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Course descriptions: best practices
Course descriptions: best practices

Write an exciting course description that attracts traffic to the page and encourages enrollment

Amy Peterson avatar
Written by Amy Peterson
Updated over a week ago

To market your course effectively, you’ll need to write a strong course description that will appear on the course description page, so learners will see it. It’s important to remember that this is for marketing purposes - you do not want to write an academic syllabus for your course. DataCamp learners are taking courses in their leisure time, and fun courses (and descriptions) are much more appealing. Please read on for tips and tricks on writing good course descriptions.

Style Recommendations

  • Aim for a minimum of 1,000 characters and the hard maximum is 1,500 characters

  • Your tone should be professional and style should be in line with DataCamp’s style guide

  • Try to ensure that the flow of the description reflects the flow of the course - so start with an overall description and then explain what the reader can study from the first chapter through to the last

  • Vary your paragraph openings and sentence length to make the writing more engaging - for example, do not open each paragraph with ‘in this course’

What to Include

  • Open with an explanation or application for the course skills/knowledge

  • Describe the course and what you’ll learn in detail

  • Close with what you’ll be able to do/know once you complete the course

  • Do not include hyperlinks

Subheadings

Use 2-4 subheadings to break up the text. Subheadings give you the opportunity to increase their engagement and highlight key content to show them they’ve found what they’re looking for. Please use 2-4 subheadings in every course description, and make sure that they:

  • Describe key parts of what the course is about

  • Focus on learning outcomes and technology - for example, if your course uses particular libraries or dictionaries, mention those

  • Are action-oriented or descriptive (most should be action-oriented) - for example, Build Strong Excel Skills, Practice Using Excel with Real-World Data, and Learn How to Use VLOOKUP.

  • Are in title case - to maintain consistent formatting with other areas of the site.

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