I’ve been tutoring ever since I was 16, but it wasn’t until I started leveraging the power of the internet 16 years later that I was able to do it full-time. Since then, I learned a lot about how to make money tutoring online, especially in terms of tutoring university courses. This post will go over everything I learned so that you can get started running your own tutoring business.

How to Make Money Tutoring Online

Step 1: Choose your Niche

Your first step to learning how to make money tutoring online is to choose your intended niche. Obviously, it should be a subject that you have expertise in. Expertise here does not have to mean knowing the answer to every question right off the bat. But it does mean having a good grasp of concepts. It also means knowing exactly where to look when you need a refresher. Remember - some of the very best teachers are those who actually struggled with a subject at first.

Next, Choose your Classes

Once you know your subject, your next step is to drill down your targeting further. The best way to do that is to focus on specific classes at a specific school. This will allow you to both tutor and market yourself much more effectively. Most of the time, students are not necessarily looking for general instruction on math, physics, or accounting.

Instead, they’re hoping to pass a specific test for a specific class. Besides the material, students want to know what questions to expect on the exam and how to answer them.

Of course, for most people, the easiest classes to tutor will be those you have already taken. In such cases, you can refer back to your old notes, assignments, and quizzes to try to create practice examples for your students.

But what do you do if you’ve been out of school for a while, or want to expand beyond those classes or into another school? You have to try to get your hands on some of the materials. Course outlines, for example, are often posted online, as are other class materials (just be sure to make sure copyright is respected when creating your own content). Once you begin tutoring these classes, students will also share information and materials from the class with you. You can even offer discounted rates on these classes to get information on them. Gathering this information is essential to your success, so get creative and learn as much as you can.

Besides the material, students want to know what questions to expect on the exam and how to answer them.

Step 3: Get Your Teaching Materials Together

Once you know your focus, you’re going to need a setup. For most people, the easiest way to tutor will be through webcam and using screen shares. Before you stream, you’ll also want to have all your materials together. This includes practice examples, mock exams, and case studies. They should all reflect the kind of problems your students are likely to run into on the exam. If you manage to get old exams or assignments, change the question sufficiently so that it becomes your work. Remember, you don’t want to post copyrighted materials online or share them with your students.

Once you have your materials and practice examples, go over them. Make sure that you can solve the questions you’re asking and anticipate questions your students may ask. You don’t have to be able to answer every question they have. Still, a reasonable expectation of some questions will help you prepare once it’s time to do a live session.

Now Let’s Find Some Students to Tutor

So now that you have your materials in place, the next question is, how do you actually find students to tutor? After all, having students is a pretty important part of figuring out how to make money tutoring online. This is where you have to get creative. The first step is determining whether you have an advertising budget or not.

To start, let’s assume you have no budget. There are lots of cool guerilla-style marketing techniques you can use. Examples include using sites like Craigslist and Kijiji to list your tutoring services. You can also set up social media profiles on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. When making posts, be sure to tag the classes that you can tutor. Students are going to be searching for those classes specifically. Even if there isn’t a lot of search volume for these classes, the volume that’s there is highly targeted. Tagging classes is also a good way to stand out from generic tutors who tutor broad subjects. Remember, students want to know how to succeed in specific classes, so position yourself as an expert in that regard.

If you have a bit more of an advertising budget, then you can look at paid advertising. Examples here include PPC advertising on Facebook or Google. While some keywords on Google can be very expensive, such as “university tutoring,” keywords for individual classes should be less expensive. You can also use PPC advertising to link directly to your TutorSpaces page. Regardless of your choice, make sure to watch your PPC budget carefully. Set a test budget to start while you learn, then scale up once you find keywords that work.

How to Close the Deal

Now that you have interested students, you have to actually get them to pay for your tutoring services. This can be a surprisingly difficult part of figuring out how to make money tutoring online, especially at first. Here’s where a service like TutorSpaces can help. TutorSpaces serves as an escrow between you and the student. Students pay TutorSpaces for your services, and the money is remitted to you once the session is complete. This provides insurance for both you and the student. Students can pay knowing that the money will only go to the tutor if they actually receive the tutoring service. That removes the risk of paying upfront. The tutor, meanwhile, can offer the tutoring service knowing that the funds will be there once the session is complete.

In addition to this escrow service, TutorSpaces also provides hosting for the live session and has a convenient and fast method for paying for services. On top of that, TutorSpaces lets you promote the live session to a wide number of students. That means instead of just doing a one-on-one and charging $40 you can have 10 students and make $400. Check out our Notion page for a full guide on how to get started with TutorSpaces.

The Ultimate Hack for How to Make Money Tutoring Online: Scale with Crash Courses

One of the most important things to realize about how to make money tutoring online is that you don’t have to do just one-on-one tutoring. In fact, the tutors who make the most money do crash courses with many students at one time.

As most tutors will tell you, students can usually be a little more passive during tutoring sessions. We like to imagine there’s this great Socratic back-and-forth happening with the students asking a bunch of questions. But it doesn’t usually work that way. While some students will prefer one-to-one to ask questions, most just want the tutor to do all the work. They also prefer to split the session with other students so they can pay less. That’s another thing that TutorSpaces can help you with, and it’s something I wish existed years ago.

On that note, running a crash course is very similar to running a one-on-one session. Follow your game plan but allow room for improvisation. Take breaks for questions, for example, and if you see your students are really lost, then maybe expand the time you allow for questions. That said, be sure you have enough time to get through all of the examples that you have planned. Do a dry run or rehearsal beforehand to get the timing down, as well as practice answering common questions.

Following Up on Your Sessions

After the lesson, take note of what went well and what didn’t. Use that to improve your future sessions. Recordings can really help with that. You can see how your students perceive you, as well as places where the session could have gone smoother. Just make sure to let your students know that the session is being recorded.

Speaking of recordings, your recorded sessions can also be a great way of increasing your revenues. By posting your recording content and making it available for sale, students who may have missed the live session will have an easy and convenient way to catch up. Because it’s delivering similar value, consider pricing the recording similarly to the live session. This is another place where TutorSpaces can help you. Just record your live session using the screen recording software of your choice and post it to TutorSpaces. You can set your own price for the video, making it a great source of recurring revenue for you.

After your sessions, stay in touch with your students. Encourage them to ask you any questions as a follow-up. If they’re quick and easy questions, consider just answering them to foster goodwill. If they’re more involved questions, ask them if they would like to book a live session. Maintaining these relationships is an important way of gaining referrals and repeat business, so always take a long-term view.

That’s How to Make Money Tutoring Online

If you follow these steps, you should start getting an increasing amount of business throughout the semester. Eventually, you can make enough that it’s a full-time job. If you have any specific questions about how to make money tutoring online, drop them in the comments, and I’ll answer. Happy tutoring!

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