Welcome to the Reinvent Yourself series! In each of these posts, we will handle a different freelance career: An activity typically performed by professionals who want to work on their own terms, who don’t want a boss but high-quality customers, and who want to choose when and where they work. This post is all about freelance online teachers. So let’s get started!

What does a freelance online teacher do?

An online teacher creates courses and offers them on online platforms. The teaching subject can be anything from DIY crafts or a new language to social media techniques or developing an app. What would you like to teach? Are you popular among your friends for making the best smoothies ever? Have you ever thought about sharing your tips and tricks? Are you a natural-born yogi? Then why not offer yoga lessons? Do you create beautiful printables? I bet there are lots of people who would love to learn how to create them! Do you know the secrets of successful writers? Please share your wisdom!

Some examples of freelance online teaching:

• Visual arts: Web design, graphic design, brand building, design thinking, UX design, Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, and any other tool you can teach how to use.
• Software & Technology: Web development, app development, PC software, blog setup, e-commerce tools.
• Digital marketing: Email marketing,  SEM, SEO, web analytics, e-commerce strategies, mobile marketing, social media strategies, Instagram marketing, Facebook Ads, Pinterest SEO.
• Business & personal development: Career development, stress management, productivity, project management, finances, business management, planning & organization.
• Arts & crafts: Drawing, knitting, book scraping, mobile marketing, watercolor lettering.
• Health & Lifestyle: Yoga, pilates, running, sports, dieting, nutrition, healthy cooking.
• Other hobbies: Photography, foreign languages, musical instruments, cooking, makeup, singing, acting…

Some additional notes about freelance online teachers’ work

• Create additional material for your course, like worksheets, workbooks, or the scripts to your videos as a downloadable pdf.
• Prepare an automatic email sequence for your students. You want to welcome them when they enroll in your course, and also send them weekly or bi-weekly emails with new content or info. You can use an email program such as ConvertKit – and avoid having to send emails manually to each one of your (many) students.
• Online courses are the perfect way to earn passive income, which means that you’re theoretically done once you upload your course. However, try and reach out to your students every now and then. Ask them for feedback. Arrange some live events, like Facebook or Instagram Lives, for instance.
• You should check if the content you’re offering is up-to-date, or if there’s anything you could change. Set a reminder on your calendar every 6 months!

How can I work as a freelance online teacher if I have no experience?

• Offer a free webinar or a mini-course about your first lesson, or even a sum-up of the whole course. Let your potential students want more from you! It’s as easy as sharing it on social media.
• You could offer your course to a small group of people for a reduced price, and let them give you their feedback for you to share on your sales page. This is the best publicity you can ever get!
• Create a compelling sales page to sell your course. A fantastic option to create sales pages is Leadpages. You also can join Kajabi, which is a pricier option, but you’ll find anything you need to create and host an online course:
  • a platform to host the course,
  • an email program to send both regular and automatic emails or newsletters,
  • a website,
  • as many landing pages as you need.

Equipment I need as an online teacher

• A good photo/video camera and, if possible, someone to help you with the shooting. Other than that, a smartphone with a high-quality camera can do the trick as well!
• A high-quality mic for your students to get every single word you say.
• A platform to upload your videos. I’d go for Kajabi, but you can also check out the 10 Best Platforms to Create and Sell Online Courses.

Interested? Questions?

Let me know your thoughts about freelancing as an online teacher. Do you have any questions you’d like me to address? Go for it 😉