Online course websites are becoming increasingly popular for schools, businesses, and content creators. When creating an online course website in WordPress, you need an LMS (Learning Management System) plugin.
When using an LMS, building and controlling the course on WordPress is easy, allowing you to tailor the learning experience to your preferences.
We’ll take you step-by-step through the process of creating a WordPress course website from scratch in this tutorial.
To create an online education website, you first need an LMS plugin. In this tutorial, we will use one of the best LMS plugins for WordPress called LifterLMS. You can also download the core LifterLMS plugin free from WordPress.org.
The Easiest Way To Get Started Building a Course Website With WordPress
Are you new to WordPress and would like to test LifterLMS before purchasing the LifterLMS software?
You can easily start building a LifterLMS-powered course website with InstaWP.
With just a few clicks, you can launch an InstaWP website where the LifterLMS plugin will be installed automatically. You can launch a course website instantly and test it yourself with just a few clicks.
InstaWP is a one-click sandbox launcher that provides you with the ability to launch your course website with LifterLMS and other top WordPress solutions.
Connect LifterLMS + InstaWP
To launch the course website follow the below steps. Also, explore more details about “how to use LifterLMS with InstaWP”
Step 1: First, create an account on InstaWP if you are new. And if you already have an InstaWP account, you just need to log in.
Step 2: After login, you will get the bellow interface where you click on “+New Site.”
Step 3: Now you will be directed to your “Dashboard” > Click on “From Scratch” (You can use the “From Template” option as well ) > Scroll down a bit from the left side menu > You will get the “LMS” options, click on it > Select the “LifterLMS” > Create site.
Now you are ready to go. It will create a LifterLMS-powered website for you. Now you can test the LifterLMS plugin and build your course website as per your requirements.
Step 1: Setup Your LMS Website
Installing LifterLMS
Among the most customizable learning management systems is LifterLMS. It’s an all-inclusive solution with many more unique features, including:
- Courses
- Quizzes
- Assignments
- Groups
- Social Learning
- PDFs
- Memberships
- E-commerce
- Gamification
- So much more…
You can make a simple online course website with LifterLMS, or you can even start a multi-instructor marketplace for courses.
LifterLMS is a beautifully designed, user-friendly, and affordable LMS plugin. It is an established solution powering over 8 million enrollments and has users in 170 different countries.
LifterLMS has 3 premium bundle plans from starter to advanced. Also, LifterLMS offers the ability to purchase individual add-ons as needed.
Installing a theme:
After installing the LifterLMS plugin, it is important to choose the right theme for the course website.
LifterLMS offers its own WordPress theme, Sky Pilot, a Full Site Editing (FSE) theme that is easy to use. This theme is built exclusively for the course and training-based membership websites.
Sky Pilot provides the best learner experience and intuitive design to enhance course content. You can design the full website with the block editor with this theme. And any well-coded page builder is also compatible with Sky Pilot.
Note: Any well-coded theme will work with LifterLMS, so Sky Pilot is optional.
After purchasing the Sky Pilot theme or a LifterLMS bundle, you have to activate the theme or bundle license. Then you can install it from your WordPress website’s dashboard. To do this, visit your WordPress Dashboard > LifterLMS > Add-ons & more > Sky Pilot > Install > Activate.
Setting Up LifterLMS
Installing and activating LifterLMS is a critical step. You can visit the LifterLMS Academy and take the free LifterLMS Quickstart course. But in this tutorial, we will go over the most important steps to set up LifterLMS.
The Setup Wizard for LifterLMS
After Installing LifterLMS, the plugin will take you through the setup wizard once activated.
Follow all the steps in the LifterLMS setup wizard. Select Get Started Now > Save & Proceed > Choose your currency and country. After selecting, press Save & Continue > Allow > Start from Scratch, and make sure the Enable offline payment option is checked.
Step 2: Creating a Course
The first step in selling your course is to make one available to the public where anyone can enroll or buy your course.
Go to your WordPress Dashboard > Courses > Add New on your dashboard. Complete the fields (Title, Description, Featured Image), and click Publish.
Here you can add your course title, information, course description content, and everything you would like to add to your course page.
Create an Access Plan
Also, it’s important to add at least one “Access Plan,” which is the course pricing and access details. If you scroll a bit you will get the “Access Plan” option > And click on “Add New” to add the access plan > Add all the information you want to add in terms of pricing and access. LifterLMS has more details about working with Access Plans here.
We also have video tutorials about LifterLMS core plugin features so you can go deeper in your learning of the best LMS software.
Create Lesson Content With The Course Builder
With the course builder, you can set the title, course information content, price, and some other options. But the most important part of a course is adding the lesson content, quizzes, and assignments.
LifterLMS created a Course Builder interface that helps you add the lesson structure, quizzes, assignments, and other options from one simple but powerful screen.
From the course editor page, click on “Launch Builder” to open the course builder.
Now you can create sections, lessons, quizzes, and assignments. Here is more information on how to use this course builder.
Create a Quiz
To add a quiz follow the below steps:
Step 1: Go to your course builder > Click on the section from the right side > Click on a new lesson from the right side > Click on the “?” to add the quiz > Create New Quiz > Scroll a bit, and click on “Add Question.”
Now you can choose the question types you want and fill in the details. The below image is an example True False quiz question as seen from the student’s view of the website while taking a quiz.
LifterLMS has 2 types of quiz question types: “Basic Questions” and “Advanced Questions.”
Note: Advanced Quiz Question Types are available in the LifterLMS Infinity bundle and in the LifterLMS Advanced Quiz add-on.
To learn more about quizzes, follow the “LifterLMS Quizzes Overview” guide.
Adding assignments works very similarly to adding quizzes. Just click on “Add Assignment” in the course builder, choose your options, and fill in the details.
Step 3: Sell Your Course
To sell your courses online through your website you will need to add a Payment gateway. LifterLMS payment gateways include Stripe, PayPal, Authorize.Net, or the LifterLMS + WooCommerce extension. You can get all of the payment gateways in any bundle plan or you can go with individual payment gateway add-ons.
We recommend setting up both Stripe and PayPal so your website visitors have the option to purchase with either a credit card or with their PayPal account.
Note: The free core LifterLMS plugin does include a free Manual Payment Gateway so a user can pay outside of your website via check, bank transfer, etc.
Install Your Payment Gateway
If you are using a premium payment gateway integration from LifterLMS, you can add those from your website’s dashboard.
To do payment gateway plugins from LifterLMS, visit your WordPress Dashboard > LifterLMS > Add-ons & more > Select the specific payment gateway that you want to add > Install > Activate.
Connect Your Payment Gateway
To connect your payment gateway, visit your WordPress dashboard > LifterLMS > Settings > Checkout > Scroll a bit, and you will get the “Payment Gateway” options. Now click on a specific payment gateway you want to enable for checkout.
Let’s use Stripe as an example for your payment gateway setup.
Select “Enable Stripe.” Also, add your Stripe account information, such as your “Stripe Live API Credentials” > Save Changes.
Now you are ready to sell your courses. If your course is paid, your user must pay you through the website to access the course. The below image shows you an overview of the checkout page.
This is how you can create a money-making course website with minimal steps.
Summary
In conclusion, WordPress offers educators and creators a huge opportunity when it comes to creating an affordable, customizable online course website from anywhere in the world.
The fastest way to get started teaching online from your WordPress website is to use LifterLMS with InstaWP.
