Or watch the video here:
So you’ve decided to get into courses or memberships, but you can’t decide if you should use Thinkific or put it on your current website. In this episode, I’m going to share what I think is the best route, and what you need to consider!
TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to The Work Your Wellness Biz podcast, a podcast for nutrition and fitness professionals. I’m your host Jess Freeman here to help you save time and look good online.
Wish you could get more traffic from Google half the battle is understanding what you need to fix on your website. What if you could get a professional website audit totally free.
That is the power of H refs Webmaster Tools, you’ll see which keywords your pages are ranking for, understand how Google sees your content and discover how making changes can blow up your traffic. Is it h refs.com/a WT for this free tool, find the link below by scrolling up in your podcast player to view the show notes.
So you’ve decided you want to set up a course so you can start generating some passive income, but you’re not sure if the course should be on your website. Or if you need to use another platform like think if ik in this video, I’m going to give you my recommendation and explain how you can figure out which option is better for you.
If you’re new here, my name is Jess and this channel is all about helping you create a more smooth and profitable online business with the help of your website, which is why today we’re gonna be talking about whether your course or membership should live on your website or another platform.
So let’s dive in right up front, I want to tell you, my recommendation is to use a third party platform like Thinkific. And I know that might surprise you because I’m a website designer. And I’m always telling people to use their website to the fullest extent.
But in this video, I’m going to explain why. Now I want to clarify that this video is not a tech video, I’m not going line by line, comparing functionality between Thinkific and WordPress or anything like that. This is a broader view of which path is better for your business.
So if you’re looking for a tech comparison, like a tech video, this unfortunately is not the video for you. The reason that I really recommend Thinkific, or another platform, like Thinkific is because they are built to run courses, they have all that functionality, it’s super easy for you as the teacher to just upload content and make it available to the students.
It’s easy for the students, it’s a nice dashboard. I know we can set up those same dashboards or something similar on WordPress. But these platforms are really designed well. And make it easy for students to digest and go through the course content because you want a good learning experience for your students that’s going to help them actually finish your courses and get results.
So that’s really important. Now, of course Thinkific. And these other platforms do have a monthly or yearly fee, you do have to factor that into your pricing and your profit margins. But WordPress does not come without its own fees as well.
So yes, you do have to pay another fee for Thinkific or whatever. But I think the ease of use for you and your students is worth paying that extra fee. Now, like I said, WordPress does not come without its own fees, you have plugins because you might need one, you might need two or three video hosting platform that can host the video content that you will then embed within your course.
But then you also have the actual site setup. If you have your own site, and you’re just adding the course it might be a little more affordable. But if you are setting up a dedicated course, website, where will live by itself, that’s going to be a pretty hefty investment.
This is not just normal, quote, unquote, web design. This is a lot more detailed, there’s a lot that goes into setting up a course plugin. It is not just click a few buttons and you’re ready to go. There’s connecting payment gateways, they’re setting up the checkout page, the user account page, obviously the sales page, all the course content pages themselves, like there’s a lot that goes into it.
It’s not just plug and play. So you have to think about that thing. You also need to think about ongoing maintenance and support. Because unless you are super tech savvy or you have someone on your team already that can handle that.
You might need to bring that designer or developer back in maybe one time, maybe 15 times to help troubleshoot or to help create new pages upload content like that situation can vary depending on your needs, your team, etc.
But when you compare that costs of the plugins that you’re going to have to pay yearly fees for plus the designer developer plus the ongoing support. And then compare that to the $99 a month for Thinkific. It might be more affordable to actually go with Thinkific.
So that’s something to consider, as well. So when it comes down to it, I recommend Thinkific because it’s easier to use, it’s more affordable and likely you will have less tech issues, not saying Thinkific doesn’t have tech issues.
But you are likely to have fewer tech issues with Thinkific or another platform like Thinkific. And then you have more time to do other activities in your business that will help you generate more revenue or get more students inside your course. So those are my thoughts.
I would love to hear if you have any questions about WordPress versus Thinkific or other platforms. Let me know down in the comments. If you enjoyed this video. Be sure and give it a thumbs up and I will see y’all next time.
