How to Choose Your First CE Course Topic When You Have Several Ideas

If you've worked in your profession for several years, you may have more than one idea for an online course. You could teach a skill you've developed, help newer professionals with something school didn't prepare them for, or explain how to do something your colleagues regularly ask you about.

Any of those could be worth pursuing. The question is which one deserves your time first.

This is where the first of my five pillars comes in: identify a real problem in your profession and deliver a solution. That principle gives you a way to compare your ideas. Look at who needs the help, what solving the problem would do for them, and what you can teach from your own experience.

Start With the Problem Behind Each Idea

When I teach course development, I ask people to list five problems they see in their profession. Then I ask what knowledge, skills, or experience they have that could help solve each one.

If you already have several course ideas, you can work backward. What problem is each course going to solve?

“Patient communication” is a subject. A new practitioner struggling to handle difficult patient conversations is a person with a problem. That gives you something much more specific to build around.

Think about what makes the situation difficult. What does that practitioner need to learn? What would they be able to do after taking your course that they struggle with now?

Do that for each idea you're considering. You may find that one already has a clear purpose, while another is mostly a subject you enjoy talking about. Spend some time figuring out the practical value of that second idea before you commit to it.

The problem can involve knowledge, efficiency, confidence, a particular skill, or professional independence. What matters is that you can explain how your teaching will help someone with something they actually face at work.

Be Specific About Who Needs the Help

A problem can be important to one group of professionals and barely relevant to another.

Someone who has just entered practice needs different help from someone who has been working for fifteen years. A professional preparing to open a business has different questions from someone trying to become more proficient in their current job.

So when you compare ideas, think about the people who would take each course. How many people encounter this problem? How much does it affect their working life? Are they looking for help with it?

You don't need an audience of your own to begin answering those questions. Pay attention to conversations with colleagues and discussions in professional groups. Look at what people repeatedly ask about and where they say their education left them unprepared.

Those conversations can help you distinguish a problem you've personally noticed from one that other professionals are actively trying to solve.

And don't automatically choose the idea that applies to the largest group. You can build a course around a specific problem within a specialty. A smaller group with a clear need is worth considering, especially when you understand that need well.

Choose Something You Can Teach From Experience

The next question is what you bring to the solution.

Have you dealt with this problem yourself? Have you developed a skill or approach that helps? Can you explain the decisions involved, the mistakes to avoid, and how someone can apply what you're teaching?

Imagine you're a nurse practitioner who has opened a practice and also spends time mentoring new graduates. You might be considering a course on starting a practice and another on handling difficult patient conversations. You have experience that could support either one.

For the practice course, think about whether you can explain the process well enough for another NP to follow. Which parts did you handle yourself? Where would you need someone else's expertise? Your audience would also need to be interested in taking on the work of starting a business.

For the communication course, think about what you actually teach the new graduates you mentor. Can you explain your approach, show how it works in different situations, and help someone apply it in their current job?

Now you have something useful to compare: the help each audience needs and your ability to deliver it. If your colleagues repeatedly ask for help with difficult conversations and you already know how to teach that skill, that's a reason to start there. If your strongest experience is in building a practice and you're hearing from NPs who want help doing the same, that may be your better starting point.

This is also why you shouldn't dismiss something just because it feels basic to you. A skill you've used for years may be exactly what a newer professional needs help learning. They are taking your course because they want to learn what you already know.

Look at What You Could Build Around It

Once you've narrowed your options, think through the teaching each one would require.

Could you explain the solution in enough detail to build a useful course? What would you need to cover? What examples could you use? Where would students need more explanation or practice?

You don't need to record anything yet. Thinking through the material will help you see whether you have a course you can develop or an idea that still needs work.

Then consider the free content you could create around that subject. Articles and videos give people a chance to learn from you before buying a course. Could you regularly answer questions related to this problem? Could you explain individual parts of the subject in ways your future students would find useful?

This matters because you're choosing a starting point for a course business. The same problem should give you something valuable to teach in the course and something useful to discuss with your profession over time.

It doesn't mean your first course has to contain everything you know. You can develop additional courses later. For now, give the first one a clear purpose and enough substance to deliver on it.

Make a Choice You Can Act On

Once you can explain who needs the course, how it will help them, and what you would teach, you have a starting point you can act on.

You may still have two ideas that look promising. If so, start with the one whose solution you can teach most clearly from the experience you already have. Keep the other for later. Choosing your first course doesn't mean abandoning every other idea.

And remember that you won't know everything about demand before you launch. I've had courses I thought were just okay become some of my biggest sellers, while courses I thought were among my best became total duds. Your students will give you information you couldn't get from planning alone.

The purpose of comparing your ideas is to make a thoughtful choice and get started. Choose a real problem you understand, build a course that helps your colleagues solve it, and use what you learn from your students to keep improving it.