Most of us don’t have the luxury of an on-call film crew to help create great videos for our online courses & programs. However, there are plenty of things you can do, that are easy and will make people watch your course videos all the way through. Here are my top tips on making videos that engage the viewers and make them go back and keep watching.

How To Create Better Video Content For Online Courses & Programs

 

Improve image or streaming quality

 

One of the main reasons people abandon watching videos online is poor image quality. Fuzzy, pixellated, blurry, and constantly buffering videos turn people off. They clicked on your video to watch it, not to try to figure out what it is they are looking at or wait until your video buffers on your platform.

 

My advice: Test the quality of the video on the device you’re recording on. Also test the streaming quality of the platform you’re planning on hosting your online content.

 

Audio Quality

 

Right under image and streaming quality on the list of reasons why users abandon watching video content is low-quality sound. Interference in your sound from background noises or due to a poor quality recorder or the volume being too low results in viewers moving on to someone else’s content quicker than you can imagine.

My advice: Same as with video recording. Test the quality of sound recording and playback before you commit several hours to recording your content only to realise that your audio is not suitable quality.

 

The length of your videos

 

Imagine having to sit for an hour and a half to listen to a lecture that encompasses several topics and when you want to go back to find a particular sub-topic, you scrub back and forth for a good while before you find what you’re after. You would not be impressed!

 

My advice: Keep your videos short. If you can’t convey a particular learning element in less than 10 minutes, then look at breaking it down even further.

 

Clarity in your course platform

 

Name your files and video lessons by what their exact topic is. Don’t name them things like Video 1, Video 2, Video 3 etc. That makes it hard for your students to identify what lecture they are in. Makes finding the right one difficult, should they wish to go back later and find a particular topic.

 

My advice: Name your video file by the exact topic it’s about when you’re saving it to your computer. Whether you’re the one editing it or someone else doing it for you, it will be easy to identify and name the file on the platform.

 

Brand your video content

 

Even though your video content is available from within your course, it’s a great idea to ensure that your video is reflecting your brand.

 

My advice: Add a slide at the beginning of your video with your logo. Do the same at the end with your social media tags, website address or email address even. This is the bare minimum that you should do for your course videos. Of course, you can go all out and make it even spiffier but that’s up to you and your wallet.

 

Make your videos accessible

 

Captioning your videos where possible means that they will be accessible to people with hard of hearing and people who have difficulty with comprehension. Statistics show that completion rates for courses are higher when captions are available on video content.

 

Provide transcriptions for your videos that are included in your course, for the same reasons as mentioned above.

 

My advice: Use YouTube’s captioning facility and spend some time on captioning your video content or outsource it for between $1-$2 per minute. It’s worth it.

 

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