How to Use Squarespace to Create and Sell Your Online Course
As a designer and creator, you can turn your knowledge into money by creating and selling online courses. Courses is Squarespace’s latest release in our suite of Digital Products. The tool streamlines the process of course creation from start to finish, opening up new revenue streams and opportunities to build a business outside of client projects.
Introducing Squarespace Courses
Integrated with your Squarespace website, Courses comes with built-in tools to help you design, promote, and sell online classes.
With Courses, you can:
Organize your content into lessons and chapters
Students can efficiently find the information they need to view and take courses.
Sell your courses online
Courses are integrated with Squarespace commerce features, so you can set up a payment system and start selling your course on an existing website.
Leverage best-in-class design
You can customize Squarespace templates to fit your brand. Plus, they’re responsive, taking the guesswork out of designing pages for multiple screen sizes.
Sell anything
You can design multimedia courses with videos, images, written articles and materials. With Squarespace, you can also sell digital downloads, services, memberships, physical products, and more.
A new income stream
Selling your expertise through online courses is a great way to earn passive income. Courses can help you generate new income in four main ways:
Offer low-cost options
Courses help you sell your knowledge to potential clients who are interested in your service but may not be able to afford your full rate. For new web designers or those looking to refine their own expertise, your courses can also be valuable in their search for education.
Add to your deliverables
Boost your current services by offering courses as part of your deliverables, or as potential add-ons. Create courses that support the client offboarding experience and establish your value as a web designer. Some courses that fall within this category include how and when to update a Squarespace website, how to optimize for SEO, and how to launch new products.
Differentiate your business
Courses can help you land new business as you position yourself as an industry expert. When potential clients look at your website, it can be helpful for them to see who you are and what you know. Your course offering is a reflection of that.
Provide a year-round product offering
Even when you’re not working on client projects, courses are something you can sell all year round. Once you take the time to design and create them, it’s all about promoting the product.
The following are just some examples of how-to courses that may fall within your expertise to create:
Brand design
Graphic design
Font pairing and typography
Creating color palettes
Logo design
Website design
Understanding responsive design
Social media management
Starting and maintaining a blog
Starting a newsletter
Building an ecommerce store
Setting up search engine optimization (SEO)
Understanding CSS
If you already have courses and want to move them to Squarespace and learn how to develop your offering even further, visit our product deep dive on Courses.
Benefits of becoming a course creator
You’re a busy web designer, so why become an educator too? The goal is to free up more time while bringing in more money. Plus, there are many benefits to launching the course branch of your business.
Turn knowledge into money
Thanks to your skills, background, training, and experience, you know a lot, like time-saving design tips or how to run a business. Why not monetize your expertise?
Squarespace has the tools and support available to plan, build, promote, and sell courses online to turn this knowledge into income.
Generate passive income
Your schedule is filled with client calls, consultations, and hours set aside to design and build websites for others. There may not be a lot of room to take on more clients on your own.
If you offer online courses, you can continue to grow your business and generate passive income without trying to squeeze more projects into your already full schedule.
By making passive income, you can experience more financial freedom and stability, less reliance on client payments, more funds available to scale your business, and more time to enjoy other pursuits.
Streamline your web design business
Squarespace helps you streamline your business with a user-friendly, all-in-one platform.
The online courses you create are seamlessly integrated with your website, scheduling, marketing tools, and analytics. This means you don’t have to learn how to use a new platform to run this part of your business or add anything to your toolbox.
Stand out as a web designer
Becoming a course creator helps you stand out in a crowded marketplace. Establish yourself as the go-to designer in a particular niche by building an online course and follow-up courses on that subject.
When you create a course that fits your brand, you can market yourself as an authority while bringing attention back to your business. This can help you attract new clients and ultimately raise the rates for your premium services down the line.
Support new web designers
Newer, less experienced designers can benefit from the support of more experienced professionals. Help newcomers by teaching how to handle tricky design problems through your online course offerings, or share tips on how to start a business from scratch.
Design a seamless experience
To help your clients and students have the best experience possible, build an online course that’s beautifully designed. Consider the following benefits of working with the Courses tool.
Course content will automatically match the look and feel of your website.
You will have access to beautiful course templates that are flexible and fully customizable.
Simple course navigation makes purchasing and taking your courses straightforward for students and clients.
With the Digital Products Add-On Professional tier, you can access unlimited video storage with 0% transaction fees, helping you to increase the earning potential of your business.
Additional benefits
Whether you’re creating an online course related to your work or your personal interests, someone out there can benefit from your knowledge. Additional benefits of using Courses include:
Generate income from your passion by creating a course about a subject you love.
The Courses product unlocks greater flexibility in your schedule because online classes don’t require you to be available the way scheduled appointments do.
You’ll have ownership and control of your content. You can build an online course exactly how you envision it, with fully customizable templates and total control over your brand’s look and feel.
Know your course creations will look polished and professional, and you have all the tools you need to sell and promote them.
Getting started on course creation
Ready to sell online classes? Follow these steps to get started.
Make a plan
Keep it real and simple to start with. Create both a short-term and a long-term plan. What topic do you want to cover? What helpful points can you share? Who might benefit from your online courses? Cover your bases to ensure there’s an appetite for your knowledge.
Set a goal
Once you know what subject(s) you’ll cover in your online course, set specific goals to achieve and add target dates to help you get each step done.
Dedicate time
Spend time each week creating your online course and bringing it to completion. Add an FAQ or help page to address questions that students may have as they begin to interact with your course.
Film
Get the video portion of your course done. Use video editing tools to polish the end result, making it look as professional as possible.
Pro tip: Consider renting high-quality equipment during the filming process. This includes a great camera, ring light, and microphone, to name a few.
Edit
In addition to editing video content, edit all your written material, including your course pages and any accompanying promotional material.
Promote
Promote the online course offerings you’ve created. Use every avenue available to you, including your website, blog, newsletter, mailing list, and more.
Share
Dedicate posts about your course creations on social media, too.
Earn
Make your course pages live and set up payments to begin earning. Use your experience in the subject matter and reference competitor offerings to determine how you will price your course.
As you embark on your journey of using Squarespace to sell online classes, remember that you’re the expert and people are eager to learn from you. Continuously refine your approach based on feedback from students, keep your content fresh and engaging, and leverage analytics to fine-tune your strategies.
Circle members can receive professional advice on launching an online course in the July 2023 episode of Circle Live.
Want more?
Check out Squarespace Circle, Squarespace’s program for professional designers. Along with exclusive content, discounts, and other perks, Circle brings professionals together from all across the globe to exchange advice while connecting with new clients and collaborators.