When you’re launching or running an online course, your choice of platform for hosting the course plays a big role in the course’s success. It’s a big decision to invest in a new platform, whether you’re creating a brand new course or migrating an existing course to a new platform. What’s the best platform? That’s a trick question, because the real question is, What’s the best platform for my course and my business?

I have found—and scores of my clients have also found—that Searchie is the best platform for online courses. I’ll share more about why as I provide you with this checklist of the five things you should ensure a course platform does before you purchase it.

1.The Platform Must Make it Easy to Accept Payment

Let’s face it: a primary reason for creating your course is to make money by sharing your expertise. No shame in that game! It’s critical for your client to have a smooth purchasing experience. And the checkout experience is a moment of opportunity for you, if your platform gives you the chance.

What do I mean by that? Searchie not only integrates with Stripe for easy payment collection, but it also integrates with ThriveCart. ThriveCart allows you to create compelling landing pages and high-converting cart pages that entice your incoming client to buy add-on products, bundles, and subscriptions. You’ve done all the work to lead this prospect through the sales funnel, so maximize the income at the moment they’re hyped up and ready to join your program!

2.Course Content Must Be Accessible

Accessibility is more than a buzzword—it’s fair and just. Your potential clients have unique and wonderful minds and bodies that may dictate the inputs that help them learn best. And it’s true that all of us have a way that we learn best. It’s critical that your online course platform honors these differences and provides your clients with choices for how they’d like the course to be delivered.

Searchie shines in this regard. All videos in Searchie are automatically transcribed, which allows captions as well as transcripts. It’s also easy to provide the content as audio files. Using these options, you can put your clients in the driver's seat, allowing them to consume your content by watching the video (with volume on or off), reading the transcripts, or listening to the audio while they commute to work. Searchie makes it comfortable and easy to learn, which increases retention and client satisfaction.

3.The Platform Needs to Keep Learners Engaged

Adult education is plagued by attrition. It makes sense: adults are juggling a lot, and when something’s gotta give, it’s often their education. Online learning is all too easy to drop, because it’s not as personal as meeting in person in a classroom. Don’t let your students drift away! You want them to benefit from the wisdom in your course and feel great about their purchase of it.

Searchie really shines in this regard. It has gamification features that tap into our human nature. We all want to win, and we all enjoy small hits of dopamine, right? Searchie also has an achievements function that rewards your learners as they reach specific milestones in your course. It may seem gimmicky at first glance, but these provide powerful “pellets” that keep learners engaged in the course.

4.Your Students Should Easily Find the Content They Want

People who sign up for your online course have similar goals, but each one has individual needs and goals. For example, some may be very new to your subject while others have experience and are looking to take it to the next level or apply it in a new way. Your course needs to not overwhelm the newbie but not lose the more experienced learner.

Searchie helps with this in several ways. First, the Searchie Search Bar allows your learners to search any search term they want and be taken to content on that topic. It’s a huge timesaver! Searchie’s search function acts as a search engine for all of the content in the course.

Searchie also allows the learner to have a course experience that is customized to their needs and goals. How? An onboarding process that has a questionnaire will result in Searchie tags being added to the learner’s profile. Then these tags will dictate the content that is presented to them. For example, a true beginner would begin with the most introductory content, getting them acclimated to the topic as they begin their learning journey. The experienced learner who’s excited about one particular aspect of your course would get to jump right in.

5. The Platform Should Allow Learner Input and Sharing

Some people want to be silent lurkers as they take an online course, and that is totally fine. But most people enjoy a course more when they get a sense of community and feel that they are seen and heard. Your course platform must provide a way for the learners to share their questions and responses.

Searchie provides several ways for learners to speak up. First, you can add buttons that allow them to submit a question directly to you. These questions are gold, because they tell you more about how your content is being received and expose any “holes” in the content that you need to patch up (good thing it’s so easy to make changes to Searchie courses—it’s not set in stone once it’s launched).

Searchie makes it easy to connect to whatever community forum you select for your course, such as Circle or Facebook. And if you do live Q&A or coaching sessions, Searchie can automatically upload them into the place in the course’s Hub where they belong, so your current and future learners can find them.

Lastly, Searchie has a new Hub Comments feature that you can enable, which provides learners with the opportunity to comment under a specific piece of content like a video. This is a great way to foster conversations, questions, and targeted feedback.

6. Your Course Platform Should Delight You and Your Learners

There are a lot of course platforms out there, and they all have something going for them. Your job as course creator is to find the one that fits you, your course, and your learners like a glove. For me, Searchie wins hands down. If you want to learn more about Searchie, I have tons of free resources. I’ve been helping professionals launch courses on Searchie for years, and I offer a variety of ways to work with me, from a Guided Hub Template that walks you through creating your course to a VIP day where I create your course for you.

Whatever platform you choose, I wish you success!

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