How creating Udemy Courses will help your blog

I’ve been collecting Udemy courses for a little over a year now, and every time I see Free Udemy Courses being advertised I find myself sifting through the chaff to add yet another 3+ hours of learning to my growing collection.

I did reach a peak of almost 100 Udemy courses at one time but some have disappeared from my catalog which is ok because 300 hours of learning is a little daunting.

The problem with these free Udemy courses is you just don’t feel committed to actually ever finish the course because it never cost you anything in the first place.

One day I’ll get around to watching these courses, but in the meantime I’ve decided to start one myself.

Yes, I’m going to be an Udemy instructor and I’ll tell you why.

I’m doing it to establish my authority in the ‘learning’ space and hey I might even make some extra money along the way, which will be a bonus.

However, that’s not the only reason.

The Number One Reason to Create Udemy Courses

When you create a Udemy course you also become a Udemy Instructor and get a visible profile. This profile not only helps you to send a little more traffic to your blog, it also has a handy link back to your website and social profiles.

Yep, Udemy is an Authority Site and you’re getting a free backlink to your blog, which should help improve your search engine rankings.

Plus Udemy has over 8+ million students so that’s a lot of eyeballs, that could discover you.

A close second is you actually get access to your students via a mailing list a few times a month. Some Instructors claim to have taught over 60,000 students so that’s quite an email list wouldn’t you agree?

You’ll probably find your Udemy mailing list will be bigger than your blogging one, especially if you give your courses away for free.

Do you have something you can teach on Udemy?

Of course you do, everyone is an expert to someone. With over 32,000 courses online maybe you can find one similar to your special talent or passion and then create a better product.

Just because someone has already done it, doesn’t mean you can’t do a similar thing. Imagine only having one pizza shop in your town or just one Italian Restaurant to choose from and they serve substandard food.

You see it just doesn’t make sense to have ‘one’ because people like choice and similarly people enjoy the choices on Udemy.

What if you just have a product to sell.

Yes, that’s ok if your product is complicated enough and needs some instruction then go ahead and build a short course. Not only will you have a valuable resource you can give to your existing clients, you might find new clients who were just passing by.

One of the great features of Udemy is you can create courses and put a price on them or just as easily make them free. You can also create coupon codes so you can then use your course as a lead magnet.

I’ve actually seen people advertise their products through Udemy courses, teaching people the benefits of the product long before they’ve purchased it.

It’s a great marketing tactic really, so what opportunities are you missing?

How to get started with Udemy

Well as with anything new, you need to convince that little voice in your head that you can do it. Don’t worry that voice actually goes away when you get started.

Once you’ve decided it’s worth giving it a try then jump straight in.

You’ll first need to register an account and once it’s setup, look for the ‘Become and Instructor’ button in the top right-hand corner.  Go ahead and click it and you are ready to get started creating your course.

There are plenty of tutorials written by Udemy to help you along your journey because they want you to succeed and produce outstanding content for their platform. It’s a win-win really.

If you’re still feeling a little hesitant then just start with the ‘Course Roadmap’ and then move onto the creating the ‘Curriculum’

You’ll be surprised at how easy it is and you don’t need to finish it in one day, so just remember to save your work as you go along. It’ll still be there when you get back to it.

I’m giving myself a mini-goal of submitting my course for review within a week, but I’m going to repurpose some content to save some time.

Repurposing the OLD to create the NEW

I love repurposing old content and massaging it into something new.

As previously mentioned I have a few training videos that I’ll use in my Udemy Course. Then that Udemy course could become a module of my Blogger Training if I finally get around to finishing it.

Leveraging the content you’ve already done is a great way to keep the information flowing to your audience.

As I’ve already mentioned some of these posts from #Blogtober will be repromoted in the coming months so the content just keeps on giving.

When making video content for Udemy try to keep it generic and leave out any branding and if it doesn’t go as well as you thought, you can always repurpose it into an email training course or make the content a part of a membership site down the track.

A few  final words

Creating a Udemy course is great for your brand, can provide another source of income and can give you an authoritative backlink to your blog. And that’s before you see extra traffic flowing from that last lecture you included in your course.

You know, the one that has the shameless self-promotion and teaches your students about your other offerings, products and courses.

It’s what Gary Vaynerchuk likes to call the ‘Right Hook’. You’ve been jabbing the students the whole time with value bombs which leave them open to hearing more about you and what else you have to offer. Have a ‘Look Inside‘ his book on Amazon

You’ll find that most Udemy courses use this tactic, so the students won’t be surprised if you choose this path.

So now it’s over to you. Are you interested in creating a Udemy course to improve your brand? If so let me know in the comments below and I’ll keep my eye open for it.