Firstly, look at the instructors profile. You will be able to see straight away how many courses, how many unique students and how many total reviews the instructor has. The basic message here is the more the better. If you want a benchmarkt, 10,000 students, 6 courses, 100 reviews. This will enable you to be confident that this is a serious instructor – but its not the whole story.
Find a range of courses that you think you may be interested in. Udemy search is not Google but use keywords close to your subject matter and open potential courses in new tabs.
Now take a look at the courses themselves. How long is the course and how many lectures. Focused courses are good but they should be at least 20-30 lectures long – real lectures not text document padding and the videos should be 3 to 6 minutes long each. Very long videos (the max is 20 minutes) suggest either a waffly course or the instructor has cut down his material from some other origin and repurposed it for a udemy course.
Read the ratings and reviews, particularly the bad ones. Check that the good ones come from people who have photographs. There are too many instant accounts and “fabricated” reviews which game the system
Take the opportunity to check out the Promo Video and any videos which are on Preview – try before you buy!
Compare the courses you have selected against each other – how do they cover the material and which course seems to do the best job of it. Where are the gaps? Which course most closely approaches a solution to the problem you have?
When you are ready to buy….don’t. Add the course to your wishlist and wait. Udemy has promotions all the time. Expect to pay between $10 and $19. If you are in a hurry, message the instructor and ask for a coupon – he/she can only say no but are much more likely to say yes. Why? firstly because you are offering to pay something and not just chasing a freebie (there is nothing more irritating for an instructor than getting a message from someone they have never heard of, asking for a free coupon in return for a review). Secondly, the instructor will much prefer you buying with one of their coupons as they receive 97% of the proceeds, providing you have not signed up as a result of an affiliate link – but they won’t be able to see that ahead of time, so they have to assume you have not – its simply the luck of the draw.
If they do provide you with a coupon – do the nice thing and leave a good review for them anyway
At the end of the day though, remember, Udemy has a full refund 30 day policy which means if the course does not meet your requirements, get your money back and buy a different one.
I hope this is helpful. I might mention that I have recently launched a 2015 Udemy Course Directory (as a Udemy Course) which uses the amazing (and free to download) Visokio Omniscope Viewer. The course is priced low to make it widely accessible. I am sharing $5 coupons to the course (priced at $9 normally) in the launch period and you might like to check it out (don’t forget the 30 day money back guarantee 🙂 ). Here is a link for you and any one else who reads this and wants to do some easy but really smart searching for Udemy Courses –