3 Steps to Setup an Online English Teaching Site – Part 1

Setting up a lucrative English teaching business (or any other business) starts with setting up a website. Today, most everything is done and found online and if you don’t have an online presence, you are missing out!

Here is what you can use an English Teaching website for – automization:

• Utilize a webinar (a prerecorded or live online seminar) setup so that you can have countless students attend classes and charge for it via PayPal or the like.
• Record a beginner English series and sell it as a package.
• Use a newsletter to give out free English tips to your students and offer them deals, discounts and upcoming events.
• Write an eBook on learning English and sell it on your website
• Have an online calendar on your site (plugin from WordPress for example) for your current students in a members area so that they can sign up for classes when you are available
• Have an introductory video on the site so they can get to know you (YouTube).
• Create and maintain blogs so that your students can follow you and interact with you
• Have your own personal and more professional looking e-mail address
• To promote yourself to other parts of the country or abroad in teaching English
• To be your online medium so that students don’t constantly call and bug you
• Make your services well known
• And so on!

In the old days, it would cost you thousands of dollars and weeks to get one up and running, but today it is a fraction of the price and something you can do yourself in a matter of minutes.

I am going to show you literally step-by-step how to set up a website for your English teaching business OR online business in a matter of minutes (same instructions for both), so that you can begin earning an online income right away.

The formula I will reveal below is based on what the most successful internet marketers our there are using (not what they are selling), and what I followed in building this site – so it is really the best way to go!

The original plan was to make one post containing all of the instructions but since I don’t want to short hand you, I am going to write two posts on the subject of your setting up a website for your online business.

If you remember, I asked you to pick a scenario to stick with in part 1 of the “Teaching English in Brazil” guide.

This how-to guide is essentially for scenarios 3, 4 and 5 but especially scenario 5 as this will give you the ability to be very lucrative!

But as I mentioned earlier, if you intention isn’t to teach English, this guide is still great.

But even if you chose scenario 1 or 2, it is still a good idea to have a functional website for any extra English teaching on the side (as it can give a great boost to the low paying income you receive as an English teacher for a school). Especially if you are planning on making the switch from being employed to self employed in the future.

A lot of work went into these how-to guides, but I wanted to make them perfect for you.

Note: please don’t feel that you have to spend anything on what I mention below, only spend your hard earned money if you believe that this will benefit you.

If you are reading this post as part of the “Teaching English in Brazil” series, make sure that you have seen the previous posts by referring to the “Hub Page”.

Here are the first 3 steps to setting up a website:

1. Getting your own website address

The first step is to obtain your own website address. This is your own www.xxxxx.com domain that people will use to find you (in my case liveinbrazil.org)

I have created a video that explains this and shows you how to do it.

(Click to watch  on YouTube)

To summarize, what I talk about in this video is how to acquire a Brazilian (or other) domain address through Godaddy.com (affiliate link), specifically what you need to choose and watch out for.

The reason I chose Godaddy over other’s is due to:
1. I am a very happy customer.
2. That they offer many website addresses over the normal .com/.org/.net for a great price. You can get one for Brazil, for Australia, for Canada etc.
3. They offer great package deals if you want several extensions (.com/.org/.net/.us/.biz etc)
4. Their extra protection services are cheaper than other places.
5. They easily integrate with hosting services (more on that below).
6. Give you tons of options.

Like I mentioned in the video, you want to watch out for many of their upsells (for example, email accounts), as these are included in the standard hosting package deal Bluehost offers for free – I will talk about it below.

2. Finding the website layout that suites you

In this video, I will show you the best place to find a ready made template for your website that can be set up in a matter of minutes.

(Click to watch  on YouTube)

To summarize, what I talk about in this video is how to find and purchase a premium template from StudioPress (affiliate link) that can be easily thrown onto your website within a few minutes time.

I explain about what types of templates there are, how they function and how to choose one.

As I mentioned in the video, the reason I chose StudioPress for my website is due to:
1. I am a very satisfied customer.
2. The templates are great looking and would cost 1,000+ dollars if I you paid someone to make one.
3. Highly customizable
4. Contain an underlying structure called “Genesis” which allows you to be easily found and ranked on Google.
5. Offer unlimited support (which is very handy when setting up a website – especially for the first time!)
6. Offer unlimited updates (many free templates become obsolete over time and end up becoming non-functional after WordPress sends updates out)
7. They are very easy to set up, go right on top of WordPress(saving time which = money)

If you are not in a situation to purchase a template, you can get free ones. Just be aware though that any help, support, compatibility issues or ranking on Google is in your own hands.

3. Housing your website

Now that you have the address (domain) for your site, and the blueprints (template) ready for it to be built, you need the actual “location” for it’s construction. This is known as “hosting”.

In this video I will show you exactly how to get and set up your hosting account and link it to your domain.

(Click to watch  on YouTube)

To summarize, what I talk about in this video, is how to set up an account with BluHost and get it linked and connected with your www.xxxx.xx address (the two have to be linked) so that you are ready for the fund part – building your website!

I recommend BlueHost due to:
1. I have been a happy customer since 2005
2. They offer 1 click integration with WordPress (The system you will install your template onto)
3. They offer special discounted hosting for WordPress sites
4. Free and unlimited email accounts (godaddy charges almost the same per month for an email account as they do for just their hosting!)
5. Amazing support and help
6. A very user friendly control panel that anyone from a newbie to expert can utilize
7. Never downtime (where your site goes down due to their server problems)

In otherwords, they are the only way to go. I have yet to find a hosting service that will out do them in any aspect!

Note: as of the time I am writing this post, BluHost is offering a special $3.95 all-inclusive promotion for WordPress users (almost half off!).  The promotion is only accessible through an affiliate link

An important final note

These are the first underlying steps to setting up your online business. If you follow the step-by-step videos, you will be up and running in just minutes and ready for the next part, building the actual website.

Getting an address (domain), template and hosting do come with a cost. But please don’t feel like you have to buy anything to succeed.

You can set up free blogs on different websites that could somewhat do the trick. I just wanted to show you what I’ve done which has been very cheap and I have been very satisfied with.

My personal belief is that if you invest in a professional setup, you will achieve great results, people will take you seriously and that you will be much more profitable – plus you will have 100% freedom (free sites are only “free” to you, visitors get bombarded with ads that distract from your content).

I hope you look forward to the rest of this how-to.

The building part of the website is best, this is where you get to put your personal touch on it, customize it and make it amazing!

Remember as I mentioned in the first section, a website these days can be set up in no time and by the most novice of users, so do not be afraid that you don’t know enough or aren’t able – you are and can!

In the next part, I will go over the building of your online business so that your website is up and running within minutes.

Valeu!
Kevin