For some designers, choosing the best online course platform might be difficult. As platform developers for online courses, we’ll be the first to tell you that getting started is even more crucial than choosing a platform for your online course!

But when it comes to online learning, the platform and tool you use may have a significant impact on your bottom line as well as the value you can provide your students.

It is crucial to have a tool designed to assist your pupils in learning and achieving the goals of your courses if you are a creator with the ability to instruct others. You may consider yourself more of a creative with a talent to share than an instructional designer or teacher in the conventional sense, especially if you are one of the many Heights clients who are coaches, authors, artists, chefs, and entrepreneurs. Compared to in-person instruction, imparting information online may be difficult. For this reason, it is crucial to have a platform that is solely focused on assisting you in creating a community that supports your students’ learning.

However, how can you decide amongst all of the available platforms?

We’ll outline the most crucial factors to take into account while searching for the ideal online course software in today’s post. We’ll assist you with making the selection so you can concentrate on creating your online course instead of being bogged down in the details of where and how to create it.

Look at them down below.

Self-Hosted vs. Marketplace: Which is Better to Build Online Courses?

You must first comprehend the distinction between a marketplace and a self-hosted platform before delving into specifics.

You may create an online course on a self-hosted platform and maintain control over your branding, pricing, and student registration. You may build your own brand and manage your own marketing using a self-hosted platform. You are the only one with your pupils. They will be able to communicate with you directly and with one another.

A marketplace is a website where you may register and sell online courses under certain restrictions. Generally speaking, you have minimal control over your price, student registration, and branding. Your choices for engaging and interacting with your pupils will be much reduced, and the final product that you provide them is probably going to be of much lesser quality.

A marketplace gives you access to its existing student base and gives you a head start with marketing, but at the expense of a portion of your sales going to the marketplace itself, a self-hosted platform gives you the ability to create an online course that is genuinely your own and gives you total control over your revenue.

A self-hosted platform is an obvious option if you want to create your own branded community and course where students can develop and learn alongside you. You also want to be able to establish your own fees and retain all of your revenue. Consequently, we shall discuss elements that are mostly present in self-hosted platforms for the purposes of this essay.

Having stated that, let’s examine the top ten qualities to search for in an online learning platform or software:

A Great Learning Experience for your Students

The main objective of your online course is to impart information and teach something.

A good platform should, of course, enable you to do so. However, how precisely?

Look for a website that has tools to assess your pupils’ learning and assist them in applying what they have learned.

• Does the program allow you to divide your course into lessons so that content is introduced gradually and make learning easier?
• Does it provide any metrics about the performance and growth of students?
• Is it possible to use gamification technologies to incentivize accomplishments?
• Can you design projects that allow your pupils to apply what they’ve learned to real-world scenarios?

Above all, does the program seem to be designed with learning in mind, or is it just a web page builder or marketing tool?
The worth of your software will be greatly increased if you seek for all of the aforementioned qualities. Select a platform that provides a minimum of a few of these characteristics.

Using the same techniques that social media and video games use to keep us interested, the Heights Platform aims to inspire a feeling of discovery and motivate students to finish their course. With Heights, you can divide your course into lessons and modules and gradually introduce them to your students. You may use gamification by giving badges and assigning tasks for your students to do, and you have access to student metrics.

Easy-to-Use Interface to Seamlessly Create Your Online Course

It should go without saying that a useful and user-friendly platform will let you to concentrate on producing material for your students and make the most of your time and energy.

Look for online course software that has an integrated creator interface and an easy-to-use built-in editor.

As the creator, it should be simple for you to see how your material will seem to your pupils right away. It shouldn’t be necessary for you to cope with an intricate admin interface that renders your material entirely different from what your students will see. Creating your classes, uploading material, and getting payments from your students should all be simple. A free trial is available on the majority of online learning systems. This is an excellent method to determine if the program is suitable for your requirements.

Community Building and Student Engagement

Your course will surely succeed if your students are interested in what you are teaching and feel like they belong to a community.

However, how can online learning be made more engaging? You may do this with the aid of an appropriate online learning platform. Including gamification elements in your courses is one approach to help your pupils feel like they’ve accomplished something. According to a recent research, gamification increased participants’ scores on skill-based tests by 14%. Adding a points system or rewarding your students with badges and medals after they finish a session or reach a predetermined milestone are easy ways to gamify your online course. As they go through your program, your students will feel a sense of achievement and realization because they will get points or incentives for each course completed.

Building a community is another crucial component of an all-encompassing course, particularly for online distance learning. By setting up a forum or discussion board on your platform, your students will be able to exchange ideas, advice, and congrats on one other’s accomplishments. You will be able to respond to inquiries, provide criticism, and more in your role as their mentor.

Clear Pricing Plans, Avoid Commission-Based Structures

When searching for the ideal hosting service, it’s also critical to choose the price plan that best meets your demands. Choose a platform that has a clear price structure and no additional costs that won’t become apparent until after you’ve spent a lot of time developing it. Depending on the various demands of producers, the majority of online course platforms provide a variety of price alternatives. We advise against using platforms that offer free services or inexpensive initial prices but subsequently take a cut of your profits. (The amount of your profits that you lose to commissions and transaction fees after generating just a few transactions is often far larger than the flat monthly charge of other platforms!) Instead, search for software that doesn’t charge commissions or transaction fees and has a set monthly or yearly subscription. Instead of always losing a portion of your revenues as your company expands, you may use the remaining funds to develop it after you’ve generated enough sales to meet your monthly platform expenses. A 5% transaction fee may not sound like much, but imagine earning $10,000 from your course during a major launch one month. In addition to whatever additional fees the platform may impose, that 5% cost would amount to $500 for that month alone!

A Responsive Support Team to Assist You:

Creators sometimes undervalue this element. Nothing is more annoying than purchasing software and not receiving assistance when you need it. We’re discussing assistance from real professionals. Starting a new course shouldn’t be an anxious affair! A successful course launch involves several factors, even if a platform makes the process of setting up your course really simple. For this reason, having a knowledgeable support staff on hand to guide you through the process is crucial. Examine other developers’ assessments of a service’s timeliness and level of customer assistance while weighing your software alternatives. If you can’t get real answers from live chat assistance, it’s not worth anything! Having a quick and friendly support staff at your side can help you avoid hassles while working with software products.

White-Label Branding to Create Your Online Course:

You’ll have more opportunities to establish your authority and credibility with your clients if the page for your online course is obviously yours and consistent with your branding. You may convey your unique value proposition, build trust, and demonstrate expertise in your subject by developing a distinctive brand identity for your online course. Customizing your pages and courses, altering color schemes, adding your own logo, setting up a custom domain, and more should all be possible with the program you choose.

Student Analytics:

You may examine your clients’ performance and track their development in your course by having access to student data. Analytics are crucial for determining which pupils are doing well and which may need further support. As a mentor, you may evaluate their learning curve and provide comments by gathering information about their accomplishments. Knowing that a difficult student hasn’t seen a certain lesson yet might help you figure out how to make your material better for future students. One of the best ways to personalize online learning and enhance your instruction is to use this data to connect with difficult students. Therefore, it’s crucial to consider this factor while selecting the finest online course software for you.

Flexible Payment Settings for your Students:

For your online courses, you may wish to use multiple pricing techniques. For example, you may choose to sell your software with instalments or for a one-time fee. Offering a membership or subscription is another option you may want to consider, and you may even want to include all of them into your future online learning business! The optimum price plan for you will depend on the content, duration, and clientele of your course. Look for a platform that allows you to arrange several price options for your students when picking one to host your online program.

Basic Marketing Tools:

A key component of increasing purchases and site traffic is promoting your online course. To draw people to your course or membership program, you’ll need to acquire certain marketing techniques, much as when you create a real business. However, there are a few things you may search for to assist you begin marketing your course. Verify if the platform lets you create landing pages, integrate it with other applications, add a tracking code or pixel to your website, design your course page, send out announcements to your students, link your domain, and more.

Disclaimer:

This article is for informational and educational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed here are based on personal research and experience and are not intended as professional or financial advice. We do not guarantee any specific results or income. Always do your own research before choosing an online course platform or making financial decisions.

Some links in this article may be affiliate links, meaning we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you decide to make a purchase. This helps support our content and keeps this site running. Thank you for your support!