Welcome to the modern era! Education can come in many shapes and forms and mastering a skill can be very valuable. Let's explore further options. The most common being the oldest, that of schools, colleges and Universities. Institutions built to educate and inform. However, with the vast connectivity offered to us by the Internet, a new form of education has been created; the online course, the perfect option for any person who wishes to learn from home. Read on to learn how to make an online course in 7 easy steps.

When creating an online course teaching materials and a reliable internet connection is just the beginning. The following list will be a detailed look at specific brands of equipment that will be useful to give your online course the best footing.

Photo by Jeroen den Otter 

Create an online course today!

First and foremost is how you will interact with your students and supply them with your teachings. Given that you won’t be in their living room with a whiteboard, a webcam is essential to creating all your online course content as well as any supplementary material. Any laptop manufactured in the last ten years will have a built-in webcam, but these can often be relatively low in terms of picture and sound quality, and nobody wants a teacher who can’t be understood and looks very pixelated. For this kind of endeavour, a USB is the prefered option and is easy to plug into any PC or laptop as a permanent solution. In my experience, the Logitech C920 1080p model works a treat, even in low light situations.   

Easily on par with excellent video quality is sound. It won’t do your online course any favours to be full of static and noise that can’t be stopped by a pop filter. Senses play a large role when creating online courses, and your students will engage mostly with their eyes and ears. You’ve already got their eyes with your lovely picture quality, be sure to keep their ears with an equally beautiful sound. Always upgrade from the built-in options if you are a laptop user, go for USB external devices as the quality of the connection will be far superior. For audio, any online content creator utilises the Blue Yeti Microphone, easy to use and produces excellent results.

Every online course cites its influences, and you should too whether your course teaches shoemaking, advanced mathematics or physics. Interviews conducted with influencers in that niche are critical, and when you perform them, you’re going to want a way to keep a record of that interview as well as a way to edit it down for your course attendees viewing pleasure. Adobe would most likely supply the most popular recording software for a subscription fee. Zoom, however, a web-based program, is entirely free of charge for up to two people in a call/interview allowing you to record in a lecture-style format using your webcam.

Raw, unedited content will not take you very far when providing an online course. Which is why you’ll need Camtasia to shape that content to present it to your students in the most concise and presentable fashion you can provide. Much like the Blue Yeti Microphone, Camtasia is the most user-positive and well-received editing software on the market, as well as being free from any user-based fee. 

Anyone can sit down and learn how to use Adobe Photoshop if you go looking there’ll probably be an online course for it as well as any other Adobe products on the web. However, if you need a piece of software that isn’t locked behind a paywall, there’s always Canva.com. You’ll be able to create anything from header images to promotional pictures for your social media presence. Prior knowledge is not required to use Canva.com, without a doubt, the most accessible tool to use on this list.

With great content, comes the need for a great content platform, and this is where you will host your course for your students to enjoy. You will need to look for a platform that allows you to organise your course at your domain. Sites that include this option are sites such as Skillbox. But there are of course alternatives options that will enable you to upload your content to the site directly, websites such as Vimeo, Dailymotion and YouTube. Some of these lesser-known options, for example, Clickfunnels, will require you to host videos elsewhere but utilise their membership area on their particular site.

Here are some top tips to get started: 

Anyone can create content and post it somewhere; there are entire websites dedicated to this and have been for the last fifteen years. Whether you’re launching your online course that teaches cooking the way mother used to do it or University level creative writing, you’re going to need to collect students emails addresses and ensure they’re prepared to purchase your content. You’ll be wanting to look for and utilise software that allows you to form these students addresses into a sales funnel. The aforementioned Clickfunnels is always a favourite, but LeadPages.net and OptimizePress will never go amiss either.

One thing that your students/leads will be expecting is updates from you regularly or an enticing first offer that will persuade them to sign up to your high-value online course. Anyone creating and supplying this kind, of course, will need to gather potential leads/students and collate them onto a newsletter list that can be sent out via email. Converkit is the first and most likely candidate for this kind of online entrepreneurial endeavour however should you decide to stick to Clickfunnels, they do supply an option for a complete marketing system called “Actionetics” if you choose to upgrade to their suite package.   

A journey of this size and scope is never easy, particularity on a platform as vast as the internet. Hopefully, this list has given you a good starting point for delivering your knowledge to the world, check out Skillbox to learn more.