Five simple ways to improve your online school -
The process of getting your students through the door isn't the end of your growth process as a course designer. To keep growing your online education business you must continue to enhance the experience of your students through your online academy, and to keep delivering value with your courses.
Continuously improving and updating the content and the experience which you provide the students of an online learning academy are key in keeping your students active in your organization and eager to come back for more learning.
The process of taking your online academy to the next level doesn't require a long-term initiative that requires some time to get rolled out. Actually, there are many simple solutions which you can implement from the beginning that are simple and easy to implement to help improve your student experience and provide the immense value of your client base!
By consistently iterating your site and course offerings, you not only show your students that you're an enthusiastic course creator they also see that you're constantly making your course more valuable by adding value to the offerings, which can improve your retention rates and convert rates.
5 steps you can take to enhance the online school you run
1. Utilize the App Store
Apps bring advanced functionalities and capabilities to your courses, sales marketing, business operations and other courses They are also easy to integrate into your existing web-based course. Incorporating apps into your course website can be a fantastic option to provide your students with a stimulating and interactive learning experience online that's specially designed to fulfill their needs for learning. Below are a few apps which are making a mark with the top creators. These apps can be searched in the App Store and download them onto a account with only a couple of clicks.
PowerUp Pass: Built to enhance the student experience as well as boost sales, this pass comes with a range of apps that can be purchased individually or in a bundle based on your needs. These apps include:
- Expiring Courses Save: Increase sales and retention rate by using students dashboard widgets designed to alert your students about upcoming course expiries.
- Promos Kit: High conversion sales and promotion widgets to present your special offers such as countdown timers, sticky bars, deal sliders bundle stacks, and much many more!
- plaYEAH! : Make personalized pop-ups, and personalize your course's player to boost participation and completion.
- Sidenav : PowerUp your student's dashboard, or any pages for your courses by using Sidenav -- a richer navigation experience using categories and subcategories
- Flix is a way to transform your student dashboard into an experience that is worthy of binge watching.
- Ding Ding: Send precise, personal notifications to keep students informed about new developments to your content.
- Omnisearch: This application allows your students to locate specific information within your course materials.
- Wobo app: It allows you to design and create customized, interactive, and interactive books that engage and retain learners.
Integration of apps is easy and is a guaranteed way to significantly improve the experience of your students through your online academy. According to your needs there are a variety of apps in the App Store that will assist you to improve the efficiency that you are in, for example:
- Selling & Conversion
- Email & Marketing
- Education Experience
- Site Design
- Assessment and Engagement
- Connections & Social
- Business Operations
Pro tip: Remember to keep an eye on the App Store regularly to stay updated with latest applications. It's impossible to know what new apps will be most helpful to you and your business, so get creative and don't be scared of exploring!
2. Get your students involved with Communities
Leveraging the Community function of's is among the fastest and most effective ways improve the quality of your online learning by connecting your students with one another.
Numerous studies have shown that the most rewarding education experiences tend to be ones that allow students to discuss ideas with colleagues, peers and teachers.
Within , a Community can be set up for every student on your site. Communities can also be Course or Group-specific, which allows users to customize the content to your needs and make updates as required.
Giving your students an environment where they can interact with one another will not only give them the feeling of being part of a community but can also give you insight as a course designer into what to develop or improve upon the next time around. Take note of comments made and questions that are made in the communities. This will help you gather data and information to create innovative course options, rapidly identify knowledge gaps, and most importantly, interact with your students on a more personal scale.
3. Make your presence more accessible by updating the language settings
As online learning is growing globally, it is likely that you have students visiting your site that speak a language other than your site's default language. One quick way to win which will greatly improve the experience of your students is to provide them with the ability to override the default language of your site if they are able to choose a preferred language.
With this easy change to your course site You will be prepared to receive students from around the globe!
To enable the feature
- Head to the left menu of your Admin Dashboard, and select Settings
- Select the tab for Learning Content tab
- Hit for the Language Settings on the left
- Make sure that your Default Site Language is set to your desired default site language has been chosen.
- Click the checkbox beside the students' ability to take over the language of the website.
- Simply click Save
4. Guide your students in the right direction by providing documents for the onboarding process
Sometimes, course designers get so caught up in creating stunning materials for students, they don't think to include essential onboarding information for their course. Incorporating onboarding information on your course site can help you set expectations for the course, address specific questions, and provide specific instructions regarding how students will get the most benefit from the course content. If your business is primarily B2B, this documentation onboarding may include such elements as:
- Instructions for granting access to the course to a huge number of students
- Guidelines to set up group analyst permissions
- An agenda of all important occasions that the company needs to know about. Ie, In person training and live classes using Zoom, or other significant milestones.
On the other hand, if your business is predominantly B2C the onboarding documents you provide might include things like:
- Subscriptions, materials or other resources that are likely to be needed during your course
- Instructions for your students about how they can ask questions or engage with the instructor.
- Calendar of the most important events the students need to know about. Ie, In person training, Live Lessons with Zoom, quizzes/exams/assignments, or any other key milestones.
When you welcome your students after they enrol into your classes by guiding them to the right path and increasing the chance that they'll complete the course and receive the results they were expecting. Set your students up for success can ensure that they will continue to get to know you better, and can help grow your business long term.
5. Help students succeed by providing an FAQ section
The creation of a FAQ page on your course site is not only a great way to create a valuable guide for your students, it can ultimately be an ongoing benefit for you as a course creator. An informative FAQ sections on your website could help cut down on the volume of support questions you receive from students giving you more time back to spend focusing on providing valuable content to your students.
Pro tip: To quickly develop an FAQ area on your website, you could use Site Builder's custom Page. Once you have created a custom page using the builder on your site then you may use the following information base as a reference for addressing commonly asked questions by students taking an online class Troubleshooting Guide for Students issues
When you implement these fast and simple strategies for your online school, you'll be able to make significant improvements in the student's experience. This will guide them towards success with your classes, and encourage them to come back to find out more about you.