How to organize paid content - English teaching website

The importance of what you are giving away and what you are selling are one in the same. If they like what they are getting for free they will only like what they are getting when they are paying. However, if the 2 are the same.... it will fall flat.

I really don't know how this will play out with what you are doing exactly, I don't sell language. But this is what I do. I fill my site with theory, and then what I sell is specifics.

I personally am writing a series on the theory of color in web design. The "FREE" material or blog posts in my case are all about how color affects moods and this and that. Red means anger or love yada yada. In my material I am writing that will be for sale. I write specifically how and where to use these colors.

An example: 'Orange' the free material I go into how it is neutral positive, its not bright and sunshine yellow, and its not screaming red stop either.

In my paid material I go into the detail of Paypal and how much money and time they must have spent to come up with the iconic 'Orange' buy it now button. Orange is identified as look here in a positive way as in red might be taken as a negative or forceful. Then I point out that these psychological studies indicate Orange to be the new color of money in our modern online society. blah blah blah

So when I am selling something and writing publically specifically about the subject, I lay off the details. I do however, leave more than an impression there is more there if you buy my material.

Hope that Helps!

Thanks A LOT for all your feedback and encouragement, I appreciate every single post you wrote

A couple of ideas I gathered from what I previously had in mind and what you mentioned here:

- The flagship for email subscription will be the how-to guide for free. For sure.

- I must make sure I set a clear line between free and paid material.

I would appreciate it a lot if you could further explain the concept of 'sell them the how' for language teaching though (I'm sorry I don't seem to grasp the idea properly). Do you mean, for example, giving them the theory on how to use Present tenses in a podcast or post, and then keeping worksheets, more listening examples and the PDF explanation for paid subscription? In pronunciation and phonetics I see it clearly: I could tell them how important phonetics is, show them how this can boost your listening, and then offering some samples but creating a Phonetics Killer guide with recordings, etc. However, I can't see that distinction when it comes to teaching a grammar point (I lack Speaking practise and actual engagement with them face to face as it is an online teaching method).

- Thanks for pointing out the difference between traffic and content. The thing is I'm a little bit afraid of not getting enough traffic so my original plan was to provide readers with the best content ever, but I didn't realise I would be losing my paid material (and I'm planning to get traffic from social media, yes).

Sorry if this sounds too contradictory, I'm working as a teacher in an academy and I love my students, I want to provide readers with a lot of good free content and resources so my blog becomes something of a "hub" for English learning, thought leadership, etc and I feel good making something for people out there (especially now with the economic recession and people going crazy with the English learning rush), but at the same time I need to make a living out of this (over time) so I need to monetize it. Maybe the approach you mentioned, giving for free basic English and charging for further levels would be best.

Thanks a lot again, seriously.