Learning how to create online courses is an essential aspect of your knowledge business. Not all online courses are worth a penny but professionally created courses can go for the best prices in the market. It is not enough to learn how to create online course without knowing how to start a profitable online course business. 

The e-learning market is fast becoming basic as it is expected to grow by over $300 billion by 2024 and rise to $1 trillion by 2027. This has made teaching what you already know and practice as online courses a huge investment in the 21st century. 

Having an online course as an expert in a particular niche is a great way to stamp your authority as an expert in that field, this creates relevance and all the best feelings everyone dreams about. It is therefore very relevant that you learn how to create an online course that is professionally accepted and can be promoted to any part of the world.

Before we proceed to learn how to create online courses, let us examine the many advantages of online courses and why they are relevant.

Advantages of Online Course

There are several advantages of online courses and many reasons why the e-learning industry has continued to enjoy one of the best seen growth of any business sector, here is a list of ten advantages of online courses:

• Promotes easy learning
• Creates a better platform for students to learn and practice new skills at their own pace
• Serves as a source of income for schools and information marketers
• Utilized by industries to improve staff performances by learning new skills
• Creates a social learning experience that motivates many to improve their lives
• Helps to improve students overall performances in school
• Used by schools to promote their business and create a higher standard of learning
• Serves as a new way to learn all trending technologies and business
• Creates a huge source of finance for individuals
• Provides a better way of interaction with industry experts
• Creates an easy avenue for individuals to learn new skills and get a paid job

Before we discuss how to create online courses with ease, let us first examine the various types of equipment for creating online courses. 

Important Equipment for Creating Quality Video Courses

There are several pieces of equipment used to create quality video courses, tools such as Camtasia is a screen recording and video editor used alongside other equipment such as microphone and camera to produce quality video courses with the best experience. 

The following are the types of equipment needed to create quality online courses:

1. Camera

This is a major tool that you need to get started, high quality cameras are often required to capture the best quality images and record quality videos of the course instructor. It is important to note that the camera is different from a screen recorder that will help you capture the content of your computer screen. 

2. Screen Recorder

The Screen recorder is a tool that course creators use to record computer screens. It is a very important piece of equipment for creating online courses. The course instructor uses the screen recorder to capture live events, they can be used to record slides or other practical demonstrations that form an important part of an online course. 

3. Video Editing tool

When course recording is completed, another very important equipment that is needed is the video editing tool. This equipment is software that helps to edit certain aspects of your recordings, it is used to reduce noise, cut irrelevant aspects of your recording, add text to videos and many other important tools. The video editing tool is also used to compress videos to ensure that they retain the best quality after publishing and add responsive elements for different devices. 

4. Microphone

Although many computers and phones have built-in microphones, experience has shown that due to the noise generated by computer fans, internal microphones tend to produce noisy recordings that require so much expertise to be properly edited. For the best experience when recording your online course, an external microphone is required. 

5. Lighting

Lighting is an important aspect of every media production. For online courses where the instructor is required to show some practical demonstrations of his/herself, good lighting is required for the best experience. This is usually more beneficial when Live videos are integrated into a course.  Use natural light, sunlight or apply subtle lighting when recording yourself in a video course. 

6. Camera Holder

The camera holder is usually required to keep a steady camera when recording a course. To avoid blurry videos, you are required to avoid shaky hands when recording, for this purpose a tripod stand may be of great help. This will help your phone or camera stay stable as you make your quality video course and it also helps you without human assistance.

7. Video Storage device

Storage devices like a good memory card is one of the equipment you need when creating a course. The storage device will help you store various versions of your course for proper editing. They also act as a temporary host to prevent damages. Getting an extra memory card or drive food storage ensures that your computer or phone operates at full capacity. 

8. Learning Management System

This is one of the most important tools needed to deliver a professional course. The learning management system ensures that your course is delivered in modules and as drip content for the best learning experience. It helps you to keep track of students’ performances, sales records, students gradebook, easy communication and many more.   Learn Afrique LMS is built to help you get started with ease, it is the best learning management system with all professional features at affordable prices.

Before you start out as an online course creator, it is important to ensure that important equipment or tools for creating online courses which have been discussed above are made available. 

Below is a step by step guide on how to create professional online courses. 

9 Best Ways to Create Online Course

There are several methods individuals can use to create online courses, here is a step by step guide on how to create online course with ease:

1. Research and Identify the Most Marketable topic

After brainstorming and creating topics for your course then conduct several types of research to see which topic in your expertise has high market demand, this is a crucial part of your course creation and must be done diligently

Researching will help you plan, structure, and organize your course to create excellent and valuable course content for your students that is different from every other product in the market.

Researching will also help you stay updated in your area of expertise, help you find new sub-topics, and add more content to what you already have and learn the latest marketing trends in the industry.

It will also help you pick the perfect course topic that is in high demand, the higher the demand, the higher the chances of making a profit, and people will only consider your course if it is valuable and worth their money.

2. Create a Course Curriculum

Now that you have identified a marketable topic and have a vision of the knowledge you want to share, it is time to decide how you are going to share this knowledge. Break this topic into subtopics for easy assimilation, put all these subtopics in a logical order, and make a list.

Answering these three questions is important for creating a course curriculum.

1. What impact do you want your course to create?
2. How do you plan on achieving this impact? 
3. Use the how-to checklist in number 2 to create a course curriculum.

Once you are done answering these questions you have an effective course outline, the course outline helps you avoid unnecessary information that makes your course irrelevant. It is always best to focus on important things only. 

3. Define Course Modules

Course modules include the various breakdown your course will have, this is usually determined from the course curriculum. Your online course should be structured into modules where each module talks about a particular subtopic. 

Each module in your course should address a particular topic and assignment of quizzes needed to go to the next module. They usually form a part of the video content of each subtopic. It can be structured into module 1, module 2, module 3 until all the subtopics or curriculum is covered in separate videos that creates a flow in your hosted learning management system. 

4. Create Course Content

The next step is to create the actual content of the course, get as detailed as possible, and include only content that creates the impact your course is about, check out other contents and information that is similar to the course you are creating, and follow the course curriculum.

You can deliver your training in different content formats like 

1. Graphics designs and images
2. Video – recording, screencasts, and webinars
3. Text – blog posts, ebooks, or PDF files
4. Slides presentation
5. Audio files – talks, podcasts, interviews, etc
6. Powerpoints
7. Quizzes
8. SCORM or HTML5

5. Understand the Most Effective Learning Style for your Audience

Understanding the most effective and engaging learning style for your audience can increase the sales of your course and make you more money. One way to do this is by identifying your target audience and what they are most likely to interact with and narrowing it down to a particular group for which your online course is meant. 

This group of persons is your target audience, be specific when choosing your target audience. The information is very relevant when crafting a pricing plan for your information product.

How old are they? Which gender? Are they employed or not? What level of education do they have? For example, my course is for females who are 25 years old, graduated from school, are unemployed, and have love self-esteem – this gives you an insight into what a 25-year-old lady would want to engage in.

Another way to do this is by putting up posts with different learning styles on your social media platforms and noticing how your audience reacts to them, comparing them, the post with the highest interaction from your audience is likely the style they can relate with and understand better.

6. Record, Edit and Structure your Course Content

You are finally ready to start your course once you figure out how you want to deliver your knowledge whether through text, video, or graphics.

Videos and graphics are very important if your course is practical so choose the right camera, microphone, and tools for your videos to enable you to record good quality videos with good sounds and background, this can increase retention and engagement if done right.

7. Choose an Affordable LMS to Host and Promote your Online Course

Creating your course is one thing, but choosing an affordable learning management system that supports your course format is another. An LMS is an online course platform that you can brand as your academy and link your website, this makes course creation simple and easy to sell your product.

Learn Afrique is a learning management system with a professional course builder that gives instructors control over your course, it also allows you to customize the platform into your academy, it is scalable and easy to use.

8. Publish and Launch

When recording, editing and other steps described in this article have been completed, it is now time to publish your online course. Publish your online course and promote the same using well defined strategies to make money from online courses. 

9. Promote your Course

You didn’t put all this effort into creating a course for nobody so it’s time to create visibility for your course across several channels to get students to buy your course. Learning how to start a profitable online course business is one fundamental thing you need to get you started. There are strategies that can be employed to make the maximum profit from your online courses. 

After learning how to create online courses with ease, it is important to also learn how to host online courses to ensure that you deliver the best learning experience to your student. 

Conclusion

Understanding how to create an online course can be difficult especially if you are just starting out as an online course creator. Strategies such as planning and researching market trends, creating course curriculum, developing course modules, recording and editing your videos,  choosing a standard learning management system, creating a marketing strategy to promote your online course are among the many ways to create and promote online courses. 

Learn Afrique has a professional course builder, advanced quizzing and other rich features to help you get started even as a beginner. Our subscription plans are friendly and created to be scalable and flexible so that you can grow your online course business from one level to another. Our mobile apps allow both students and online course creators to carry their products anywhere they go. 

This article has given you a complete guide on how to create online courses and make the most profit from your skills and knowledge even as a beginner.