"Hot and New"

Hello, all

My course has just gone live but it cannot be seen on the first two pages. I've had to search for the key words in it in order to find it.

I see there is a section called "Hot and New" courses. Is there any way I can have my course appear

here or is there another way to make my course immediately visible?

I'd appreciate anyone's help or thoughts.

Have a happy day!

Noleen

Comments

  • Thor
    Thor Posts: 2,319 rolemodel rank

    You course will appear in search results based on how it performs (mostly sales).

    Hot and New is for courses less than 60 days that performs well in their category.

    Visibility is really tied to sales, you need to kickstart the algorithm by driving some sales, then Udemy may/will start promoting the course and assuming it does well on sales on its own it will rank up.

    https://support.udemy.com/hc/en-us/articles/229605188-Udemy-Badges-Guide

  • Hi Thor

    Thanks for your reply.

    Please talk to me like I'm stupid (because quite frankly when it comes to tech matters - I am!). What does kickstart the algorithm mean and how do I go about doing this?

    I don't really understand after having read the article.

    With thanks,

    Noleen

  • @NoleenDaya
    - Basically he means that Udemy is probably not going to promote your course until you get quite a few sales and your ratings are strong (4.4 or higher). By "kickstarting" he probably means you need to tell others about your course, through your own advertising and not expect Udemy to do it (because they probably won't), at least initially.

  • Thanks so much, Randy. Now I understand. Back to the drawing board I go!

  • When you have just launched a course - it is usually "invisible" in search mechanism for a few days (according to my experience), except for you and people directly following your link. Very soon, you will get a label "New" by definition, and people will be able to find you in that category. Label "New and hot" is something you have to earn during the first 1.5-2months, depending on your sales. At least, that is my understanding.

  • Thanks so much, Boris. This puts me at ease a bit. Just to clarify....are you saying that from your experience, Udemy will automatically include the course name in the "new" category within a few days of the course going live?

    Sorry if I'm asking the same question twice but I'm very new to this want to be sure. I'll get better.

    Many thanks again

    Noleen

  • Yes - that will be done automatically - probably they need some time to incorporate you within their system. At least - that's how I understand the process.

  • Hi Nolene,

    The best thing you can do right now is is have your course 'Free' in the Pricing. With all of the Black Friday promotions you will have a lot more people coming to udemy and searching for what they hope will be a good deal. A lot of people will sign up for a free course and not actually use it, but they then have parked it in there are lifetime available courses so that if they want to do it when it is not free they still have free access. The benefit for you is that more people get to know about your course but also on your landing page for example if you have 1000 students enrolled even if they were free they show up as enrolled students which is a good thing. If even 1% do the course and give you a rating you will have 10 ratings more than if you have no students. Some instructors have spoken about having trolls sign up and affect their ratings but I have not had a problem with trolls.

    Also set up a LinkedIn page or use your personal profile to promote your course using appropriate hashtags and do the same thing on Facebook.

  • Hello, Jeremy

    Thanks so much for your reply.

    Although I'm not keen to go "free" you make alot of sense. I guess it's because in freelance writing I was taught if you "believe you have a good article, don't under sell yourself". I do realise this is a different ball game.

    If my course does not have any sales by mid week then I will offer it for free, even if it's only until after the Black Friday period.

    All the best

    Noleen

  • Thank you all for all of your advice. I am preparing to publish my second course and learning how best to do it with the best result.

  • Of course, nothing should be free. When I advertise my own links at discount I call them a 'sponsored price of $xx' not as free or discounted

    Sounds more noble than I guess it is, but even if one person who would have paid signs up for free, I have definitely invested in them

    There is, however, something gratifying in knowing there are three thousand people out there getting project management training they may not have had.

    JP