With the rise of popular DIY skillsets as well as accessible digital and freelancing professions, eLearning has become quite the topic of conversation. Whether you manage your own WordPress website or offer digital marketing services to third-party clients, eLearning can become a lucrative business choice for your future career development.
According to 99 Firms, 33.9% of all websites use WordPress as their CMS of choice, with an average of 805 new sites created on a daily basis. There is a multitude of reasons as to why WordPress is ahead of similar CMS platforms such as Joomla and Drupal, including its user-friendly UI, plugin flexibility and a plethora of WordPress themes available for easy integration.
However, when it comes to creating an eLearning WordPress site with quality writing, courses and interactivity, more creative attention is required. With that said, let’s take a look at how you can create and manage your own eLearning WordPress site coupled with quality writing, capable of taking it to the next level in terms of traffic and revenue.
What is an eLearning WordPress Platform?
Before we get started, let’s tackle some basics of eLearning and what it represents in the context of WordPress as its CMS. In essence, eLearning is a web-based term which refers to “online learning” through written courses, lectures and literature available fully through an online platform.
As such, it is highly accessible for people from across the globe, which can ensure that you always have a healthy user base and traffic no matter the niche you choose to specialize in. Given the fact that WordPress is the most popular CMS on the market, its inclusion in your eLearning platform is a no brainer. It will allow you to modify your courses with ease and flexibility through its vast library of plugins and themes on the fly.
WordPress is also a great choice for an eLearning platform because it doesn’t require any coding or back-end web design knowledge from its administrators. All you need to do is familiarize yourself with its intuitive UI, content upload processes and course management/editing to get started with your eLearning business.
Advantages of Running Your Own eLearning WordPress Site
Now that we have an idea of what “eLearning” and “WordPress” can do in tandem, let’s take a quick look at why you should care about such a website in the first place. As we’ve previously stated, eLearning is a global phenomenon. According to Finances Online, 67% of students use online courses through their mobile devices, with 72% of organizations fully onboard with eLearning as a means to train employees, expand their skillsets and stay in touch with industry trends.
Whether you target students, employees or stay-at-home parents, an eLearning WordPress platform with quality content writing will quickly gain traction and earn you a hefty revenue. Apart from that, several of the advantages it can bring to you as a business owner include:
- Ability to network with teachers, tutors, and other eLearning platforms
- Flexible professional development compared to traditional schooling
- High ROI once your courses are defined and available for some time
- Ability to quickly and easily modify your site’s structure with WordPress extensions
eLearning WordPress Site Writing Tips and Guidelines
- Navigation and UI Ideation
Before you create any eLearning content for your WordPress website, navigation and UI elements should be set in stone. Whether you use a pre-made WordPress theme or build your own template by hand, make sure that it reflects your content style, industry, and business culture.
It’s important that your website navigation, sitemap, and categorization are easy to manage, navigate and browse through for absolute beginners and experts alike. Take your time and define the landing page of your eLearning platform in addition to all the content categories you aim to provide for your visitors.
- Original Content Matters
The first step in your eLearning content writing should be to focus on original courses, lectures, and quizzes relevant to your industry. According to eLearning Infographics, online courses should only focus on one or two learning objectives per lesson, with four or five key takeaways at the most to be effective.
If you chose to devote your eLearning WordPress site to digital marketing, your courses should cover a wide range of subjects and skillsets related to digital marketing first and foremost. While you can create fringe courses which don’t relate to your main industry, the bulk of your content should focus on the most important categories and skills.
- Rely on a Multimedia Offering
Even though written content is the most essential part of eLearning, you should still explore a variety of content types for your platform. Video demonstrations, audio lectures, infographics, and interactive exercises are a great way to engage the viewer and spread positive word of mouth about your WordPress site.
Don’t settle for a single content type and integrate writing into different aspects of eLearning to mix things up for your platform’s users. This will also do wonders for your SEO ranking since search engines prefer ranking well-balanced, original links higher than those which rely on a strict selection of content types.
- Connect with Social Media Platforms
Social sharing features are quite sought-after by eLearning platform users for a multitude of reasons. People simply like to share their accomplishments with social circles via platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
In order to accommodate for that requirement, you can integrate social media WordPress plugins into your eLearning platform quite easily. Choose the best social media integration features which will suit your content style and make it straightforward for users to share their links and accomplishments with a click of a button.
- Keep your Content Focused
Once you settle into a routine of writing new content, editing old courses with new information and providing customer support, it’s important not to get carried away. While your eLearning platform may have found its audience, you should not expand your course selection too much following your success.
Make sure that your learning materials stay focused on the categories, skills, and industries you set for your site from the beginning. This will ensure that your brand reputation grows over time, as well as that you are committed to high-quality writing and eLearning instead of unnecessary bloated content or spam.
- Customer Support & Interactivity
Not all of your users will be familiar with how WordPress or eLearning works. In that regard, it’s good practice to accommodate for their needs through extended customer support features and interactivity.
You should make it easy for users to reach out to you with questions, feedback or suggestions in terms of your content writing. Another great addition is to integrate chatbots into your eLearning platform for even more interactivity and live customer support. Make sure that both casual learners and professionals can use your WordPress platform with ease through customer support features.
- Be Open to Collaboration
Even if you have a laundry list of courses, skills, and quizzes which you want to write and publish, guest collaboration can still help you. Outside tutors, professional teachers, and lecturers will approach you with collaboration offers from time to time.
You can host their courses on your website for a certain fee in order to ensure that both your brands gain exposure and traffic. Don’t distance yourself from professional networking in the eLearning industry and you will undoubtedly grow in popularity over time.
eLearning WordPress Site Mistakes to Avoid
Lastly, let’s dive into several mistakes and pitfalls you should be aware of in light of your newly-created eLearning WordPress site. Even though users will come to your website no matter its technical optimization (if the courses are well-written), you should still put effort into sprucing up your WordPress website. With that out of the way, some of the most important mistakes to avoid include:
- Poor Choice of Theme and Plugins
The theme you choose for your WordPress site should reflect the type of content you aim to write and publish. Courses which rely on written content will look better in certain themes compared to others which rely on multimedia, infographics or interactive quizzes.
Choose your selection of theme and plugins carefully from the start. Make sure that your tools of choice don’t slow down your website or hinder its performance in terms of SEO.
- High Starting Price Point
It’s no secret that eLearning platforms need to make revenue in order to stay operational. However, you should also price your courses correctly compared to other platforms on the market.
Check out sites such as Udemy and Lynda to get a better sense of the global eLearning pricing structure early on. Find a balance between high income and affordable learning for your students and you won’t have an issue growing a healthy community.
- Lack of SERP Optimization
No matter how great your content writing is or which WordPress plugins you use, SEO will still play a large role in your business’ success.
This means that you should pay close attention to your content optimization, keyword targeting, multimedia, as well as the number of plugins you feature at any given moment. Platforms such as Google AdWords and SEM Rush are designed for SEO purposes and website optimization – make sure to use them.
- Lack of Innovation Over Time
Lastly, no matter how loyal your eLearning audience may be at first, they will still demand new and original content over time. Make sure to implement community feedback features and ask for comments and suggestions from time to time.
Try new things, change your active WordPress plugins or choose a new WordPress theme every once in a while. Keep things fresh for your eLearning community and they will stay engaged and active for much longer.
In Conclusion
While running your own eLearning WordPress site might seem impossible at first, it’s only a matter of perspective. Choose an industry you are comfortable with and start writing original content before you market your platform.
Start small and create a rudimentary website to attract tutors and lecturers with their guest content. Over time, the right audience profile will flock around your website and enjoy the content you write for them – give it time and patiently develop your eLearning platform.