Online tutoring in Nigeria

Online tutoring in Nigeria – How to start at minimal cost

You’ve probably searched on Google for “Online tutoring in Nigeria” and landed on this page. Well, you’re not alone in the quest to make money online in Nigeria by creating online courses or tutoring online.

This ultimate guide is all you need to achieve success as a digital entrepreneur by publishing an online course which has the potential to earn passive income for a long time to come. We will cover a lot of ground from looking at the different online course platforms, what you need to create a course, and how to start.

What’s an online course

An online course is a structured educational material on any subject, which is delivered to the student over the internet. Online education has become increasingly popular in recent times, especially with the impact of the COVID 19 global pandemic which restricted movement and confined people to their homes for extended periods of time.

An online course makes it possible for the course creator to leverage on their experiences and skills to create educational material on just about anything they are passionate about and are experienced in.

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Methods of online course hosting

There are basically 2 ways you can host your online courses which you might want to consider. They are through online course platforms and self-hosted online course.

Online course platforms

An online course platform affords you the opportunity to upload your course to an already existing platform which enables you to start selling your course immediately, using their hosting and marketing tools.

This is great for beginners, because you don’t have to worry about web hosting and domain registration, marketing and all the other hassles, just upload and watch the sales roll in.

However, it is not all rosy with this model. First off, you are at the mercy of the platform. They could remove your course if you violate their terms of service. Also, you get to share your income with the platform for every sale.

Self-hosted online course

This option is for the more experienced online course creator. You are solely responsible for everything it takes to run the business, from development, marketing, sales and customer service.

The major advantage is that you have total control over your business, no platform to share your revenue with.

The major disadvantage is that it might take a while for your business to gain some traction because you may have to rely on SEO, or your advertising budget may be meagre.

Nevertheless, it is a better option because of the above mentioned benefits. The most popular CMS (Content Management System) for a self-hosted online course is WordPress, while the best LMS (Learning Management System) plugin for WordPress is LearnDash.

Online Tutoring in Nigeria – is it profitable?

Yes. Theoretically, there’s no limit to how much you can earn with your online course. What makes it even more exciting is the fact that it is a source of passive income, which is actually better than active income.

Passive income is income that comes without constant work on your business. You only need to setup the business once, and the income keeps rolling in, whether you are awake or asleep.

This is the best time to start creating an online course, because if you procrastinate, you might not be able to ever do it.

Online course platforms

There are a variety of online course platforms which you can take advantage of to start today. We are going to group them in two categories – Free and paid. I would like you to know that if you want a free service, you have extremely limited options. So here we go.

Free and paid Online course platforms

  • Kobocourse – Owned and operated by Nigerians, this platform has a free and paid plan. The Free plan comes with limited options, such as no video upload and text only materials. The paid option allows you to upload video materials for N10,000 monthly.
  • Udemy – This is our best free online course publishing platform. Udemy allows you to create your online course for free, with no payment whatsoever.
  • Thinkific – a highly customizable online course platform with plans starting at $49/month.
  • Skillshare – This platform offers royalties based on the number of minutes watched in your classes every month. It’s actually free to start teaching on Skillshare.
  • DoviLearn – A Nigerian based online course platform. Details of compensation for course creators are not clear, but it seems you must register before you can access this information.
  • Clarionttech – Also a Nigerian based online course platform. Details of compensation for course creators are not clear, but it seems you must register before you can access this information.
  • Coursera – This happens to be one of the most prestigious online course platforms in the world. Their teachers are big name university professors, and their courses are quite pricey. Details of their compensation plan for teachers are only available when you register.
  • Teachable – Another popular online course platform with a fast and easy course builder. Their plans start from $29/month.
  • Learnworlds – This platform allows for more interactive features in courses. Their plans start from $24/month.

There are so many other platforms for Online tutoring in Nigeria, but these are the popular ones that readily come to mind, and we recommend that you start with Udemy and then move on to your own self-hosted website for your online course.

What you need to create an online course in Nigeria

Now let’s face it: creating an online course is basically just like any other business. It should be taken that serious. That is the only way you can reap the rewards.

Essentially, the kind of equipment you need depends on the nature of the course you are going to create. There are two types of lecture creation modes:

Talking Head mode

If the course is mainly talking head style (where you face a camera for the lecture), then you need the following:

  • A smartphone or camera for recording videos
  • A video editor
  • A laptop or desktop PC
  • A microphone
  • A headphone
  • Lighting equipment
  • An internet connection and data plan for uploading

Screencast mode

Online tutoring in Nigeria
A simple setup for creating an online course must include a mic and PC

If you are mainly going to be recording your laptop or desktop screen during the course creation process, then you essentially need the following:

  • A laptop or desktop PC
  • A microphone
  • A screen recording app
  • A headphone
  • Video editing app
  • An internet connection and data plan for uploading

You can easily get an inexpensive microphone with headset combo at the computer shop near you. There are many screen recording apps which you can use for free, such as OBS, Thundersoft Free Screen Recorder, Free Cam, CamStudio, EzVid, Tiny Take, etc.

You can edit your videos with Adobe Premiere Pro, or a free editor like DaVinci Resolve, Short Cut or Open Shot.

Online Tutoring in Nigeria – a step by step guide

So you are ready to create your online course? Here’s a step by step guide on how to proceed.

  • Research

This phase involves researching a lot of things, such as your course audience, the model you intend to adapt, whether you are going to use a self-hosted platform, like the graphic design course by Design Squared, or online course platform like Udemy.

This stage is very important because your course can fail if you don’t take this stage serious. For instance, if you are going to self-host your course, how will you market it? Are you going to rely on SEO, or paid advertising? Is this course in high demand right now?

If you are going to use SEO, how many people are searching for the course on Google? These are the questions you must answer at this initial stage.

One way to validate your online course is to check the interest using Google Trends. Google Trends is a great tool for finding out the level of interest about any topic on Google. Simply head over to Google Trends, type a topic and select your country from the country list and search. If there’s no interest in that topic, then better forget it.

  • Plan

This is the stage where you plan your course production process. You need to sit down and put down the course outline. This outline will guide you during the course creation process. You should be able to answer this question, “How will this course benefit my students?”

The planning stage helps you stay on track and not deviate from the objective.

  • Create

This is the actual creation process. You spend more time here filming or recording your screen. This is where your smartphone/camera/screen recording software is utilized to create the course videos.

The best thing you can do at this stage is to create high quality videos with high quality sound. This ensures that your students get the maximum satisfaction when viewing your videos. It is advisable to shoot at Full HD quality, so that you can be able to downgrade it to HD quality when needed.

The next stage here is to edit and package your course. If you have video editing skills, it’s an added advantage for you, and will help you cut costs. Otherwise, you need a video editing person to polish your videos and package it for upload.

  • Deploy

At this stage, you have finished creating your course. You now begin uploading the course to your preferred platform, whether self-hosted or the regular online course platform.

Please note that if your video course is 8GB in size, then you need exactly 8GB of data to upload it.

This is the stage where you need a fast internet connection in order to upload your course. If self-hosted, you need a file storage website like Mega or Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive for storing your files.

Another option is to upload your videos to YouTube and use it to make money in the long run using your educational YouTube channel.

Online tutoring in Nigeria – Taking it to the next level

Creating and uploading your online course is one thing. Marketing and selling it is another. If you are self-hosting your online course, then the marketing and selling is up to you.

This is where you need some digital marketing skills such as SEO and Facebook Ads to get your course in front of people who need it.

Also, you may need to update your course from time to time, as trends evolve. Don’t forget to keep in touch with your students using email marketing tools. This ensures that you can also market another course to them at minimal cost.

Concluding thoughts

Online tutoring in Nigeria gives you opportunity to create passive income, whether you are a beginner or expert. Leverage on your passion and skills to create something that would consistently bring in income for you, for a long time to come.

If you have questions or comments about this article, please use the comment section below. Don’t forget to share this article to help others.

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