If you want to teach English online as a freelancer, you’ll need to set up an online English teaching profile. Your online teaching profile should effectively advertise your services, showcase your skills, provide your availability, confirm your pricing, highlight your qualifications and experience and tell your potential students a little bit about you. Any successful freelance online English teacher will have a super effective online teaching profile that markets themselves to potential customers. There are four main options for setting up your online teaching profile, these are:
1. Create your own website from scratch
The best way to create an online teaching profile is to create a website. By creating your own website from scratch, you have full control over everything, from how your website looks and performs to what’s included in it. But it can be super tricky as it requires a certain level of technical ability and a lot of time. If you’ve already got the skills you need to create a website or you’re up for a challenge then go ahead! There are lots of useful tips, tricks and guides you can follow on the internet to help you create your own website, check out this step-by-step guide on building a website on WordPress.
Pros:
- You’ll save money as you’re not paying someone to build your website
- You can work at your own pace
- You have full control over everything
Cons:
- It’s super time-consuming
- You might not have the skills you need
- Your website might not end up looking/performing as you wanted
2. Pay someone to build a website for you
If you don’t have the skills or the time needed to create your own website from scratch, another great option is to pay someone to create a website for you. This is a super desirable option as a professional will be able to make your website look and perform exactly as you want it to and they’ll be able to give you support and guidance on the best options throughout – but this is super costly and often not a feasible option for those just starting out teaching English online.
Pros:
- They know what they are doing and are experts in website building
- They have access to all of the tools, software and information needed
- Your final website will perform as you want it too and will look super good
Cons:
- Can be very expensive
- You’ll have to research all of the options
- It can still take a lot of time
3. Use a user-friendly website builder
This is one of the most popular options for new online English teachers as it can be super quick and easy – winner! If you want to create your own teaching online website , but don’t have the necessary skills/time to build your own or the money to pay someone else, we’d recommend this! With just a quick Google search, you’ll be able to find tons of free website builders such as Wix and Weebly. These user-friendly website builders can be used by absolutely anyone and generally allow you to choose a template that suits the style you’re going for and then drag and drop your content in. Plus, most of them will have tutorials and blogs to help guide you on your way.
Pros:
- You don’t need any coding or design skills
- It’s super low-cost/free
- You can create a website in a short amount of time
- You can get support and how-to tutorials
Cons:
- You won’t be able to custom design your website
- There might be limited content/features
4. Create a profile on a freelancing website
If creating a website is super scary to you, or you feel that your business isn’t at a stage where it needs a website, you can just set up a profile on a freelancing website. This is by far the easiest option in terms of time and effort involved to set up, plus there are lots of freelancing websites available and you can set up multiple profiles. But, this will mean you’ll be directly competing against other online English teachers and you may end up losing out on students to other, more experience teachers in the beginning.
Pros:
- It’s the easiest option
- You don’t need any skills
- It’s a great way to put yourself out there
- It takes hardly any time to set up
Cons:
- You’ll be competing with lots of other online English teachers
- You can’t personalise your profile
What next?
Now you’ve set up your online teaching profile, how do you put yourself out there and start finding students? Well, that’s the easy part! Social media will be your best friend when you’re looking for students. Try searching for groups or pages that have been specifically set up for people looking to find online English teachers and join as many as you can! Then you just need to share your profile with them, and as long as you have marketed yourself well enough, the students should come running to you!
