What is Your Course Description? Why is it Important?
Your course description serves as a concise overview of your course for prospective students. It's a crucial tool for persuading them that your course is uniquely capable of transforming their lives. We strongly suggest including the following information in your course description:
- The content of the course
- How the students will benefit from that content
What You Need to Know
- Make use of the course description to summarize what your course covers, how it is taught, what the students will learn, and what they will gain after taking the course.
- Ensure to optimize your course for sales conversions by using our highly recommended best practices provided below for the tone and structure of your course description.
- Avoid including images, external links, or links to other Thkee courses in your course description.
- Avoid including coupon codes, coupon links, course referral links, affiliate links, or mentions of discounts per our rules and guidelines.
Remember, we do check for this as part of our Quality Review Process.
In this article we will cover the following:
Best Practices for the Tone of Your Description
1. Ask yourself the following questions below before writing to ensure you really understand your potential student:
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What are the demographics of your ideal student?
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What needs are you solving for your ideal student?
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Why does your ideal student want to enroll in your course? Is it essential to their career, relationships, and lifestyle? How?
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Look at message boards, forums, reviews of other similar books or products. What do students ask for in other places? How will your course meet those needs?
2. Get personal with your students:
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It is best to speak directly to the students; say "You" instead of "enrollees", "students", or "course participants".
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Use easy-to-understand copy, and sentences of various lengths to keep students engaged. Here is a great example for inspiration.
Example
Good:
"At the end of the course, you will be able to build 10 Android Apps"
Bad:
"This course includes 10 Android App projects"
3. Stay positive and emphasize benefits:
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Focus on the benefits your course provides to students. What problems will it solve for them? How will it change their life?
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Stay positive and approachable as you walk your students through what makes your course unique and what the students will learn.
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If possible, add in some real-world examples to validate your course topic.
Example
Good:
"In this course we'll fix, together, that bad posture that's been causing you stress, headaches, and overall discomfort"
Bad:
"This course covers the basics of what bad posture is."
Good:
"Ever wonder how companies like Apple design their products?"
Bad:
"I'll teach you how to design products."
4. Bold and CAPITALIZE with care:
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Just as sentence length should vary, so should formatting because if too much is bolded, nothing will stand out.
- Do not include long and dramatic bullet point lists besides in the area we recommend in the Structure part of this article.
Best Practices for the Structure of Your Course Description
1.Add an introductory 2-3 sentences at the beginning of your description:
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Highlight what your course is or provide a high-level overview and how it will benefit the students.
- Avoid asking questions or pitching to students here---instead, ensure to focus on the problem your course is solving in a positive and an inspiring tone.
2. Add in 1 sentence 'heading' after your 2-3 sentence overview:
- Structure this as follows: one sentence that contains an action verb, the subject of the course, and context of the course subject in bold and "title case" -- the first letter of each word has to be capitalized.
- Ensure to avoid repeating the title of your course.
- Avoid making claims such as "The best course on the subject!" or "100% satisfied or guaranteed money back!".
Example
Good:
"Master Foreign Languages Quickly Using the Magnetic Memory Method"
"Learn and Master the Most Popular Big Data Technologies in this Comprehensive Course"
3. Add in a short list of bullet points underneath the heading:
- If a student is scanning your course page, including this short list will help them take in the most important benefits that your course provides, and what makes it more unique.
- You bullets have to be structured as short phrases that start with an action verb, such as Learn, Recognize, Build, Find.
4. Add in a one-line overview of your course topic:
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This line should be different than the one-line heading.
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Bold this text, if desired.
5. Add in an overview of your course topic or what you are covering:
- This portion should be at least 4 to 6 sentences long only, or 2 small paragraphs
- Some ideas for content to include are as follows: the course topic's history, what the topic is used for, who uses it, why it is unique, the types of jobs you can get if you know the topic, the current events or news about the topic.
- In general, short teasers are quite better than the detailed histories.
- Highlight what makes your course unique, like real-life applications, projects, test-prep
Example
Good:
"We'll learn about Julia Child: the story of a spy who became a chef who changed the world of cooking forever."
"Well-known startups like Twitter, Tinder, and Meetup all use Python platforms for their websites."
6. Add in an overview of your course or how do you cover your topic:
- Most of the course descriptions have the highest word count in this section.
- Expand upon the bullet points you included above: what are the benefits your course offers, what skills do you or will you teach, and any course metrics such as number of lectures, projects, and quizzes that you want to include.
- Tone: avoid overloading your students with too many details too fast and stay friendly and approachable as much as possible. Stick with small paragraphs of about 2-3 sentences each only.
- And at the end of this section, make sure to include a conclusion which tells the student what they will walk away from the course with.
Example
Good:
"I designed this programming course to be easily understood by absolute beginners"
Bad:
"This is the most efficient course on programming"
Good:
"Complete with working files and code samples, you will be able to work alongside the instructor and will receive a verifiable certificate of completion upon finishing the course."
Minimum Requirements to Pass our Quality Review Process
- Make use of the course description to summarize what your course covers, how it is taught, what the students will probably learn, and what they will gain from the course.
- Do not include any images, external links, affiliate links, or links to other Thkee courses in your course description.
- Do not include coupon codes, coupon links, or mentions of discounts.
How to Edit Your Course Description on Thkee
Click here to learn how to edit your course description.