Online Course Website Design in Savannah, GA

Creating and selling online courses has become a real business for educators, consultants, and experts who want to scale their knowledge beyond one-on-one clients. Your course platform needs to do more than just host videos – it needs to deliver content smoothly, handle payments, and keep students engaged through completion.

I’m Benjamin, and I’ve been building online course websites for 15 years. I know what keeps students actually finishing courses instead of buying and abandoning them, and how to get your courses found by people searching for what you teach.

Why Generic Course Platforms Fall Short

Teachable, Thinkific, and Kajabi work fine for basic courses, but you’re paying monthly fees, giving up percentage of sales, and stuck with their branding and limitations. Your course looks like everyone else’s course on the same platform.

Having your own course website means you control everything – the design matches your brand, you keep 100% of sales minus payment processing, and you’re not at the mercy of platform policy changes or price increases.

What Online Course Websites Need

Smooth Content Delivery

Videos need to load fast and play reliably. Nothing kills student satisfaction faster than buffering videos or content that won’t load on their device. I host course content on reliable systems that handle video streaming properly.

Courses organized into logical modules and lessons make sense to students. They should always know where they are in the course, what’s next, and how much progress they’ve made. Clear structure keeps people moving forward instead of getting lost.

Payment and Enrollment Systems

Your course site needs to handle one-time payments, payment plans, or subscription models depending on how you price. Integration with Stripe or PayPal means secure credit card processing without you manually managing transactions.

Automated enrollment means when someone buys your course, they immediately get access without you manually adding them. Instant gratification matters – people who pay expect immediate access.

Student Progress Tracking

Students need to see their progress through the course. What lessons they’ve completed, what’s remaining, how far along they are. This gamification element keeps people engaged and moving toward completion.

You need to see student progress too. Who’s actively working through content, who bought but never started, who’s stuck at a particular lesson. This data helps you improve the course and reach out to struggling students.

Drip Content Options

Some course creators want to release content gradually instead of giving access to everything immediately. Week one unlocks the first module, week two unlocks the next, and so on. This pacing keeps students from getting overwhelmed and maintains engagement over time.

I can build courses with drip scheduling or give immediate full access, whatever matches your teaching approach.

Real Online Course Sites I’ve Built

Created a website for a marketing consultant who wanted to package her knowledge into courses instead of only doing client work. Built a platform hosting three different courses, payment plans, and student management. She went from 100% client revenue to about 40% course revenue within a year, working less while earning more.

Redesigned a course site for a fitness instructor whose Teachable platform was costing her 10% of sales plus monthly fees. Moved her to her own WordPress-based platform with better video hosting and payment integration. Saved thousands per year in platform fees while having way more control over design and features.

Worked with a local real estate education company teaching new agents. They needed a professional course platform with quizzes, certificates, and student management. Built them a complete learning management system handling hundreds of students going through their licensing prep courses.

Student Experience That Actually Works

Easy Navigation

Students shouldn’t have to hunt for the next lesson or figure out how to get back to the course home. Clear navigation, obvious “next lesson” buttons, and breadcrumb trails showing where they are in the course structure.

Mobile experience matters too. Many students take courses on tablets or phones during commutes or lunch breaks. Your course needs to work perfectly on every device.

Downloadable Resources

Worksheets, templates, checklists, PDFs – whatever supplemental materials your course includes need to be easily downloadable. Students want to save resources and reference them later.

Community Features

Some course creators want student interaction through comments on lessons or dedicated community forums. Others prefer keeping it simple with just the content. I build whatever level of community features matches your teaching style.

Quiz and Assessment Options

If your course needs quizzes or assessments, those can be integrated with automatic grading and score tracking. Particularly important for certification courses or educational content requiring comprehension verification.

Getting Your Courses Found

SEO for Course Topics

When people search for what you teach – “social media marketing course,” “real estate exam prep,” “photography fundamentals” – you want your course appearing in results, not just Udemy or Coursera courses.

Each course on your site gets its own landing page optimized for what that course teaches. Detailed course descriptions, curriculum breakdowns, instructor credentials, and student testimonials all help you rank for course topic searches.

Local SEO works too. Targeting local searches brings in area students who might prefer supporting local instructors.

Content Marketing

Blog posts related to your course topics drive organic traffic. Free valuable content that leads people to your paid courses. Someone reading your blog post about Instagram marketing might then enroll in your full social media course.

YouTube videos, podcast episodes, or free mini-courses can all drive traffic back to your paid course website. Give away good free content, then offer deeper paid learning for serious students.

Technical Integration That Works

Learning Management System

I typically build course sites on WordPress using LearnDash or LifterLMS. These platforms handle all the course functionality – content delivery, student management, progress tracking, quizzes, certificates – while giving you full control over design and hosting.

Payment Processing

Stripe integration handles credit cards securely. PayPal works as an alternative payment option. Payment plans get automated – students pay installments and keep access as long as they’re current.

Email Marketing Integration

Your course site connects with your email platform – Mailchimp, ConvertKit, whatever you use. New students get added to appropriate lists, course completion triggers follow-up sequences, abandoned carts get reminder emails.

Video Hosting

Course videos get hosted on Vimeo or specialized course video platforms, not YouTube where they’re publicly searchable. Students log in to access course content, videos are protected from unauthorized viewing.

Different Course Types Need Different Approaches

A short mini-course teaching one specific skill needs simpler structure than a comprehensive certification program with dozens of lessons. Quick win courses focus on immediate results and fast completion.

Membership sites with ongoing content work differently – new content added regularly, students stay subscribed monthly for continuous learning. This recurring revenue model needs different technical setup than one-time purchase courses.

Group coaching programs combining course content with live calls require scheduling integration, Zoom links, and replay hosting. The website supports the program structure rather than being purely self-paced learning.

Why This Matters for Educators

If you’re teaching through one-on-one sessions, you’re trading time for money. You can only help so many people because there’s only so much time in a day.

Online courses scale your expertise. Create the content once, sell it repeatedly. Work with 100 students instead of 10 without working ten times harder. That’s how consultants, coaches, and educators build sustainable businesses instead of being perpetually booked one-on-one.

Investment That Scales With You

A professional course platform costs more upfront than using Teachable, but you’re not paying monthly platform fees or giving away percentages of every sale forever. After the initial investment, your costs are just hosting and payment processing.

Most course creators I work with see their platform pay for itself within a few months of sales, then it’s pure profit without platform fees cutting into revenue.

Ready to Scale Your Knowledge?

Call: (912) 224-3445
Email: benjamin@zazenwebdesign.com

Let’s talk about your course idea and what you need from a platform. I’ll explain what’s technically possible, what works best for your teaching style, and what investment makes sense for your goals.

Let’s build you a platform that delivers great student experience while keeping more money in your pocket.