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My husband and I built a local music school that has been running for over 10 years now, and we've been spending every hour and dollar into growing it. As I'm sure you can imagine, we've been hit really hard with multiple lockdowns and have had to close. Though this gave me the time to really work on my dream of publishing a course, and a book. Prototypes and creating my layout Creating resources and doing voice-overs Shooting the Course I spent lockdown creating my Udemy course, and now with the time to set up and shoot videos, I was able to get it done the way I wanted. My Music Course has just launched a few days ago, and I'm really happy with how it looks on Udemy.   Although it has been hard to see the school doors close in a physical sense, we are moving everything online, and Udemy will be a big part in that.   It's been a while, but I feel optimistic about the future, and growing my student base, not just in my local area, but across the globe. Maybe lockdown has been an opportunity for other Udemy members too?
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Hi Everyone This is the story of my journey on Udemy to earning my first $1000. This post is almost long overdue. I wanted to write this post at the start of Aug, but I got very busy with my next course. I am going to start at the beginning.   I graduated from university majoring in Mechanical Engineering in 2015. I had no idea where my life would take me five years later. Having found no job in Afghanistan and desperate to work, I found myself teaching 4th, all the way to 10th graders at school. I started teaching basic computer skills and the English language. In a matter of five months, I wrote six books on office and some necessary software. There were no books in the school curriculum of Afghanistan for computer so I had to come up with some to teach.   Right after the school year ended, I found myself diving more and more into computer science and software engineering. I learned HTML, CSS and JavaScript in just a month and started teaching them by the end of 2015. I think I binge studied them. These technologies were like nothing I had encountered before. I mean I had learned 2D and 3D modelling in AutoCAD, SolidWorks and Pro-E along with 2D and 3D analysis of Structures in AnSYS when I was in university. But, HTML/CSS/JavaScript had very different tones to them. After a year of studying and teaching at schools and universities, I became a full stack web developer. It was such an honor and an incredibly challenging task in Afghanistan at the same time.   It was the start of 2017, where I thought of getting a scholarship and take my skills to the next level. So, I decided to take the TOEFL test and I did. It was almost the same time when I started having chronic lower back pain. I was studying more and more everyday and the sitting was killing my lower back. I was sort of an athlete when I was in university. I ran a lot and did bodybuilding as well. But sitting made me familiar with the physical pain. It has been 3.5 years and I still get the pain but it is not chronic anymore. It comes and goes. Last year I went to Kabul and visited a doctor among other doctors over the years. He was the first one to tell me that I have a spinal abnormality. I have an extra lumbar vertebra, a sixth one like there were not enough already. And that guy is causing the pain. He told me if I am not careful, I might end up with a spinal surgery. It is very difficult to be careful about your health and program at the same time and live in Afghanistan with no resources at all.   Anyway, I did not let the pain stop me and self-studied TOEFL, which was nothing new at that time (the self-studying part) and scored 98. I could not get any scholarship and one year passed. It was start of 2018 when I found a scholarship to study in Japan. I studied IELTS and scored 7.5 and I still did not get the scholarship. I realized, if there is anyone or anything that is going to change my life, it has to be me, no scholarship, no nothing. So, I started studying Data Science and Machine Learning which was really interesting for me and still is. But what I got from the Japan scholarship was the light of my life, I met my wife who is the best scholarship I can get and got married after 5 months. In the march on 2019, I hurt my knee badly. Multiple injuries. Torn meniscus, torn ligament, displaced kneecap and a few minor ones. I could not afford knee surgery so I let it heal itself. It did heal to some extent, but in the process, I hurt the left knee. Subsequently, I suffer from pain in both of the knees and the back every day.   It was towards the end of 2019 when I stumbled upon Udemy and the idea of teaching on Udemy. It took a month to create a compartment to record. It was in the preparation for teaching on Udemy that I understood the true meaning of difficult. I searched for days on in my city and other cities and I could not find any good microphones to record. Finally, I found used (second hand) headphones just to realize my laptop does not record well. I must have changed the OS tens of times along with the drivers but nothing changed. I had saved almost $1.5k and I had already spent $600 on the compartment and bought the laptop for almost $950 (borrowed 50 bucks). The laptop is quite fast. Intel core i7+ (12 CPUs), 16BG Intel Optane Memory (IRST), 8GB physical RAM and 1TB HDD and 2GB dedicated GTX graphics. The laptop can handle mountains but not recording apparently. So, I decided to record the audio on my smartphone and synchronize it with the video. This is when I brought my brother into the equation. He is very good with the Adobe Realm and is also working on his Udemy courses. So, that’s how it all started.   Here is me sitting in my 1.5m by 2m studio built with the technology of 21st century in Afghanistan.   Nonetheless, the most challenging problem was yet to come. It was the month of Feb of 2020 when I was hit the hardest in my entire new life (development). The Udemy website was blocked in Afghanistan. The reason that this was the strongest punch thrown at me, was the very fact that I could not do anything about. I checked all the ISPs in Afghanistan and nothing could open Udemy. I could log in through some kind of VPN service, but I was not about to do that because I thought doing that is unethical and I might get banned from the platform. So, naturally, I got depressed. I did not eat for days and stopped working and studying altogether. I drowned into the horrors of not being able to change myself, my life and the life of people around me for the better. I tasted the bitterness of this world. I sank into the notion that I am good for nothing and no matter what I do, life in Afghanistan will always prevail over me. It was the worst weeks of my life. My wife helped a lot and never gave up on me, encouraged me as always, but I was drowning deeper that even I had realized.   After almost a month, one day my wife told me that Udemy is working again and I could log into my account once more. I remember the moment clearly. It was like someone blew life into my lungs again and I was able to breathe again. I was hit the hardest because when I saw Udemy and the potential of having a wonderful life, I was mesmerized. I knew at that moment that teaching on Udemy is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I had a clear picture of my life’s purpose and why I was born.   The first course was published on Apr 6th and after two days I earned $20 with no prior online presence including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. I removed my Facebook account in 2018. It was basically a waste of my time. My course grew more and more. I got more and more students. On the 31st of July, I released my second course and earned almost $95 in half a day. The courses are growing rapidly and so is my excitement. I teach 57 countries and 312 students in just 4 months.   Here is a screenshot of my earnings so far. I hope I can inspire at least one person in the world. If I can do it in Afghanistan, so can you.   At the end I want to thank dear Abbie and dear ElianaC for being there for me and answering my questions. I also would like to thank the Udemy policy and instructor support teams and all of Udemy deeply for inspiring people around the world and providing opportunities to learn and grow. I also would like to extend my gratitude to all of my fellow instructors and thank you for your posts and guidance. You have helped me a ton, literally.   Love from Afghanistan
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Hi    I am happy to share I have completed, my first month as Udemy Instructor and have reached 5000 paid student milestone as well with enrolments from 59 countries.   Really thankful to Udemy for creating this wonderful platform & changing lives of millions of students, and thousands of instructors.  The insights and analytics dashboards are great, and shows how students are progressing in a course. Here are few things that helped me to reach milestone without spending on paid advts. - Build a active community of people on LinkedIn - Keep sharing valuable learning content - Host free LIVE Sessions/ Workshops on youtube - and Yes, bring your A Game in making a course  Once again Thank you Udemy & Instructor Community!
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    When I created and published my first course 2 years ago on Udemy, I expected my market to be fairly limited and sales to be lukewarm. If someone told me that in a couple of years I would be sitting at $100k earnings (much higher number in terms of sales) I would have referred that person to a psychiatrist. Thanks Udemy for providing this excellent platform and helping instructors like me build their brands and a viable income stream.   My sales started slow (first few months) but they scaled really nicely post the Black Friday and Year End sales in 2019. The UFB was a welcome addition but the pandemic really hit the ball out of the park. The sales have slowed since then but they are still at acceptable level and I trust the think tank at Udemy to take the right decisions. I have a demanding full time job (which I plan on keeping) and therefore I rely completely on Udemy for marketing and promotions and so far they have done a darn good job at it.    Note to new instructors. 1) Creating and supporting courses is a lot of hard work and it should not be thought of as a passive income stream. 2) Take the reviews and feedbacks positively. It will help you become a better instructor. Always remember that your average student has likely purchased the course from the Rockstar instructors as well and you can't blame them for comparing your courses with theirs. 3) Actively supporting the course (answering questions, incorporating suggestions) wins you a lot of goodwill and helps with your brand. Very important for new instructors. 4) Keep upgrading your older courses. I cringe at some of my earlier videos as my inexperience comes across quite clearly. Also the obsolescence rate keeps increasing and I need to update lectures which may have used tools/packages which are not supported anymore.  
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Thought I would share a milestone that is exciting for me. I just passed 300,000 lifetime students on Udemy! It's truly incredible. When I published my first course from my small desk next to my bed in my apartment, I never imagined even approaching such a number.   I took a several year hiatus from producing new content, but this milestone coincides with work I'm doing currently to finish my first new course in 6 years! I'm so excited to release something new.   Here's a few lessons I've learned:   Don't worry so much about how many others are teaching the topic you want to teach. That just shows that a topic is popular. What matters is the quality of your content. Make the course that you wish you would have had on that topic. There's likely others out there like you. Don't fret so much about pricing on Udemy. Focus on building an audience, as that's where the real success lies. Don't be afraid to share a portion of your content for free on YouTube or elsewhere. Be confident in your content, and use it to convince potential students to buy the full course. While you should file takedown requests, don't lose your mind worrying about pirating. Most people who download pirated content wouldn't have paid for it anyway. And some people just might appreciate your content enough that they decide to pay for it afterwards and now you've gained audience (that's happened to me many times). Don't worry about how much each individual student is paying for a course. Think of each new student as audience growth for your next course. Teach what you know and love: it will come out in the course, and you'll have greater enjoyment in the long-term support of the course, such as answering student questions.   Happy course production! My new sound tent for recording my new courses. A far cry from where I started!    
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Today we bought our dream house, and it might be one of the greatest moments in my life. Some people will think: "What? Did you buy a house with money from online courses? You must be joking!"   But that's exactly what we did. And it's all thanks to our students and, of course, Udemy.   Udemy has been an excellent platform for me to share my knowledge with others and make an income at the same time. It's allowed me to reach people from all over the world and help them learn new skills and improve their lives.   I want to say a big thank you to Udemy. Your platform has allowed me to achieve my goals and dreams, and I'm really grateful for that.   So thanks, Udemy, for creating such a great opportunity for my family and me. We're looking forward to using our new home as a base to continue making an impact in the world.  Best, Karoly  
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Many people, especially young instructors, ask how much can they earn on the course, why the courses do not explode and that sort of questions.    During my first mentoring session with Scott Harris (as an award for Journey to Black Friday Challenge), he mentioned a lot of building the audience.    Since February is not a perfect month of organic sales, also for the launch of a new course, I decided to put the extra effort and develop my audience more.   This is a long term strategy, but let me share the action samples that gave me the growth in February. Actually, you can observe, how my activities influence the sales:      I want to share with you Guys, what way i have chosen, what was going on and how did I found the response:   1. I spent a week trying to figure out improving the quality of my youtube live sessions using DSLR.  Invested in HDMI grabber (BTW. thanks Jason Dion for the model recommendation).  A week later, after around 100 attempts, finally, the quality of the live stream was as I wanted,   2. Decided to focus on my youtube audience more (my channel is a small expert corner, I upload new episodes 2-3 times per week), encouraged to join my new facebook group by contests, tools, and challenges.  Then I introduced live stream weekly program and also topic months (Feb was only for aerial photography, March is for begginers with a few experts tips, etc). That is a long term strategy to establish a membership site eventually...   3. So what are the first impressions:    - longer youtube sessions, especially live weekly programs give me great effects, this is an easy way to interact, classify the audience and build a more involved community and that is what we need for our courses. Even if a number of views is not massive, the watch time grows. I put a lot of effort to encourage, interact with the audience, notify them and also organize challenges, inform of specific facts,    - there is also a magical, thin line to not overwhelm the audience, but to create the interest,     - I found also that topic months are great for both sides. During February I created the course of aerial photography, but in the meantime, based on the same recording sessions & footage, I created several Youtube episodes. Each of youtube episodes refers to the course but gives the value as well. Each of them involves the audience and calls to act (eg. challenges with small awards),   - my total youtube visits nr was 25,5 K with 100 K minutes watched, each of the episodes includes a small reference to the online courses, but what is more important, the sales ratio develops slowly.    As an effect the new course launch goes nice, it is NEW and HOT, my promotions gave me decent effects,  also decided to increase the price of my coupons from 9,99 to 11,99 USD.  Hope you will find inspiration and answer how to sell more.   Thanks for Scott Harris, Caroline  Walthall, and Jason Dion for an advice.    Sincerely,    Rafal     
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My latest course got Udemy's badge "Hot & New"  Here's what I did to get it! Recently, I've been participating regularly with my drawing posts on one of Facebook drawing groups. As my posts there were so engaging, I decided to post about my new course after publishing it on Udemy! So I posted a catchy image of my drawing and I posted that I have this new course where I teach realistic food drawing with ink markers and that I need their help to review the course! Here's exactly what I posted in the group:   It's win-win! 20 people will take the course and give me reviews! And at the same time I've marketed to the course in an indirect way. That's because when the free coupons were sold out, those who were interested in the course have ordered using the discount link. By the way, I was so happy to receive comments from people who said that they don't want to disappoint me by enrolling in the course and not able to watch it and review it! This was really honest! This reminded me of my first courses when I used to share free coupons on Facebook groups that are created for sharing free Udemy courses; something that I realized is terribly bad. That's because you get students enrolled in your course only because it's free although they wouldn't be at all interested in it. Consequently, you get a large number of students with ZERO  review and minimum or no student progression. On the other hand, when I started to share free and discount coupons on Facebook groups that are specialized in the fields of my courses (polymer clay and drawing), I got students who are interested in my courses and who wrote me reviews. They got benefited from the course and I got reviews which are so important for further marketing and sales. Besides, people who missed the free course have bought it because they grew interested in it. On sharing your course's link on Facebook groups, take into consideration that: Some groups' rules don't accept sharing links or selling, you've to respect that! It's better to be an active member on the group from the begining. It'd not be decent to post on the group for the first time just to sell your course there. Be kind first! I've been on Udemy for only one year and I'm still learning more and more every day! As I'm a relatively new teacher here, I wanted to share this marketing tip with those who might be new or still haven't enough audience to market to! Hope you find it useful!  
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Firstly I am happy to have my courses on the Udemy Marketplace. In my 3 years of creating course materials I have learned the following points and  I hope it can help new and aspiring creators to make better courses from the get-go so here goes.   1. Always keep the student in mind and try and simplify the material   2. If you are using a screencast video, generally engagement will be low as viewers may get bored, alternate between screencast and stock video. Or just bite the bullet and record with the camera on. I have found students completion rates are much higher for courses that have video recording. It took me almost 8 months to brave the camera but it was worth it. The courses where I face the camera reached best-seller must faster and have a higher enrolment rate.   3. Ensure you use stock videos and pictures which are either free for commercial use or ones you have purchased. A great source for free images and video is pixabay and Pexels .    4.For simple animations and intro-videos you can use softwares that add extra professional look. It's easy to use and saved me tons of money than hiring a video editor to do intro videos and animations. You can get started for as low as a dollar.    5. For presentations and templates use canva. It can help save a lot of time making slides and worksheets. You can get started for free and then upgrade according to your requirement. Nowadays you can even use canva's presenter option to record your presentations.   6. Try and bring your own story and personality to the surface to engage better with the students. Including examples of own life, experiences helps build student rapport.   7. Don't wait for your course to be perfect to publish it. Start with what you have and work on getting your course out there. You can always improve based on student feedback and update your course   8.Always keep a hard disk and back up your videos to ensure that you don't lose them or they get corrupted    9. Investing in a ring light and a microphone can help the quality of your audio/video and the sooner you do it the better and more time you will save editing. The blue yeti is a good microphone to get started with .   10. Success may not happen overnight so don't be discouraged. It takes a little while for students to find your course and enroll. Having a good promo video can help.    So these are the top 10 learnings I can share with any new instructor. Hope they help you in your journey of course creation,   Wishing you a Merry Christmas and A Happy Prosperous New Year!   Author: Jasmine Bayer (@JasmineBayer)
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We often discuss whether sales are going up or down and we discuss a lot of factors over which we have no control, such as Udemy’s advertising, the pandemic, etc. But we do not often discuss how our own work product determines the rate of sales. So, I thought it would be worth making a list of instructor’s “controllable” factors that will determine the rate of sales of a course.   Let’s do a survey. Assume you are launching a new course, so it has no current students and no ratings to begin with. Let’s not discuss inclusion in UFB because that will come later. What will impact its initial sales?   Please reply by stating the numbers of those you think are most impactful in order of important… #1, 2, etc. Pick your top five factors in order. Or, add to the list if you like. If you suggest an additional factor, I will add it to the list in this message so others can rate it.   Topic title (with key words) Subtitle Written course description. Category in which the course falls Quality of the promo video – video technical quality Quality of promo – explanation of content and benefits Quality of the promo – personality/style of the instructor Quality of other sample videos Instructor’s bio/resume/CV Instructor’s prior ratings and courses List price of the course Length of the course (longer) Length of the course (shorter) Number of competing courses Rating of competing courses Instructor’s marketing efforts – YouTube Instructor’s marketing efforts – mail list Instructor’s marketing efforts – website Instructor’s paid ads (Facebook, etc.)   Author: @LawrenceMMiller    @Mufaddal: Here is my top 5 in descending order of their impact to sales Irrespective of Udemy or self hosted site    1, Category and level of interest in market  for the course or topics 2. Level of awareness about the instructor and courses - Reach - Mailing list, youtube, Linkedin etc  3. Instructor bio- Trust is huge factor. Once students trust to be an authority or someone worth listening to and learn they will keep on buying. 4. Ratings and Reviews  5. Competition    @Marious: Here is my list: 11, 1, 12, 9, 4 For me it is all about advertising the course and targeting it.   If targeted by Udemy, I will get a lot of sales... Udemy is really good at targeting people with ads. It is much harder for individual instructors... It is enough to look at Black Friday (not a year ago, but 3-4 years ago...) - crazy results! I do not want to panic (yet), I want to wait till the next big promotion from Udemy but my current results show huge drops despite my efforts in publishing new courses. I want to wait till the next big sale by Udemy to see if this trend keeps going    So from things I can control it is all about the price and showing that students own this course forever and can rely on me (I think it would be a good option to be added - active support from an instructor). So in a way it is about advertising Udemy as a great platform, showing the benefits, and saying there is a cool course that I actively support.   From marketing tools, Facebook worked for me a few years ago but no crazy results...   I think owning is a key factor here - I have heard a lot of comments from students from Udemy and outside of Udemy saying that they like to own a course, it feels better than 'renting' it for 2 months - they feel some kind of a connection. I get that and like it. On the other hand a lot of people enjoy UfB, I used to make a lot of money of it (not the case anymore and I have no control over it, unfortunately - 50% drop for me).   Also, try a number of things and see what works for you. Try new titles, new projects, and new ideas.    Thanks Lawrence for an interesting topic!   @Rahul Iyer: Hi @LawrenceMMiller ,    This is an excellent list. In my opinion, all the factors you've listed are important. Not one  can be singled out. The best part is if we control these factors (which are rightly in our total control), Udemy does it's part very well. Some may not agree to my statement. But if it is an in-demand topic and all these factors are taken care off, we are making it easier for Udemy to market our courses. Thanks again!    Regards,  Rahul  
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I see a lot of people asking, "Why didn’t my course succeed on Udemy?"   Honestly, though, this question often comes too late for us to help them because they have already filmed and published a course. They have spent countless hours and effort to build this course, and they are discouraged because it didn't get a bunch of students buying it up in the first week.     So, with that in mind, here are my four tips for increasing your chances of success onUdemy based on my experience. It is a long read, but worth your time and consideration before you start filming.   (Following all of these tips will NOT guarantee success, but they will certainly put you in a much higher chance of finding success here on Udemy. Remember, Udemy is a crowded place these days with 100k courses from 50k instructors...how will you stand out and succeed?)   Please please please, follow these tips in order. After all, if you don’t get Tip 1 right, the rest of this post doesn’t even matter...   (1) Proper category selection.    This is probably the number one mistake of new instructors on Udemy. People think, “Hey, I know Java and the top Java course makes like $90k a month. I want some of that sweet sweet Java $$, so let me throw together a 3 hour course on it, publish it, and I am going to be instantly rich!”   What they don’t realize is topics like Java, Web Development, iOS Developer and Python are highly competitive topics with 500-1000 courses already released and in the marketplace on each of them. This means you are likely to get buried in the noise (sheer volume of available courses) and no one will be able to find your course. This equates to low or no sales.   Instead, you really need to find a topic that isn’t overcrowded and make a name for yourself there. The topics I have had the most success with (translation: the one with courses making large amounts of money if we measure success by revenue) is categories with less than 10-20 courses in them. Once you find a category like this that you are knowledgeable and can teach, we can then move on to step 2...   (2) Make a better course than what is out there.    Once I find a category, I actually watch the top 1-5 courses for that category (at least their free preview videos). I analyze their course and ask myself, “Self, if I were to make a course on this particular topic, could I do it better than this instructor?”   My first breakout hit for a course was in a topic with only 10-15 courses in it. The #1 course made around $3000/month, and when I watched the previews for that course I was bored. The videography was ok, the audio was ok, but the presentation was outright BORING. I knew I could create a better course than that instructor, so I built one. Within 3 months, my course became #1 for that category and has been my top selling course ever since. (Oddly enough, the top course revenue went up significantly as a result to, moving to 2x the previous top revenue because now there was a better option for students to buy, which in turned increased conversations for this topic area across the Udemy platform.   Now, the hard part here is that there are some categories I found that “looked” like a good opportunity (high demand from students and low number of courses), but the leading course was already very good. For some of these topics, I opted to ignore these categories because I didn’t think I could take the top spots from the existing courses. Could I make a great course? Sure. Could I make one significantly better than the existing leader? Probably not.   When you look at these existing courses, you have to be truly realistic in your approach. I have considered making a Python course before. Python is one of the most searched terms on Udemy and may be the single best selling topic on the platform, BUT the top courses are already REALLY REALLY good. I mean, Jose's Python course is top notch. Could I make a really good course, too? Sure, but there are already so many good courses (and literally hundreds of Python courses on Udemy already), I would likely get buried in the noise, so I don't make Python courses.   Let's take for example, a topic like ITIL 4 Foundation (my #1 course). If you look at the Insights tool for you would think this is clearly a topic you should make a course for. Low number of courses and high demand. But, you would be wrong...   Why? Because the top course is my course. It has great visuals, an energetic and well liked instructor, and exceptional video quality. The course is a complete study solution, where I give the student all the videos needed to pass the exam, quizzes, 2 practice exams, and a downloadable study guide. I give students so much value for their money, it would be hard to displace me from this top spot, because there isn't much you can do to give more value than I already have.    Now, if you are a brand new course creator, it is going to be hard for you to steal students from me. In fact, 9 out of 10 people who search the word ITIL on Udemy end up buying one of my courses. When I have spoken with Udemy has told me, “You clearly dominate this topic.”   But even beyond me thinking my course is the best,  (and students agreeing), you have another challenge in entering this particular topic. This topic is regulated by Axelos, owners of the ITIL brand. If you publish a course there without their authorization and approval, they will have Udemy remove your course under copyright infringement. So again, not a topic you want to join unless you jump through the very time consuming and expensive process of becoming “authorized” by Axelos to teach ITIL. (The same holds true for the CEH certificatoin for those in the IT space who want to teach hacking.)   (3) Make courses people actually want/need.    This may sound stupid, but do people want/need your course? If you are making a course on Underwater Basket Weaving, will anyone want or need it? Is there a big enough audience to support it?   I personally make most of my courses on IT certifications because it gives me a natural audience who is searching for courses to pass these exams. People go to Udemy everyday to search for “CompTIA Project+” or “AWS Associate”.    When you are starting out, people will find your course because of your topic. This is why finding a topic with less than 20 courses is so crucial, because it virtually guarantees you will be one page 1 of the search for that term. Over time, as you become more known and liked by student, then they start searching for you and you can break my 10-20 courses in a topic recommendation.    For example, many of my student search “jason dion python” or “Jason dion Java” because they want to learn those topics AND they want to learn them from me. (They won't find one, because I don't have those courses, but they keep searching.)   Going back to our Java discussion at the beginning of this thread, I now have a big enough following that I could launch a Java course and do pretty well. I won’t knock out the top guy, but I could probably make a few thousand $ a month with one because enough students know me and would buy a course in that topic from me at this point. But if I was where I was 2-3 years ago, forget it. That same course (regardless of how good I made it) would earn me maybe $100/month if I was lucky, and I would be on page 5, 10, or 15 of the search results. It would be very hard for students to find it and discover me.    (4) Happy students.    The last strategy I use is that I put my students first. I give them a complete course, a full study solution, in their Udemy course. I answer their questions. I support them in our FB group, etc.    These students are my biggest marketing effort. Just go into any CompTIA Facebook group and ask what you should study if you are going to take the CompTIA Security+ exam. I bet within the first 5 comments you get at least 3 of them saying “Jason Dion’s course on Udemy”.    This is marketing for me. Now, I don't get 97% because they didn’t use one of my coupon links (I am not the one marketing in these groups), but these recommendations are all over Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, and LinkedIn, an they are all driving warm traffic back to my website and Udemy’s looking for my courses.    You have to be patience with this strategy though. It doesn’t happen overnight. These students took my course, passed their exam, and now they share the good news of "Jason's courses" with others because my courses worked for them. For that to happen, it takes 3-6 months from their first purchase, so you have to be patience. But, once the flow of recommendations starts to flow (you’ve primed the pump), it becomes a snowball effect.   Bottom Line:   I am not saying to go create courses in areas you are not an expert in. Please don't read it that way. I am not trying to make you a mercenary for hire. But, I do want you to consider all the things you COULD teach before deciding on a particular category. Your BEST thing, the thing you are the biggest expert in, may not be your best choice on Udemy because the market is too crowded in that topic.   For example, I have a friend who has been teaching Web Developement (HTML and JavaScript) for a few decades. He is an excellent teacher, and makes outstanding courses, but that is a tough topic to succeed in. Should he go teach a cooking class instead if that has high demand and less competition? Well, maybe...   This particular person is skilled in many things. He has been an online instructor probably longer than anyone else I know. He knows how to do some amazing things in Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, and Audition. He knows how to program computers. He knows how to run a profitable business. He knows management and human resources from running his companies. He knows educational design and learning management systems. You get the idea...this guy knows a lot of things. I just listed 6-10 different topics he could teach, teach well, and with expertise.    Most of us are like this. I look at my own background, and I have 20+ IT Certifications across cyber security, IT service management, and project management. I also can play guitar, run a business, manage people, do videography, and numerous other things that I could  teach.   So, when I started making courses on Udemy, I looked at various topics. My third course (which became my best seller) was on ITIL. It is something I had done at my job for over 10 years. It wasn't the thing I was most passionate or excited about, but it was a high demand area with a low number of courses. Yes, I have expertise in it, and I am certified in it, so I decided to make a course on it....and it paid off (big time).    That is my point here, because I could have created another Web Development course, or Java course, or Python courses, but I didn't. Even though I am knowledgeable about those things, I knew I would be fighting an uphill battle teaching them. For example, I used to own my own web development company. I have been a web programmer since the late 90s. I definitely could create a "Complete Guide to Web Development" course if I wanted to. The same with Java or Python, I program in both of those languages, but it doesn't mean they will provide me the best return on my time investment by creating courses on them. Some things may be good topics, but they may not be good FOR YOU.    Now, when I say things like this, I often get the objection, "But Jason, the only thing I know is Python", or Java, or Web Development. To that I say, "Well, nothing says you have to be on Udemy." Yes, I know this is a Udemy platform I am writing this on, but remember, no one is forcing you to use Udemy. Udemy is awesome, but if you are going to spend 50-200 hours building a course and get ZERO traction because you are hidden in a sea of other courses, then maybe you need to find your own path...or be prepared to market the heck out of the course yourself on Udemy.    Either is fine, but remember, if you are making the next Web Dev, Java, or Python course, you better have a plan for how you are going to be found and how you will stick out among 500+ other courses on that topic. If you think you will just click "Publish" and students will flock to your courses in these highly competitive topics, you are going to be sadly disappointed, I promise you.    I hope this helps some of you out there as you embark on your Udemy journey, Jason Dion   Author: @JasonDion 
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I've gotten this comment many times myself, so you may be wondering, what should I do?   First, you have to decide if the delivery was really a problem or if it is just this student. I have had students tell me that I talk too fast, and others say I talk too slow. Obviously, I can’t make both of these groups of students happy, so I decided to simply talk at the speed that is comfortable for me. In the case of delivery speed, it is an easy fix since the video player allows students to playback the video at 0.75x or 1.5x, too. I also mention this in my introduction video, and the complaints about delivery speed have decreased. If you get complaints about your dialect or accent, you do have to remember that you are serving an international audience. I am an American and I had a British student complain because my slides used the word “color” instead of “colour”. Again, you can’t please everyone, so pick a format and go with it. I’ve also had complaints that my “accent” is hard to understand because I speak “American-ese”. If you have a thick accent, it can be beneficial to take some vocal courses that help you minimize your accent, since this will make you easier to understand regardless of where your student is in the world. Often, international students seek out “American” or “British” accents because they are more common and easy to understand in the global marketplace. If you get complaints that your delivery is “monotone” or “boring”, you should take that criticism and work to improve your delivery. Students want to be engaged and entertained. Try to use different peaks and valleys to your voice and tell stories as you teach. This will go a long way in creating engaging delivery.   Hopefully this helps a bit for some of you who are new to the platform and building your first courses. Remember, you can't please everyone, but do take the time to stop and think if they have a valid point! Jason   @Hypnodan: I occasionally get told I talk too slow, but for others that is what they say they like about my presentation. A couple of years ago I decided to make a YouTube video where I tried to talk as fast as I see other YouTubers talk. It was only a five minute video and it felt like it was going to kill me trying to keep up that speed for five minutes. I have never done that again and wouldn't do it for a course, but it was interesting that no-one seemed to notice I was talking fast (for me) and that I was struggling throughout the video.   I saw a post somewhere in this community a few weeks ago mentioning about mentioning that you can adjust video speed. I have obviously always known this, but for some reason never thought of it as a solution to suggest but think it is a great idea and will likely do this.   All the best Dan Author: @JasonDion 
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