5 Writing Tricks for Creating Your Online Course

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Online learning continues to evolve in traditional education and corporate training. Experts expect the global eLearning market to grow to $325 billion in 2025 and $1 trillion in 2028.

No wonder:

Digital classes and online courses are about comfort, flexibility, and safety. Users choose them because of convenience and expanded learning opportunities. Online course creators follow the trend, adjusting to new conditions:

They learn how to create an online course, use LMS, and master corresponding tools for course-making and promotion.

But there’s a catch:

Given the online education advantages and popularity, every Tom, Dick, and Harry craft courses today. Competition is high, and it turns over-challenging to stand out with your training program.

In this article, you’ll find actionable writing tricks to implement in your course for better visibility and engagement. Learn how to make it stand out and grab user attention so they want to attend it.

5 Writing Tips to Help With Course Creation

Several aspects determine your online course’s success. Apart from a stellar topic and structure, language and visual presentation matter.

It’s all about psychology:

Particular patterns grab interest, influence how the brain processes information, and define our motivation and decision-making. The below web writing tricks will help you design an efficient online course the learners will love.

1. Set Your Course Goal and UVP

Before you sit and write course modules, decide on a core goal for your online course. First, it will help you target a proper audience. Second, you’ll know what content to avoid in a course plan.

How do you set a course goal?

1. Answer the question, “What do I want my students to know or learn to do by the end of my course?”
2. Write a clear, concise sentence describing that goal to prospective students. Be as specific as possible; avoid generic phrases.
3. List specific steps for students to take through your course to reach it. (These steps will later turn to modules and help you choose the best course format.) Ensure each module corresponds with the end goal of your course.

For a learner to choose your training program over others, answer one short question they have:

“What’s in there for me?”

Courses are many, and you should give them compelling reasons to attend yours. While a set goal helps you structure a program that hooks learners, your unique value proposition will motivate them to continue.

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A unique value proposition (UVP) is your differentiator. What makes your course different from other programs on the same topic? What specific can you offer that other creators can’t?

Once you find and write it, you’ll know how to market the course to engage a broader audience.

2. Write a Catchy Outline for Your Course

When writing a structure for your course, design it as follows:

• Start with a clear introduction. Describe the goals and explain the reasons for learners to complete it.
• Write a detailed outline representing the course modules and lessons. Your learners should see what they get to understand if it’s relevant to their needs. Divide the course content logically and use distinct language.
• Design it for user-friendliness. Write the content so it’s easy for learners to navigate through modules.
• Provide instructions. Help learners understand how they’ll check progress or contact you for support and communication.

Your course outline is super critical for engagement. Prospective students will scan through it to decide if it’s relevant to their expectations. So please pay attention to how you write headlines for course modules and lessons.

Three writing tricks are to follow here. Make the headlines in your course outline:

1. Useful — for learners to know what they’ll get
2. Clear — for them to understand your point
3. Urgent — for evoking FOMO and influencing learners’ decision to choose your course

FOMO is for “fear of missing out,” a well-known copywriting technique triggering users’ decision-making.

Be informative yet add a pinch of intrigue to evoke a curiosity to learn more. Use numbers, how-to’s, and other catchy elements to grab learners’ attention. Explain the course value with your course outline.

If your target learners are beginners, avoid intricate terms in your headlines. Also, do your best to vary long and short modules in your course:

First, when scanning the program, learners will see the course isn’t super complex and time-consuming to cover.

Second, our psychology is so that we want quick results. (It’s all about social instinct). Students will feel more motivated to complete your course if they see the progress. Pairing lengthy modules with short ones makes this progress more visible, thus encouraging students to continue.

3. Consider Language Psychology in Training Materials

When writing online lesson plans, remember about personalization and authenticity. The AI era makes us pay even more precise attention to the content quality we offer to the audience. So, please emphasize the unique, user-based training materials in your lessons.

Concrete language patterns can help you enhance emotions and affect learners’ attitudes toward your course. Writing tricks that can help your lessons look effective are as follows:

• Power words. They are persuasive, appealing to our emotions. Writers use these words to compel the audience to take action. Power words can be active verbs or descriptive adjectives, but please avoid redundant -ly adverbs (really, actually, etc.) in your course content.
• Sensory words. They are words appealing to our five senses and, thus, activating the definite part of our brain. When reading them, we process the information faster than other lexical items. Sensory words are adjectives describing actions and relating to sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.

• Beneficial adjectives. They are words explaining the “What’s in there for me?” objection learners may have. You can place them in modules’ headings and subheadings for better results.
• Active voice. It makes your content sound more professional and confident. Plus, it encourages action.
• Quotations: Relevant quotes from experts are great to add to your training materials to boost social proof, support your point, and keep the learners’ interest.

These and other emotional writing tactics are your weapon to boost learners’ engagement and satisfaction with what info you have for them.

And last but not least:

Write for those reading on screen. It’s 25% slower than reading from print; more than that, users read only 20–28% of the words on your page. With that in mind, format your learning materials accordingly:

Find the right balance between words and images, and remember about white space. Help readers scan your content: Use double spacing between paragraphs and make those paragraphs short.

Write short sentences and use simple language. There’s no need to describe concepts and explain ideas with sophisticated lexical items. Write as you speak: You teach, not demonstrate how many words you know, right?

4. Use Visual and Interactive Elements in Each Lesson

Visual content is a critical factor in eliciting positive emotions from the audience. Why?

The human brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text: 70% of sensory receptors are in our eyes, which makes 93% of all communication nonverbal. We react to colors, shapes, fonts, and other visual items: They enhance emotions and affect our attitude toward what we see.

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Understanding the psychology of visual content will help you design a course the learners will love:

Color psychology, proper proportions, and text visualization (font and shape psychology) influence interest and engagement and can increase or decrease students’ concentration.

Diversify text content in your training materials with educational infographics, slide shows, and videos. It’s easier for the brain to consume info in short, up-to-point blocks; supplement your descriptions with visuals (graphs, tables, charts, icons, etc.).

Add relevant memes where applicable. Humor helps us build associations and remember the information better. The same is true about interactive elements:

Write quizzes and test questions, share case studies to demonstrate how what you describe works, and think of some easy-to-play games. Check your course plan and decide on visual content types to include in each module to make information stick.

5. Pay Attention to Calls to Action

Professional content writers know and follow the “one page = one call to action” rule. When writing learning and promo materials for your online course, do your best to follow this rule, too:

While you want to engage users, numerous calls to action will bring nothing but confusion. Stick to one CTA per lesson.

Focus their attention on a particular activity they’ll do and encourage them to complete your module. For that, place a thought-provoking question or an interactive graphic at the beginning.

Ensure to highlight it for better visibility: Use active verbs, mention a benefit, and consider the color psychology when deciding on your CTA color. (Market research and case studies prove it can impact conversion rates by far.)

Over to You

The final writing tip here:

Before publishing your online course materials and promoting them, proofread everything. Odd mistakes happen, and while learners are ready to forgive you one or two, numerous typos, grammar mistakes, or factual errors will hardly remain unnoticed.

It would be a pity if such minor errors ruined the overall impression of your course, wouldn’t it?

Please don’t hesitate to clap and comment! :)

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Thanks for reading!