Creating and selling courses is an easy way to earn some extra income, and in some cases, become a main revenue stream. People are used to purchasing informational courses if they promise to teach them a new skill, or to provide them some other type of benefit.

However, sometimes it is hard to find course ideas – or at least ideas that will sell.

My general advice in this area is to choose something that you are passionate about, but also has a viable market. You will need to do proper market research to verify that your course idea is in fact a good one.

The easiest way to get started with your market research it by doing a quick Google search on the term(s) you think people will use when searching for your course. I covered this briefly in another article, so I won’t go into too much detail here.

But how else can you research the validity of your course topic?

What if I told you there is a resource out there that has spent millions of dollars validating niches across hundreds of industries? Even better, what if I told you that this information was 100%? Well, I have good news for you – there is such a company!

You have probably seen the Dummies book series in book stores all over the world. They provide wonderful “how-to” advice for a large variety of topics. This is an absolute gold-mine for validating your course ideas – or even helping you come up with some.

Head on over to the Dummies website and search for your keywords to see what comes up. Take a look at what is included in the books that come up so you can get ideas for how you want to position your own course. Don’t just stop with the Dummies series though, there is a similar “Idiot’s Guide” series that does the same thing as the Dummies series.

Just as a word of caution, don’t copy one of these book topics exactly. If you do, you’ll find it hard to out-market them! Also, market research goes beyond idea validation. You should investigate the current players and create a profile on their offering. This not only help you understand the current landscape, but also give you an idea of how you can differentiate.