Teach Online – Infographic: ANATOMY of Effective Online Courses

Create online courses - Anatomy Chart

First, let's have fun with this anatomy chart:

I had fun doing it. So I hope you had fun going through it.

Now let's cut in and create awesome online courses

Note: The infographic and article have been inspired by the format of the article by Brian Dean on Backlinko: On Page SEO - anatomy of a perfectly optimized page.

Teach Online - Understanding the anatomy

1. The Heart = The Student Need

Because we want to help as many people as possible and get as many customers as possible we often try targeting everybody.

Plus we are often afraid of not giving enough and we tend to share everything we know to satisfy the customer.

But the reality of online teaching is that:

• By trying to target everybody, you help nobody
• By trying to share everything, you teach nothing

Information that is scattered and overwhelming does not attract customers nor get result.

So at the heart of your course you must have a specific customer (with skill, environment and situation attributes) and what he/she wants most.

As Chris Guillebeau (The Art of Non-Conformity) shared in an interview on I will teach you to be rich: "Mistake #1: Failing to understand what customers really want."

So: is the subject of your course addressing your student's deep needs and wants?

2. The Skeleton = Your Knowledge and Experience

Your knowledge and experience on the subject is the skeleton of your course. Without that, the whole process falls apart.

However this is not a question of 'Being an expert'. 

It is all about having enough knowledge and experience to create a process that provides results repeatedly.

BTW, I do not knit... (I did a little as a child with my grandmother...) I just think it is a practical example as everybody knows what I am talking about and it is very visual.

3. The Brain = The Objective

Your course should have a well-defined actionable objective based on:

• What your potential students want most
• What you know first-hand how to achieve

Here are the characteristics of a good course Objective:

• Documented
• Action Verb - it is a transformation
• With conditions / Environment 
• With at least one limit
• Use words that students in State A understand

The examples below just show you how you could specify and limit:

4. The Stomach = Your simplification system

Most course instructors start by telling you all they know about the subject and share a few exercises to do after that.

When it should be the opposite!

You define a process with small steps the students has to take and then, you provide the knowledge required to take those steps.

In order for your student to make progress, your course modules and lessons must be created in a way that is pre-digested.

My strong opinion, it that the process steps should be between 4 and 6.

• Less than 4 and the students feel they won't get results
• More than 6 and they cannot comprehend the whole process and feel overwhelmed

We will see examples of such steps in the next section about the spine.

5. The Spine = Your Course Modules

Let see where we are:

• You course has an objective addressing the wants of your student
• Your course is a process to reach that objective based on the digestion of your knowledge

The vertebrae's of your course are each steps of your process, the modules.

Here are the characteristics of a good module:

• Documented
• Action Verb - it is a transformation
• With conditions / Environment 
• With at least one limit
• Use words that students in State A understand

6. The Kidneys = Your Filtering System

This is often the hardest part for most online course creators because, you truly want to help people and thus want to share all your knowledge!

But, when you teach online, the more knowledge you share, the more chances the students will drown in it but you can't see it

First we made sure the course is process-oriented not knowledge oriented.

But even then, you have to sort out which pieces of knowledge in your lessons are absolutely required to complete a step... and flush out the rest.

You need to be objective and filter.

7. The Nerves = Your Course Lessons

Within each step of your process (modules), you want to create lessons. They are here to provide solutions against what is preventing the student from completing the step.

Here are the characteristics of a lesson:

• Documented
• Addressing a specific and unique blocking point
• Providing actionable solutions
• Applied to examples

8. The Muscle = The Tools

And they should not try to create checklists and other tools from your videos!!! (I have seen it many times, all the info is in the video without anything to help you complete it).

In my online course - Course Creation: Mission possible - I call them your teaching weapons 🙂 and I actually recommend creating them before creating the lesson content or video.

9. The Skin = Delivery System and formatting

Now you have to deliver your course to teach online.

There are no real best options. It depends on your type of students, your skill level, you preferences, what is available to you...

Below are general rules to keep in mind when setting up the delivery:

• Navigation is easy
• Formatting and Branding is constant throughout the course
• It has your personality in it. The students want a connection to what you are teaching.
• Use the words your students normally use

Create an online course NOW

The above article is good when you have already progressed on your online course.

But if you are just starting, head to my article - How to finally start creating an online course - and you will go through the first steps that will take you on track to creating a HEALTHY ANATOMY!