As educators, we have an important job: teaching the world’s youth. While the teaching profession consistently ranks as one of the top five “noble” job fields, it is also hard for many teachers to make a living without working a part-time job on the side. What are the ways you can make money online as a teacher? There are tons of articles out there that could help you but not many are geared towards teachers. Being a teacher, I know what can be done given the time we have to do it. That is the reason I made this article.
None of these ways to make money online are “get rich” opportunities, instead, they are real-world business opportunities for those in education. Each can also be done from your laptop so location isn’t an issue just as long as you have an internet connection.
1. Sell Your Teaching Resources
I’ve been selling my teaching resources online for about 7 years. I started on TeachersPayTeachers.com and have more recently, began selling on my own site as well. The upside of using a 3rd party site like TpT is that they supply the traffic, infrastructure, etc. The downside is that they take a sizeable chunk from your profits. In addition, you are building on someone else’s land so they can change the rules on you at any time. For those reasons, I started selling on my own site as well – teachsciencewithfergy.com. If you would like to learn more about selling on your resources, a great place to get started is my Teacherpreneur Marketing free course.
Despite the drawbacks, selling on TpT is a fantastic option. As I mentioned, they supply the infrastructure and a portion of the traffic. They have also been around for more than 10 years so they are very well established and respected in the teaching community. There are more than 3 million active users and they are undergoing a huge push to get schools to start making purchases as well.
The site is simple and straightforward. When you sign-up, you have the option to upload free and paid resources. You set the price and when your resource is sold, you get paid. It’s a win-win. The purchaser saves the time they would have otherwise spent creating the resource and you’re compensated for your hard work.
This article will help you get started selling your resources quickly on TPT.
No matter which option you choose – TpT or your own site (or both), you NEED to start an email list ASAP. This will allow you to start building those relationships from the start which will lead to more sales down the road. I created a free course titled Email Marketing Made Easy and I encourage you to check it out.
2. Teach English Online
There are multiple companies out there at the moment but the one I’ve heard the most about is VIPKID.
What they do is hire native-English speaking US/Canadian applicants with a bachelor’s degree. You go through an application process and when you’re approved, you are set up to teach English online to Chinese students (Kindergarten to grade 9).
Once you are up and running, it is very simple to select which hours you want to teach. Just log into your account, and choose as many time slots as you want. The pay rate is up to $22 USD/hour which is pretty good.
From the VIPKID website “Our teachers inspire students all across China as they lead one-on-one English classes. They do it through our online learning platform (aka from anywhere).”
Here is the link to their website if you would like to get started –> https://t.vipkid.com.cn/
3. Become a Virtual Assistant (VA)
If you have a knack for organization, you can make money online as a virtual assistant helping people to keep their days in order. A virtual assistant will do everything from bookkeeping to research, database entry, booking travel, and managing email. It can also be an awesome way to rub shoulders with some very important people, build up your professional network, and of course, grow another stream of income. You can find great gigs on UpWork, Fiverr, and Remote.co.
A really popular VA gig these days is proofreading other TPT authors work. As teachers, we are expected to produce perfect products but in reality, we are just as fallible as anyone else. As a resource producer myself, I find having another set of eye invaluable for my business. A great place to be found for this kind of gig is on popular Facebook Groups.
4. Write For Other Blogs
Writing for other blogs is a terrific way to get the word out about yourself or your site. It can also be profitable as some websites will pay you to write for them. For instance, you could write for WeAreTeachers.com. They are always open to writers and will pay you if your work is published.
You could also write for Bored Teachers. Bored Teachers provides $50 for every approved article submission, and helps build up your social followers or traffic to your own blog, through the links in your author bio, at the top of each article.
Check out their writing guidelines on how to submit your first article.
Submission Tip: Just like any other interview, you should be doing your research beforehand. Find out what kind of articles they publish, then come up with a good idea that has not been overdone already. Frame your submission around how your article would benefit their reader.
5. Teach Online Summer School
Signing up to teach online summer school is a natural way for educators to pull in some extra income during their time off. The time requirement is often shorter overall and the pay is comparable. When you sign up to teach summer school online, the added benefits include; air conditioning and not having to change out of your PJs. If your school doesn’t offer online summer school, check nearby schools and/or boards.
I taught summer school for six years and it provided an excellent way to make a little extra money without a tremendous time commitment.
6. Use Affiliate Marketing to Sell Things On Your Own Niche Site
If there’s a niche you’re interested in and you can build a decent audience around it, starting a blog and using affiliate marketing to generate income is an incredible way to make money online.
One of the simplest ways to start selling affiliate products is to become an Amazon Associate. You can then use free Keyword Planners to find an in-demand niche and sell products you don’t even create yourself. For instance, if you are really into arts and crafts, there are millions of people who would love to purchase products related to it. You simply build a site, attract visitors with useful content about the subject you are already interested in, then send people to purchase the items you recommend to Amazon. If the person purchases that product (or any other product during their visit), you get a commission.
If you’d like to learn more about selling on Amazon, check out this post by HubSpot.
Note: This route will take some time on your part in order to build the site and start driving traffic to it. However, blogging can be a fun hobby so if you wanted to write about something anyways (or you are already doing it), this would be an excellent way to monetize it.
7. Start a Photography Business
If you have a fondness and talent for taking pictures you can make extra money online by becoming a stock photographer and selling your images to a stock photo company like ShutterStock or iStockPhoto. You’ll get royalties every time someone licenses an image you’ve submitted. Maybe you already have a collection of photos. Simply create an account and upload them.
8. Create An Online Course
Have something you are passionate about? As teachers, we know we can teach, we just need to know what to teach. Choose something you are interested in (photography, scrapbooking, crafts, etc.) and just go for it. It WILL NOT be perfect but you need to start somewhere. Just get it out into the world.
Two of the more popular places to create and distribute your courses include;
Udemy – Great choice to get started. If you do things right, Udemy will funnel their customers to you. Udemy has a revenue-sharing model so although it is free to use, they will take a cut of your profits.
Teachable – More geared towards people who already have an audience. Teachable has two main levels, $29 and $79 per month but you keep most of the money your course brings in.
Additional Readings:
Does Font Type Affect Student Retention?
The one teaching tip to maintain your sanity this year
The Flipped Classroom – Flip Your Classroom to Increase Student Success
