course to create an online business

The 7 Best Courses to Create an Online Business

By now, you’ve likely witnessed numerous individuals transform their lives by embarking on their own online business ventures. The online realm offers vast opportunities for income generation, whether through freelance writing, crafting, or blogging, among countless other possibilities. The potential for online businesses appears limitless. However, if you lack prior experience, you might be pondering where to commence. Fortunately, a multitude of online courses exists to guide you in establishing your business.

Here are the top seven online courses designed to assist you in crafting your online business:

  1. Annie Botticelli: Secrets of a Six-Figure Consultant
  2. BrunchWork 
  3. University of California Irvine (UCI) | Coursera
  4. University of Maryland (UMD)
  5. IE Business School
  6. Massachusetts Institute of Technology | EDX
  7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Commencing any significant endeavor often presents the greatest challenge. Establishing a successful online business demands a wealth of knowledge, which can leave you feeling adrift and overwhelmed. Fortunately, online courses are readily available to provide comprehensive guidance throughout this journey. Continue reading to discover the top seven online courses designed to help you craft your online business.

Article Topics

What should I study for online business?

Embarking on the journey of running an online business reveals a wealth of essential information that you must grasp. Before diving in, it’s important to invest time in studying and grasping at least the fundamental concepts necessary for your venture’s success. The question often arises: where should you commence your study to kickstart your online business?

In truth, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this query, as it rests on the nature of the online business that you want to start. For instance, if your passion lies in cooking, and you aspire to launch your cooking blog, your initial areas of study will vastly differ from someone venturing into the online fashion retail sector.

For an aspiring cooking blogger, the study path may encompass topics such as setting up a professional blog, optimizing traffic generation, and incorporating advertising strategies. However, these areas might not align with the requirements of your specific online business.

The key is to reflect on the unique needs of your venture and compile a comprehensive list of all essential components necessary for its launch. Once you’ve outlined this list, embark on your educational journey by delving into each item. Once you’ve mastered these essentials, you’ll be better prepared to take the leap and launch your online business.

Where do I start an online nusiness?

Alright so you have now figured out what you want to do, and you have studied every aspect of it. You might be wondering where you can launch your business. This is a very common question, and for the most part, it has a simple answer. 

For the majority of online businesses, starting on social media is a great idea. It can provide you with an audience and direct people towards your business. However, it can sometimes be quite hard to gain a following on social media. It can take months or years to build up a following which will earn you enough money to live off of.

This doesn’t mean that you should shy away from starting your online business on social media, it just means you shouldn’t completely depend on it. Going back to the cooking blog example from earlier, that person might decide to make an Instagram account to promote their cooking blog. 

That would be a great way for them to share their recipes, attract a new audience, and raise awareness that their blog exists. That would be a great compliment to their business. They would not be relying on Instagram to get them traffic to their website, but they would use it as a tool to improve their traffic. 

The 7 Best Courses Online to Create an Online Business

At this juncture, some of you may already possess a general concept of your desired venture and its execution—an excellent starting point. Conversely, some may find themselves still uncertain about their path and how to proceed.

Thankfully, a multitude of online courses exists, serving as compasses to navigate your entry into the world of online entrepreneurship. These courses offer comprehensive guidance through virtually every stage, paving the way for your success as an online business owner.

Without further delay, let’s get into a compilation of the top seven online courses designed to empower you in creating and managing your online business.

1. Annie Botticelli: Secrets of a Six-Figure Consultant

Step into a world of boundless imagination and endless possibilities, where you are free and abundant, living effortlessly in the rhythm of your creative flow. Picture yourself as a vessel of enchantment sharing the mesmerizing magic that surges through your being with a grateful and ever-expanding audience.

In this utopian reality, your work schedule aligns perfectly with your passions, allowing you to immerse yourself in what you love most while simultaneously making a profound impact on the world. Can you envision a life where dreams merge with purpose, and every step you take becomes a dance of creation and benevolence? Now, open your eyes to the boundless horizon of possibilities, for in this realm, you can truly be yourself and help the world in extraordinary ways.

Welcome to Annie Botticelli’s empowering course, Secrets of a Six-Figure Consultant, tailor-made for those seeking to transform their lives and businesses through online formats and resources. If you resonate with any of the following, this course is the perfect match:

  • You wish to empower yourself and others with valuable information and services using online platforms.
  • You desire to establish or expand a healing arts, consulting, coaching, or other service-based business without hefty overhead costs.
  • You have or plan to have a physical establishment for your healing arts or similar business and seek to diversify income streams for added stability.
  • You have a geographically-based business or income and aspire to extend your reach to the international and online audience.
  • You want to earn a great income without being tied to a specific location.
  • You aim to transition out of an hourly wage or fee-for-service business model.
  • You value the freedom to set your own schedule and be your own boss.
  • You yearn to reach a wider audience with your messages and products.
  • You’re eager to learn valuable tools and perspectives that will help you excel in the Game of Life.
  • You wish to spend more quality time with your family and loved ones compared to working away from home.
  • You dream of having an online school where you can share your expertise on topics close to your heart.

The course covers a range of topics including

  • attracting the perfect clients
  • creating and managing websites, domains, and hosting
  • effectively storing, sharing, and delivering information and large files
  • the common energetic pitfalls that may arise as you progress on this path, offering invaluable guidance on how to overcome them and stay on course toward your aspirations.

In this transformative course, you will learn the secret to success through key foundations, backed by countless versatile approaches. From understanding the intricacies of accepting payments – the “how, when, and how much” – to demystifying the art of building and diversifying your income, it delves into the crucial components that will shape your future triumphs. Join Annie on your journey, where you will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to make your dreams a reality. Embark on a path of growth, impact, and fulfillment together!

2. BrunchWork - Strategy and Business Management

This course put together by Brunchwork offers great value to its students. This is a 2 month long course that focuses on 8 core skills. These skills include: strategy & finance, pricing, web development, communication & presentation, sales & influence, customer research, marketing, and branding.

Now this course is a bit pricey, but it’s definitely worth your time and hard earned money. Despite the high cost, this course has a lot of value in it. It includes 14 interactive live video lessons, 8 hands-on projects to reinforce key concepts, and weekly speakers. 

This course is a true investment in yourself. Although it may not be for everyone due to its high price, it has some undeniable value. Some of the weekly guest speakers featured in the past include: Andrew Yang, David Sacks, and Graham Stanton.

In case you weren’t aware who these people are, Yang is a former presidential candidate, Sacks is PayPal’s founding COO and Stanton is Ellevest’s co-founder and CEO.

3. UCI - Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time Management for Personal & Professional Productivity

This course is put together by the University of California, Irvine. It is taught by professor Margaret Meloni, who has an MBA and works in the university’s department of continuing education. This course is designed to teach you how to make the best of your time by teaching you the necessary skills to manage your time.

Perhaps the best thing about this course is that at the moment enrollment is free. Since the course is free, it is hard to make an argument of why this course wouldn’t be worth your time. Everyone could improve their time management skills. 

As an online business owner, you will have plenty of tasks to complete each day. Making sure everything is completed on top of doing everything else you need to do throughout the day can get quite exhausting. That is why learning how to better manage your time could be so important to you as a new online business owner. 

To be honest this course is somewhat of a no brainer. You don’t have to invest any money into it. All you have to do is put in the time to learn the skills. Skills like task management and planning will help you for the rest of your life. You will use these skills inside and outside of work.

4. UMD - Become a Digital Marketer

As mentioned before, social media can be a great asset to your online business. It is for this reason that knowing how to be a successful digital marketer can greatly help you and your online business. This course by the University of Maryland is about the same cost as the course on Brunchwork and is four months long.

Once again you may be wondering whether it is worth spending a large amount of money on a course to start your online business. And it most certainly is as this course offers a lot of value including a professional certificate in Digital Marketing.

This course is very much like any college course you can take. This is a self-paced four month long course. It is designed to teach you everything you need to know about digital marketing. From the basics to some key tips and concepts, this course has it all to make you a professional digital marketer by the end.

5. IE - Brand Identity and Strategy

This course put together by IE Business School professor Maria Eizaguirre Dieguez is intended to teach you all about creating your brand and creating a strategy for that brand. This course is free and takes around 14 to 16 hours to fully complete.

This self-paced course was created to teach you everything you need to know to create your own brand with a unique identity. It is also designed to help you create a strategy for growing your brand. 

Some key skills you will learn include: logo creation, advertising, and creating a brand identity. All of these are important skills for you to know when launching your online business. Although they might not be crucial skills, they are still worth knowing if you want to have your own online business. 

Once again, the fact that this course is free and takes up so little time makes it a no brainer for anyone aiming to start their own online business. All you need to do is invest 15 hours of your time into learning these important skills. If you are disciplined, you could finish this course within a week.

6. MIT - Becoming an Entrepreneur

This course is offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology | EDX. It is a self-paced course designed to take anywhere from 5-6 weeks to complete. This course is free for anyone to take on the edx.org platform. 

This course online demands around 1 to 3 hours of your time per week. However, it is self-paced so you can finish it faster if you wish. You will learn some key concepts like how to identify business opportunities and how to pitch and sell to customers.

This is a great course for anyone starting out. It gives you the opportunity to learn about some key concepts of entrepreneurship from one of the best universities in the country. The best part about it is that it is completely free so you have no reason not to give it a try.

course to create an online business - Becoming an Entrepreneur

7. MIT - Nuts and Bolts of Business Plans

This is another course put together by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This course is designed to teach you how you can create a plan for your business that will help you stay on track and keep everything organized. This is a staple course in the MIT MBA program and has been taught at MIT for the last 20 years.

This course offers a series of videos to teach you the basics of business plans to teach you about the basics of them, and how to create them. At the end of the day you might not end up needing to create a business plan for your online business, but the skills learned in this course will still be useful. 

Regardless of whether you will end up using a business plan or not, the content of this course will give you a deeper understanding of how running a business works. Thousands of people have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get an MBA degree from MIT. You can take one of the courses these people took and benefit from it for free!

Final Thoughts on Creating an Online Business Course

Embarking on the journey of starting your own business entails significant effort and a whirlwind of emotions. It’s not a path for the faint of heart, but with the vast array of online resources at your disposal, it’s entirely achievable. The courses outlined in this compilation offer invaluable skills to bolster your entrepreneurial endeavors.

In fact, some of these courses might make the critical difference between a thriving entrepreneur and one who faces setbacks. It’s essential to remember that a wealth of information is readily accessible on the internet. Many of these resources come free of charge, ensuring that nothing stands between you and your dream of becoming a successful online business owner.