How to Launch an E-learning Website on WordPress

Growth in the e-learning industry has risen 900% since 2000, and experts predict that the global e-learning market will reach $1 trillion by 2028.

If you are keen to launch an e-learning business, now is a good time. Plus, setting up your website with WordPress is straightforward.

Why WordPress for e-learning?

Nowadays, WordPress is an all-in-one service that can be used to build a high-quality website for any purpose. However, a CMS (Content Management System) can easily be transformed into an LMS (Learning Management System). All you have to do is choose the right tool for that.

Top 6 Popular WordPress LMS Plugins

There are many LMS plugins for WordPress, so this blog article has six WordPress Plugins worth considering for your new business.

LearnPress

Today, LearnPress is found to be the best free LMS plugin. It’s a perfect choice for online classrooms. A pack of premium but accessible add-ons is applied to create lessons, quizzes, and events. Yet, it doesn’t support features such as assigning homework, certificates, and enrollments.

LearnDash

By choosing LearnDash, you will get a wide range of valuable options such as quizzes, private lessons, scheduled content, certifications, enrollments, user rewards, selling courses, etc. A weak point of the plugin is the integrated themes—they can be much better. Thanks to the other robust features, the plugin remains one of the top plugins for LMS. For a one-site license, expect to pay $159/year.

EduPro

EduPro is a plugin designed and used for schools, colleges, and universities, and it’s perfect for creating courses online. The plugin package includes LearnDash and WooCommerce. Besides that, you will get the following:

• Drag-and-Drop Page Builder Tool
• Creative Customization Options
• BuddyPress and bbPress plugins
• Event Management
• Supported MemberPress and Paid Memberships Pro

Sensei

Sensi is a popular e-learning plugin that seamlessly integrates with a WordPress theme. It offers access to a wide range of valuable features and is often compared to LearnDash. Sensei is preferred for its ability to customize quiz question types.

LifterLMS

Various add-ons include scheduled content, a custom course builder, quizzes, homework, etc. The plugin supports multiple types of subscriptions and payment systems and enables features such as bundle lessons, analytics, progress, and management. You can start with this plugin for free, and there are also paid plans.

WP Courseware

WP Courseware is the most popular LMS plugin for WordPress. It helps that it was the first released and has had time to get it right. WP Courseware was available in 2012, so it’s had over a decade to add a remarkable 271 features. This is not a free plugin; you must budget around $129/year.

Guide: Build an E-learning Website on WordPress

When you choose the right plugin, it’s time to mastermind your online courses. Don’t know where to start? Here is our step-by-step guide to help you succeed in the e-learning market.

Identify your goals and audience.

Of course, if you’ve reached this part of the article, you will likely know the topics and the niche you will teach. Anyway, you’re to decide beforehand. It’s better to choose where you can teach people many skills you are good at. Also, you should ask yourself:
What challenge/problem is the course going to overcome/help with?

What outcomes are expected?

After that, you must define whether it is a free or paid online course. That is crucial for the design and for selecting a plugin. Combine both approaches, offering a part of the content for free and another one to hide and provide for a determined price. That will drive the conversion. The next step is to learn your audience and their needs so that you can offer only relevant and valuable information/content and not make the courses too easy or too difficult.

Plan out the structure for your e-learning website.

As soon as you set a goal and learn about the audience, plan out the structure of your LMS website. What pages, lessons, classes, quizzes, menu, etc., will you include? The primary e-learning site can be:

• Homepage
• List of courses and lessons
• Page “About Us”
• Student testimonials and forums
• Actual course pages

The main rule is to make your website intuitive, user-friendly, easy to navigate, and secure from cyberattacks. You must create sections that contain helpful information about you and your offerings. Remember: the more complex the e-learning website is, the harder it’ll be to build.

Choose a WordPress Plugin and Theme

Theme

Once you’ve completed all the previous issues, choose a plugin and a theme. Select a plugin accurately because the range of features you access depends on it. The fastest way is to select pieces already integrated into the plugin. Thus, when choosing the plugin, pay attention to the articles offered. That will reduce your time and costs. Among the popular articles for LMS websites are:

• Course Builder
• Education WP
• eLearning WP
• Academy;
• Education Pack

Choose the one with all the necessary tools and features to meet your demands.

Create your first course and add lessons.

Create your first course and add lessons when you have chosen the goal, theme, plugins, and design. We advise you to start with a prototype to test and ensure everything looks and works as you want. It’s bound to save you time and resources.

Creating a course and adding lessons to it depends on the plugin. However, the following steps are standard:

• Structure your course
• Write the course page, description, and title
• Add lessons/quizzes and their content in the needed order

Equip a system with dynamic assignments

Using dynamic assignments, you can reduce administration time and costs by over 90%. That’s all because equipping a course with active terms allows you to collect and grade assignments in one centralized location.

Thanks to the tool, your students can attach their homework, exams, and other files for you to review. Moreover, you can use it to provide your students with extra lesson materials. That will ease your work with reports, too. No search for who, where, and what; all needed info will be in one place.

Provide certificates on course completion.

You’d provide your students with a certificate of completion. Though such a certificate can’t be used for formal accreditation because the online courses are not accredited institutions, the students can share it with co-workers, friends, relatives, and potential employers. That’s an excellent way to promote your online courses.

A course completion certificate means that your student attended all the classes, did all the homework tasks, and passed all the exams. Providing such a document, you will add the element of gamification. That is an additional motivation and aim for your students to go through a course successfully.

Bottom line

Because e-learning gains popularity daily, it’s a great idea to set up online courses and monetize on the shift. Having read the article, you see everything is much easier than you may have realised. Especially if you choose WordPress for the purpose.

You only need to think about the LMS solution’s goal and audience, and plan a structure. The rest, and probably the most challenging part, is selecting the right plugin for your future site to meet your unique needs.