How to Start an Online Tutoring Business with WordPress
March 13, 2024 6 min read
WordPress is especially suitable for the educational needs, both personal tutoring practices as well as big institutions, schools, and even universities.
It’s powerful, scalable, and secure – all the things an online tutoring business needs. So choosing WordPress is a smart thing to do for educators.
In today’s article, we’re talking in particular about building an education business in WordPress, meaning, we’ll explain WordPress solutions for coaches, tutors, and various instructors who want to share their experience online – and monetize it successfully.
With the right design and WordPress education plugins, you can easily transform your website into a learning center for your students or simply sell learning materials.
To get you started, you need to understand what learning style is best for you. Are you capable of creating various learning materials, docs, media files, links and organizing them into a step-by-step academia? Do you simply want to have a one-on-one with a student a few times a week? Are you looking to host webinars on your brand website?
Based on your answers, you can choose the WordPress plugin that will help you achieve your needs – that can be a combination of them, too.
Suppose you have already chosen the right tutoring or school WordPress theme design, let’s move on to the solutions that will help you choose how to start an online tutoring business with WordPress.
1. Full-Scale LMS (Learning Management System)
A WordPress LMS plugin, just as full-scale courses creation, can be a great fit for teachers with a variety of styles, but especially those wanting to set a course content, assessments, and student progress in a step-by-step manner.
Students then can work through the material at their own pace, revisiting sections as needed, which is ideal to self-directed learners.
LMS offers a range of built-in tools for quizzes, assignments, and feedback, which is great for assessment. From the business point of view, this is a great way to create a passive income since you can set the course just once – and sell it multiple times to many students, without a need to control every student manually. Also note that usually big courses are created by a team of teachers.
Key possibilities:
- Simple WordPress class registration.
- Course creation and enrollment.
- Quizzes, assignments, and graded assessments.
- Progress tracking and reporting.
- Discussion forums and student communities.
Best LMS plugins: LearnDash, LifterLMS, Tutor LMS.
Pro tip: Explore gamification features to boost student engagement.
2. Personalized Scheduling and Lessons with Booking Plugins
Appointment scheduling WordPress plugins offer a great list of benefits for online tutoring businesses that want to provide online consultations or lessons at specific times.
By simply putting an automated booking form to the website, a tutor can enable clients to easily schedule the needed lesson at the available time.
This is a great way for parenting coaches, health specialists, therapists, legal consultants, yoga teachers and other experts to provide online services of various types. Compared to the LMS approach, this doesn’t require a lot of effort as for creating learning materials for online self-studying – but definitely requires a lot of your time for every student or group.
Key possibilities:
- Appointment booking/lesson scheduling for individual or group sessions.
- Customizable scheduling options with integrated calendars.
- Automated reminders and confirmations.
- Integration with popular video conferencing apps.
Best booking plugins: BookingPress, Amelia, Simply Schedule Appointments.
Bonus: Integrate video conferencing tools like Zoom or Google Meet for online sessions directly within your booking system.
3. Membership Community with Online Courses
Opting for this learning style, an online tutoring business can create a loyal student community and offer recurring revenue streams.
Membership WordPress plugins allow you to offer tiered memberships with varying levels of access and benefits to students, with multiple gamification elements.
Such plugins make it easy to provide exclusive course materials, live sessions, or downloadable resources for members only. Things that will simplify your life as a tutor include automated tasks like enrollment, access control, and subscription management.
As for business benefits, it’s a great chance for tutors to convert one-time students into loyal members who pay recurring fees. What’s more, you’ll be able to easily accommodate a growing student base but with almost no administrative overhead.
Key possibilities:
- Paid or tiered memberships for access to exclusive content.
- Course delivery with drip-feed scheduling and content protection.
- Discussion forums, live chats, and member directories.
- Tracking membership trends and student behavior to improve your offerings and pricing strategies.
Best membership plugins: ARMember, Paid Memberships Pro, MemberPress.
Go further: Offer additional benefits like downloadable resources, community events, and exclusive discounts for members.
4. Simple Information Page and Video Conferencing
If you are looking to simply build your tutor or coach brand online and offer a few basic contact or other interaction options, you can create a concise information page about your educational services, target audience, and qualifications. WordPress itself is good enough to achieve this goal.
When maintaining your WordPress tutoring website, you’ll need to respond to student inquiries and messages from potential students, attract new students by making your educational services easily discoverable online, for example, with SEO.
By integrating various plugins, you can also host webinars and conferences right on your website.
Key possibilities:
- Clear overview of your teaching services and expertise.
- Easy integration with video conferencing tools like Zoom or Google Meet.
- Contact forms or scheduling options for inquiries.
Best plugins: Zoom Video Conferencing, ARForms.
Pro tip: Optimize your page for search engines to attract potential students.
5. E-commerce WordPress Website with Educational Materials
If you want to create expertise and authority through valuable content and sell digital products on your own tutoring website, it’s easy to do so with some content marketing and an e-commerce plugin.
You can write high-quality blog posts, video tutorials, or create downloadable resources related to your tutoring subjects. You can also offer paid in-depth content, exclusive tutorials, or personalized study guides accessible through a paid subscription or one-time purchase. It’s all about creating a tutoring business around a shop and selling both digital and printed educational materials.
Key possibilities:
- Paid in-depth content, exclusive tutorials, or personalized study guides.
- Small interaction with students and accent on products.
- Manage a shop instead of managing students.
E-commerce Plugins: WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads
Note: This approach requires consistent content creation and audience engagement.
Conclusion: Tailor Online Tutoring Business to Your Teaching Approach
Choosing the best method for an online tutoring business on WordPress depends on your teaching style and student needs. Do you prefer a structured LMS experience? Or a more personalized, one-on-one approach via appointment scheduling? Do you want to sell e-books? Start with your goals and then choose a WordPress tutoring plugin that will help you reach your business aims. We hope this guide will answer your questions about how to start a tutoring business!
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Brian Denim
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