Udemy

RandyMinder · ‎01-14-2022

@Bella - Thank you very much. For instructors in the United States, will Udemy also send the appropriate forms to the IRS or just to each instructor?

RandyMinder · ‎01-13-2022

Yes, most of those sales were bots. There is almost no reason whatsoever to offer a course for free. 99% of the signups are bots. You cannot promote to actual students that do signup for a free course. And the course is limited to 2 hours. New instructors often offer courses for free in hopes of getting reviews (good reviews of course). But, from what I've heard, this often backfires. I would suggest you never offer a course for free. I don't know what you mean by "...and/or offer a discount (to free) if a review is supplied after."

RandyMinder · ‎01-07-2022

It will have to be the very best ever because you are competing against over 3,000 Udemy courses that teach the exact same thing.

RandyMinder · ‎12-28-2021

Hi @ariyam66 - Have you checked to see how many of those 4000 students who signed up for your free course(s) have actually started the course? I think you will find that very few have. The problem is that when someone offers a free course, there are bots that automatically detect these free courses and sign up for them. These are not real people. I have no idea why this happens or why Udemy allows it to happen. This has happened to me. Early on I offered a free course and got almost 1000 "students". They were not real students. They were bot signups and none of those "students" ever actually started the course. This is one reason, among several, offering free courses is not a great idea.

RandyMinder · ‎12-24-2021

@DamiMayo - My first two thoughts are this: 1) Your course is in Spanish. Udemy is primarily an English speaking site with English based courses 2) If I was able to translate your course title correctly it means "Virtual Private Server Administration for WordPress" - This is extremely niche and narrow. You might have a hard time finding people interested in such a thing. Plus, there are already hundreds of courses related to WordPress.

RandyMinder · ‎12-24-2021

Frankly, If I were you, I would unpublishing every course that is below 4.0 and recreate it so that you are confident students will rate it 4.0 or higher. I have done that on occasion. I've created around 30 courses. A few have been duds. I simply unpublish them. I don't want prospective students seeing I have a course rated well below 4.0. There must be a reason why so many of your courses are rated so low. Look at your reviews and recreate the lowly rated courses.

RandyMinder · ‎12-23-2021

Hi @ariyam66 I took a look at your course offerings and I see many of your course ratings are: 3.5, 4.0, 2.4, 3.0, 3.7, 4.0, 3.0, 3.5, 2.0 etc... These ratings are really pretty bad and will absolutely impact your sales. To be successful on Udemy, your course ratings must be roughly 4.2 or higher. I have no idea what your courses were rated in 2020, but certainly in 2021 your course ratings are hindering your sales. You need to work to get your ratings above 4.0.

RandyMinder · ‎12-21-2021

Hello and welcome. I would STRONGLY suggest you find out how many courses already exist on Udemy on hair braiding to see what your competition is. So few new instructors do this. They then spend months creating a course and wonder why they are not getting any sales when 100+ courses already exist on the subject. By the way, I did a Udemy search on 'Hair Braiding' and got 300+ results back. So, somehow you would need to figure out how your course would stand out among 300+ competitors.

RandyMinder · ‎09-27-2021

@ADchauhdry - I see that at least 9 of your courses are rated 4.0 or lower. This is not good at all and will impact sales of those courses and quite possibly your other courses. No one can really compete on Udemy unless their ratings are at least 4.2-4.4.

RandyMinder · ‎09-27-2021

This is a silly question so I'll give you a silly answer. You can earn between $0 and $100,000,000. All depends on the course you create, quality, competition and a host of other things.

RandyMinder · ‎09-20-2021

@SRINIVASGOUNI - Yes, this is what I would.

RandyMinder · ‎09-19-2021

@SRINIVASGOUNI - You really do not want to produce free courses. 99% of the signups you get are from bots which search the Udemy landscape looking for free courses and then sign up. I have no idea why this happens but it does. These signups will never become actual students (usually). Secondly, Udemy prevents you from sending promotions to any real students that do sign up for your course. Therefore, there is very little reason to offer a free course.

RandyMinder · ‎09-19-2021

Hi @wisdomf41 I took a look at your course. I can think of two possible reasons you don't have any students. The first is competition. Do you have any idea how many courses already exist covering Microsoft Word? There are 4,587 courses, rated 4.5 or higher, covering this topic. Therefore, you have to ask yourself why anyone would purchase your new course, from a new author when so many highly rated and established courses already exist? The second, less important reason, is your accent. I watched your promotional video and your accent is very thick and hard to understand. For me personally, I will almost never purchase a course from someone I cannot understand clearly. I will always purchase a course from a native English speaking instructor if possible. So, what can you do about this? I'm afraid the only alternative you have is to draw students to your course yourself because Udemy will not be promoting it until you have a significant amount of sales and a high rating (4.4 or higher).

RandyMinder · ‎09-05-2021

What does that mean, "I want to make my career with udemy"? Does this mean you want to work for Udemy? If so, send them your resume. Does this mean you want to sell so many courses that you can be an instructor full-time? If so, the odds of this happening are almost 0 percent. Sure there are some instructors who are able to do this, but VERY few. Let's say you lived in the United States and needed to earn $60K per year to live the sort of life you want to live. The average instructor earns between $1 and $5 for each course sold. Let's be optimistic and say you can earn $5 for each course sold. You will need to sell 12K courses each year. I have no statistics to back this up but I would guess that less than 1% of all instructors on Udemy are able to do this.

RandyMinder · ‎09-04-2021

I would strongly recommend you do not make your course. The only sign-ups you will get will be from automated bots that constantly look for free courses and then signup. These are not real students and will not go through your course. I don't know why this happens, but it does. And, then, even if you do get a few real signups, Udemy will not permit you to send promotions to them. So, there isn't any real advantage to offering your course for free.

RandyMinder · ‎09-03-2021

I had my best month ever, both revenue and new students, by quite a large margin.

RandyMinder · ‎09-01-2021

Hi @ElaJones I listened to your promotional video and your accent is a little thick but I could understand you pretty well. I think the problem you are having is the number of courses that already exist that cover using OOP with PHP. I did a Udemy search for PHP OOP with course ratings of 4.5 or higher. I got back 2,515 results. I think this is your problem. You are competing against a huge number of existing courses covering the same topic. To be quite honest, if I had to decide between purchasing a PHP OOP course rated 4.5 or higher with hundreds of ratings, or a course from a new author, I normally would not select the course from the new author. This is a problem every new author runs into. You will need to draw students to your course yourself until you can gain some traction. Then Udemy might do some marketing on your behalf.

RandyMinder · ‎08-24-2021

Hi @CLINT I have been doing this for about 2 years now and have close to 30 courses. For my first couple courses I spent MUCH longer than I do now creating the actual video. There are a couple reasons for this. The first is simply because I've gotten much better at creating content. The second is I no longer "sweat the details". Most instructors will earn between $1 and $5 for each course sold. You simply cannot spend 2-3 hours creating a simple 2:45 video when we make so little money on each sale. At least I refuse to do it. Of course, this is a bit of a balancing act. You cannot produce junk because then you are wasting your time. I try to create my courses to be good enough and then move on to the next course. Most of my courses are 3-5 hours long and I will spend a couple weeks creating them. Virtually all of my courses are rated between 4.2 and 4.7. There is no doubt I could spend a lot more time making my courses absolutely first rate. But, then, Udemy will sell my $29.95 course to someone in India for $5 and I will make $2. For me, I would rather spend my time creating many good enough courses.

RandyMinder · ‎08-23-2021

Hi @ElaJones I took a look at your course I would say you have two hurdles to overcome. One is easy, one isn't. The first is the price of your course. Very few students will pay $90 for a course from an unknown author. Most won't pay $90 from a known author. They will just wait for the next sale and pick it up for $9.95. I would suggest lowering your price to $19.95 since you have no track record. The second is there are currently 2,300 courses on PHP rated 4.5 or higher. Let me ask you an honest question. Why would a student purchase your course (from an unproven, unknown author) when they can purchase a highly rated course from well established authors? This is the problem you are facing. And you are not alone. MANY new and newer instructors face the same problem. So, what can you do? You will need to do your own marketing and draw students to your course yourself until you can get some sort of track record on Udemy. Note that Udemy does market courses for us but in most cases they will not spend their ad dollars on marketing courses from new authors when there are others, highly rated, from established instructors that are a better investment for them.

RandyMinder · ‎08-17-2021

@AamirAli558 - Yes, this is done all the time.

RandyMinder · ‎08-14-2021

Why haven't you put that belief, whatever it might mean, to practice and create some courses?

RandyMinder · ‎08-08-2021

@Nola826 The first thing you must understand about Udemy is that offering a course for free is almost always a waste of time and almost always discouraging. There is a very little reason to do it. You said you had 200 students enroll almost right away. These are not real students. They are bots that roam the Udemy landscape looking for free courses and sign up. I have no idea the point of this or why Udemy allows it but at least 195 or more of these signups are not real students that will actually take your course. Secondly, Udemy does not permit you to do promotions to anyone who signs up for a free course. So even if you do have a real student sign up for a free course, you won't be able to promote your other courses (assuming you have more than one course) to them. Because of this I would encourage you to reconsider your course being free.

RandyMinder · ‎08-03-2021

Hi @GraceSlater247 The first thing to understand is that it can be VERY hard to get started on Udemy. The competition in most topics is very fierce. You will need to be very patient. I do have some comments: You have one course named Frenemies: Know Who Your Friends Are. Think about this title from the perspective of a student. With a title like that, how would a student find your course? What would they enter into the Udemy search area to find your course? You might want to consider a better title. The same pretty much applies to your other course: Quiet time with God. How will students find this course? Would they search for God? For Jesus? For Christianity? For Meditation? You said you are An Ordained Minister of God, Certified Christian Mindset coach/Personal development coach, Author, Trainer, Motivational speaker, Wife, Mother, Business owner, and an Entrepreneur. This would imply to me you have a lot of contacts. I would suggest you promote your courses to your contacts in these areas to help get you started. Keep in mind that Udemy will probably not promote your courses because you are a new author with almost zero track record. You will need to promote yourself to build a little momentum on Udemy and then students will start finding your courses. But, this could take a long time.

RandyMinder · ‎07-28-2021

@Mohamed Mesbah - Why wouldn't you ask the developer?

RandyMinder · ‎07-17-2021

Hi @CherieHaven561 Here are some thoughts I have on your course and comments you made. #1: You said you are looking for peace of mind. If you are anxious about this I think you have the wrong expectations. Very few Udemy instructors, as a percentage of the whole, make any serious money (a couple thousand $ per month or more). I have no actual data on this, but if I had to guess I would say the average instructor on Udemy makes maybe $100-$200 per month or less. New instructors would make a lot less. I think my first month I made $10. I saw a statistic somewhere that said the average Udemy instructor makes $15-$30 per month, per course. #2: It can be VERY hard for new instructors to gain traction on Udemy. Why? Because most topics are already thoroughly covered by at least a dozen courses and sometimes hundreds. I just did a Udemy search on "Learning English" (your topic) and got 10K results back. You have a lot of competition. #3: In most cases, for new instructors, Udemy will not be able to do any real marketing of their course. Why? Because there are probably so many other, highly rated, courses where Udemy wants to spend their ad dollars. In general, why would Udemy advertise a brand new course by a brand new author? #4: Your course is priced at $50 and is only 2 hours long. How much English can anyone learn in 2 hours? Most Udemy students, I am guessing, will never spend $50 for a course period. But especially one that is only 2 hours long. They will simply wait for the next Udemy sale and buy it for $12 (or much less in some countries). #5: You will have to do your own marketing for quite some time. How you do this, I really don't know because I don't know the English teaching market. If it were me I would probably start trying to find people teaching English to foreign students and offering them your course at the lowest possible price you can offer it ($9.95). #5: Just assume you are doing this for fun and never expect to make much money. That is probably much more realistic and will keep you more mentally healthy :).

RandyMinder · ‎07-15-2021

@ThomasHende399 Regarding advertising methods, I wouldn't pay anything to advertise your course. Realistically you are going to earn, on average, between $1 and $5 for each sale of your course. Therefore, it makes little sense to pay to advertise. I primarily advertise my courses on Reddit (in the appropriate subreddit) and on LinkedIn (in the appropriate group). I have done acceptably well on those sites. At least well enough to keep doing it.

RandyMinder · ‎07-14-2021

@ThomasHende399 So you are telling me that over the course of a year, 5,000 courses were added about Asian History? I hardly think so. You said your course is packed with content. You don't think the 1,800 4.5+ rated courses are packed with content? Of course they are. They wouldn't be rated 4.5 or higher if they weren't. BTW, what is helpful is a dose of reality on how things work on Udemy. I told you how I think you can start selling your course on Udemy. You cannot rely on Udemy at this point. You have to do the marketing yourself. You can jazz up the ascetics all you want but the fact is that your course probably will not be found by students coming to Udemy unless you draw them yourself because students conduct searches and your course won't appear anywhere near the top because it is too new. In a year this might not be the case. But it's reality at the moment.

RandyMinder · ‎07-14-2021

Hi @ThomasHende399 The first thing you need to do is to do a Udemy search on Asian History. When I did this search I got over 5,000 results back. Over 1,800 of those are rated 4.5 or higher. Think about this objectively. Your course is competing against 5K other courses on a similar topic. Over 1,800 of these courses have a large following and are highly rated. How are students going to find your course and why would they purchase it even if they did find it? This is the grim reality of trying to sell courses on Udemy. So many new instructors spend months creating a course and fail to realize there are already hundreds of highly rated courses existing on the same topic. To be quite honest, for a new instructor like yourself, Udemy isn't going to be able to help you much, if at all. You are going to have to draw students to your course yourself. And, most of us instructors, me included, are not very good at doing that.

RandyMinder · ‎07-11-2021

@AineP There is almost no good reason to offer a course for free. First of all, 99% of the signups you get will be done by bots that constantly look for free courses and then sign up. I have no idea why they do this or why Udemy allows it. Secondly, Udemy does not permit you to promote to students who acquired a free course.

RandyMinder · ‎07-09-2021

@Slogger - Absolutely. You can change the price at any time.

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