Best 7 Online Learning Platforms. Courses for Professional and Business Skills Building

I used to hear about online learning before Zoom, Google Classroom, or Skype were a thing.

One of the first online education platforms I was ever introduced to was Video-2-Brain. It was a Photoshop course. Well, it was not fully online, it turns out some course platforms allow you to download the video courses for offline viewing. I have learned ever since.

I had a friend at the University learning from MIT Open Courseware online back in 2013, by then I didn’t even know about PluralSight, or Lynda.com now known as LinkedIn Learning.

Distance learning, also known as e-learning, and online learning, involves the use of technologies to facilitate communication between the students and teachers.

It is a form of education that includes a physical separation between the teachers and students during instruction.

You can never imagine how much return you can get from investing in yourself. That’s why today, I would like to share with you the websites or online learning platforms I have used in my journey of learning and becoming a graphic designer, and now a digital marketing consultant and copywriting student and Blogger.

What is the Difference Between an Online Course Platform and an Online Learning Platform?

Online Learning/course platforms are types of learning management systems (LMS) that provide users with access to digital classes. These virtual courses are similar to offline classes in a lot of ways: an instructor provides an engaging educational experience through video, image, text, audio, and PDF files.

These platforms allow you to;

• Create an online course and launch it

• Build course sales landing pages

• Price your course and collect payments

• Upload your videos, add assignments and quizzes, creating interactive content, and engage with your students.

With online learning platforms/software, students can take notes, leave comments, take quizzes by answering questions, download exercise files from the courses, access program transcripts, and earn certificates for completion.

Below you will find some of the Best Online learning and Course platforms according to various sources around the web, but also according to my own experience using these platforms.

1. Knowledge Society (Tailopez.com)

Tai Lopez's Knowledge society is by far my best choice when it comes to learning things like Social Media Marketing, Business and Investing tips, or as Tai puts it Health, Wealth, Love, and Happiness (The Good Life).

With Tai and his friends’ programs, you might not learn how to code, but you will surely learn how to make money online and offline using the resources you already have and the skills you already know.

One of the programs that helped me learn a lot about the concept of (The Good Life) was the 67 Steps. Luckily for you, Tai now gives you the course for free. Plus he has a bundle of other exclusive courses at huge discounts just to help those interested in living the good life.

In each course, you will find successful entrepreneurs teaching stuff they have actually done so you can learn the proven methods to make money online and travel while managing your business.

Some of the skills you will get from Tai’s programs include eCommerce, social media marketing and advertising, dropshipping, Affiliate marketing (Amazon associates, Amazon Private Labeling), and more ‘Knowledge’.

Plus the community is very helpful not only on the website but also in the Facebook groups. Not to mention Tai’s support team. Live chat is 24/7.

2. LinkedIn Learning (Lynda.com)

Lynda.com is now Linkedin learning. It is the leading online learning platform that helps anyone acquire new skills or enhance existing ones from business, to finance and accounting, marketing and sales, training and education, software development and tools, technology, and more.

LinkedIn Learning is made up of a team of top instructors and influencers, recognized leaders in their fields, authors, international keynote speakers, industry experts, writers, founders, strategists, and consultants. These experts create engaging content impactful to businesses, individuals, employees, teams, and organizations.

It consists of more than 16,000 free and paid courses on more than 170 topics and over 425 learning paths to help you gain skills and professional knowledge. Not forgetting AI tools built into this learning platform, that allow you to easily track your learning progress to help you reach your goals.

Learning Paths

Learning paths are compiled playlists of related video courses on specific topics or careers. For example, when I wanted to learn Digital marketing, I enrolled in the Become a Digital Marketer learning path on LinkedIn learning.

To get started learning, you will have a free month to try LinkedIn Learning which comes with a LinkedIn Premium Subscription which is 29.99$ only per month.

3. PluralSight

Pluralsight is a publicly owned online education company and a technology skills platform offering a variety of high-quality video training courses for software developers, IT administrators, and creative professionals offered by a network of industry experts.

Pluralsight is also powered by AI that helps you create curated-customized learning paths to build in-demand tech skills.

We discussed Pluralsight in How to Become a Lifelong learner with Pluralsight to develop the skills you need for your top priorities.

You can access all the top skills training including access to the entire course library, skill assessments, course completion certificates, offline viewing, and more at a very affordable cost of 29$ per month or 299$ per year.

4. Skillshare

Skillshare is an online education platform with lifestyle on-demand classes in creative writing, design, photography. Classes are project-based which helps increase engagement while unlocking students’ creativity. You’ll learn with access to videos that you can watch at your own pace.

Use Skillshare to build your leadership and management skills, business analytics skills, web development, animation, and thousands of creative classes taught by experts and professionals to help you learn new skills.

You can start with a free 14 days trial and then 9$ per month after that or 99$ per year

5. Udemy free courses

Udemy is an online learning and teaching marketplace. It is a platform that allows instructors to build online courses on their preferred topics. It’s a massive open online course provider aimed at professional adults and students.

Udemy is reported to have over 155000 courses and 40 million students. The best part is you get lifetime access to purchased courses, anytime, anywhere.

Besides offering Best selling high-quality online courses and videos, it also offers free courses (a curated collection of courses for professionals) to help you make the most of your time and achieve your goals.

Courses on Udemy range from Cooking, to design courses, to IT and Software, Photography and videos, Finance and accounting, Teaching and Academics, 3D & Animation, among others. Certificates are offered but not for free online courses.

With the Udemy mobile app on Google Play Store and iOS App store, you can watch your courses and complete your projects from anywhere, anytime.

6. Coursera

This is a massive open online course provider. You will find here a huge number of free Coursera courses once you log in. Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, certifications, and degrees in a variety of subjects.

It has more than 5100 courses and specializations, more than 40 certificates, and more than 20 degrees. Some of the courses offered include Physical Science and Engineering, Arts and Humanities, Math and Logic, Data Science, Health, among others.

You can earn a certificate in 3–9 months, gain the skills you need to break into a new career or take your career to the next level. You can also earn degrees at breakthrough pricing.

In 2021, I enrolled in Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design a course by Google Career Certificates. Before that, I had totally forgotten about Coursera, I also enrolled in Facebook Social Media Marketing — Course by Facebook which made me love the platform again.

Use it to build skills with courses, certificates, and degrees online from world-class universities and companies. Master skills with in-depth learning.

Coursera uses high-tech to help you apply what you learn with self-paced quizzes and hands-on projects. Get feedback from a global community of learners.

When you join Coursera, you receive personalized recommendations from the full Coursera catalog which helps guide you to take the next step toward your personal and professional goals.

7. Teachable

Teachable Discover is the place to be if you are looking to learn from industry experts like the investor Shark Tank — Daymond John, co-Founder Digitalmarketer.com — Ryan Deiss, among others. You get a 30 Days Money Back Guarantee and get to try any course on Teachable Discover, and if you are not impressed, you can request a full refund within 30 days. Teachable is a good place to learn as well as teach. It’s one of the best online course creation platforms.

Teachable courses, I must say, most of them are premium priced. Luckily for you, there are many free professional and high-quality courses you get completely free — No credit card required.

Teachable is also used to create and sell online courses and coaching services. It’s one of the best online business platforms used by more than 100,000 successful creators and entrepreneurs to sell over $1 billion in courses and coaching. You can use it to build a course, brand, or build a business.

If you do a quick google search about the topic that you want to learn, you will surely get a huge list of online courses you can take on from build websites to learning programming (for example — HTML & CSS), and a lot more.

Conclusion

There are plenty of ways now to educate yourself or your child from home thanks to the internet. With many colleges, secondary and primary schools adopting the online classes norm, you will need a good platform for your online learning.

If you are a course creator, you will probably need to learn more about marketing your courses including having your own website and watching a few videos or courses on digital marketing.

Marketing an online course will basically require you to have skills like content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and most importantly Search Engine Optimization to make sure people find your content in search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo.

Luckily for you, now you know where to go if you need to learn anything.

What learning platform are you using? What makes it your choice?