Creating and selling online courses is now a trendy and profitable venture for course creators and the LMS developers who create online course websites for them.
Just peek at the Lifter LMS plugin in the WordPress repository, and you will see that it has 10,000 installs already.
In this article, you will learn what it takes to be a successful LMS developer and the pitfalls to avoid.
Table of Contents
Scope of LMS Development
Not quite long ago, only giants in the tech space could create and sell video courses online. If you wanted to teach something, you had to start a blog, write an ebook, record audio, or organize a webinar.
Today, making money selling courses online is for more than just the tech giants. Anyone who wants to teach online can easily own an LMS (Learning Management System) website at an affordable price thanks to CMS like WordPress and small website agencies.
WordPress is a great tool that facilitates the process of establishing an affordable online course website, and there are excellent free LMS WordPress plugins that can help developers create LMS websites within a short period.
If you are a WordPress developer, this post will give you an idea of what you should and shouldn’t do to become a successful LMS developer.
What Must You Do as a LMS Developer?
As a LMS developer, here are some things you should do if you want to impress and close potential customers.
Understand the requirements
Even though most LMS websites practically work with the same concept, a talented LMS developer knows that’s just one end of the spectrum.
Customers want their LMS websites to represent their brand and enjoy a good website design with decent UI/UX, fast and optimized pages, a good flow of copy, etc.
So, as an LMS developer, you must listen to your potential customers’ needs and thoroughly understand the project’s requirements, including the features, functionalities, and user expectations. Then, can you build an LMS website that makes the customer happy?
Set up a live sandbox environment.
As a developer, you need to start building the site.
You are not going to build and showcase the site in thin air. You will need a reliable and safe space to make the site. One where you can easily share the site with your potential customer for feedback.
Ideally, it would help if you started in a safe WordPress sandbox environment and one that may not cost you in the interim.
We recommend InstaWP, a dedicated platform that can help you build and deploy any WordPress website effortlessly.
With InstaWP, you can easily create a fully functional WordPress site in seconds for free with any version of PHP, WP, and Plugins and Theme combinations.
This will save you time and fast-track you straight to customizing the LMS website and having it ready for live production in no time.
You can even monetize your designs by converting them into templates you can list and sell in InstaWP stores.
Build a Demo LMS Website
It is essential to create demo sites to collaborate better with clients. As you progress, your customer can go through the website for feedback.
This is why it’s ideal to have a live sandbox environment accessible from any part of the World even though it’s still in development.
Here’s how to create a demo LMS website for your customer:
- Customize and configure the LMS Site
You can start developing the LMS demo website after choosing and setting up your development sandbox environment.
Developing the LMS website will involve –
- Customizing and configuring the LMS plugin and theme.
- Creating pages.
- Tweaking the design while ensuring that it meets the specified requirements of your customer.
If required, this may include branding, user roles and permissions, course management settings, and integration with other systems, such as Payment gateways.
- Implement security measures
As a platform that may require customers to enter sensitive information to make payments online, LMS websites need all the security they can get to protect those users.
A LMS developer should implement security measures to protect user data and prevent unauthorized access.
This may include SSL encryption, secure login mechanisms, security against malware and DDoS attacks, and data backup strategies.
There are free and premium WordPress security plugins that you can install and configure to secure an LMS website.
- Test the LMS Site
After creating the demo site, you should take it for a test run. You should conduct thorough testing to identify and fix any bugs or issues.
You don’t want a customer coming back telling you payments aren’t processing, the website layout and course videos need to be more responsive on mobile devices, etc.
Off the top of my head, here are a few things you should test and confirm that it is working correctly:
● Test every CTA to ensure they are taking users to the correct pages when clicked
● Ensure that the forgot password option is working
● Ensure automated emails are being sent to customers’ inboxes without any hassles
● Ensure the SSL certificate has been deployed and the site is secure
● Test online payment processors to ensure payments are working well and customers can’t bypass them
● Test your design on various screen screens. There are a couple of free online tools that can let you do so,
● and so on.
I know this is tedious work, but I make a habit of thoroughly testing every new project. You can use a checklist to help you through the process without hassles.
- Deploy the Site
Once your customer has made and accepted all requirements, you can deploy your demo site to live production.
You can get a domain name and hosting space, have the site cloned, and migrate it from your production environment to a live production site using a staging plugin?
If you used the InstaWP sandbox to build the demo site, you can use the InstaWP Connect WordPress plugin to migrate the site to any hosting provider you choose easily.
Provide technical support
As a LMS developer, be aware that your customer may get a hang of it later. It would help if you went the extra mile by making yourself available to them while they get used to their website. Collaborating with a school management software development company can also help streamline the integration of educational platforms with LMS, ensuring a seamless experience for both developers and users
It would help if you offered technical support to users, addressing any issues or questions they may have. This may involve troubleshooting, bug fixes, and providing documentation or training materials.
Doing this can foster a deeper relationship that will make them come back to you again for your services, bring in referrals, and be inclined to write a constructive testimonial for you.
Stay updated with industry trends.
Finally, it helps you stay updated with the latest trends and advancements in LMS development, incorporating new technologies and features to enhance the system’s functionality and user experience.
You can create WordPress staging websites to test updates and new features before implementing them on your customer’s live website.
What to Avoid as a LMS Developer
Now that we have seen some things an LMS developer needs to do to succeed and land more LMS gigs, let’s look at some things an LMS developer should avoid doing.
● Neglecting user experience: Professional website developers and agencies always pay attention to the importance of user experience. You can get a bad reputation if you don’t strive to create an intuitive and user-friendly website that is easy for users to navigate and access the website features.
● Ignoring scalability and performance: An LMS should handle a growing number of users and courses without compromising its performance. Your customer won’t be happy if the website starts dragging or his visitors get error messages. If your customer chooses to use shared hosting to cut costs, chat about the upsides and downsides of his decision before going along with it.
● Overcomplicating the system: An LMS developer should avoid overcomplicating the website with unnecessary features or complex workflows. Keeping the website streamlined and focused on the core functionalities that meet the users’ needs is essential.
● Neglecting security vulnerabilities: An LMS developer should never overlook security vulnerabilities. You must regularly assess and address potential security risks, updating the website with the latest security patches and protocols. Try to talk your customer into opting for premium security WordPress plugins or your management service.
● Making changes to a live website: It’s not advisable to make any changes or updates to a live site because if anything goes wrong, the site could break, affecting users’ experience. A good LMS developer will onboard the website into a staging environment and make the changes before deploying them to a live site.
● Failing to provide support: Don’t leave your customer hanging and confused after you have collected your payment in full. Support them to help their users understand how to use the website effectively.
● Failing to keep up with maintenance and updates: An LMS developer should pay attention to regular updates. They should actively monitor the LMS space for any issues and updates. This will help you apply any necessary updates and address any bugs or performance issues that may arise.
Conclusion
You can create an effective and user-friendly LMS site by following these dos and avoiding the don’ts. Create a checklist out of this to offer use when developing LMS sites to keep you on the right track, make reviews, and cross out any task on the list that you have completed and that was accepted by the customer.
