress gives you a wide range of options to personalize your website.
WordPress has been SEO-friendly since the beginning, meaning you don't have to spend long hours enhancing your site to be optimized for SEO.
Most plugins and themes are licensed each year. This means following the initial costs for startup your monthly expenses are low.
However, WordPress offers limited creator support, especially if you're using several plugins.
WordPress's open-source code makes it insecure. Additionally, WordPress websites don't automatically have SSL encryption.
To fully customize your WordPress site, you'll need an understanding of basic programming which will result in a long learning curve in technical terms.
When you're done with the day, the decision of the best location and method for hosting the online course will come down to what's best for the budget you have set, your bandwidth, and objectives. If you're able to code and aren't afraid of tackling technical uncertainties, WordPress might be the right choice for you.
However, if you're trying to streamline every aspect of creating, hosting, and marketing your online course, I'd like to invite you to take a look . Begin your journey for no cost today . We'll be there all the way, and we can't wait to see what you create.