Thousands of Students but Barely Any Reviews? What’s Holding Your Course Back?

Hi fellow instructors!

I’ve been noticing a common trend across some really great courses:
Hundreds or even thousands of enrollments, but only a handful of reviews.

As you probably know, reviews are one of the biggest trust signals for potential students. Without them, even the best content can get overlooked.

So here’s my question:
👉 What are you currently doing to turn your enrollments into reviews?
👉 Have you found any strategy that actually works without violating Udemy’s policies?

I work closely with Udemy instructors to organically boost reviews, increase course visibility, and help you reach badges like “Highest Rated” or even “Best Seller.” If you're curious about how that works, I’m happy to share insights and examples.

Let’s help each other grow!

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RonErez

That’s great! Would you mind sharing some of your own tips or experiences? This message feels a bit like an ad. Also, is your course a best seller? I’ve found that it’s not too hard to follow the rules or get reviews, just focus on making a really great course.

ChrisBankes120

One tip is to make the course really short. A student is more likely to finish such a course and thus more likely to leave a review.
A second tip is to try and ensure students start a course. To leave a review you need never to have looked at the course BUT if you have started, a review is more likely. (I have a course with 20,000+ students on and 99% have yet to start)

A third tip is to have a lecture showing how to leave a review, unprompted ie what to click etc.

LawrenceMMiller

I don't see any change in the ratio of reviews to enrollments which stands at 30%. It has been the same for many years.

I don't see why this is a concern at all. If you have a lower ratio of reviews it is probably because you have been giving away free coupons. Students who enroll for free neither watch the course nor leave reviews. What works is creating a quality course that appeals to students, within that course building a relationship with the student.

Col (Dr) Shabbar Shahid (Veteran)

["I work closely with Udemy instructors to organically boost reviews, increase course visibility, and help you reach badges like “Highest Rated”or even “Best Seller.”]

Sounds Strange. Is this permitted by Udemy? Highest rated or Best seller badges can be obtained with assistance of this person? Quality is no criteria?

@MarinaT Can you please throw some light on this.

macaulayfamous

@RonErez I doubt he's actually an instructor who creates courses; he might just be one of those Instagram or LinkedIn Udemy course promoters.

KevinBurns301

Hi Phillip,

I ask for reviews in posts etc. I have had some success with that. But I will say it is disheartening when some courses have over 2,000 reviews. I mean, how can new courses compete with that? I have had courses that are "Highest Rated," many times at this point. I am proud of that. But I would love to be "Best Seller," once or more. Becoming a Best Seller seems very difficult unless you have a huge Twitter following or some other Community that you have started. I have YouTube channels that I hope are feeding my courses, but it is often difficult to tell if people are moving from one SNS platform to Udemy or not.

KevinBurns301

There are a lot of quality courses with no or few students. I think for the instructors who started 10-15 years ago, that is a huge advantage they have over new instructors who may even have better courses.

KevinBurns301

I like Chris's idea of making a video, showing how to leave a review. I may try that. I have hundreds of reviews on some courses, and 10s of reviews on others, but it has always been difficult to get reviews. Most people are busy and don't want to write a review. I try to make my courses as good as possible, so hopefully they will feel inspired to leave a great review.