How To Teach Online Yoga Classes with WordPress

Teaching yoga online is more accessible than ever. 🌍

Many instructors are now offering live classes, creating on-demand courses, and building thriving online communities. It’s a powerful way to share your passion, reach more students, and even grow your income – all without being tied to a single studio.

At WPBeginner, we teach all things WordPress on YouTube and run our own free video membership site. We’ve seen firsthand how the right tools can make online teaching smooth and stress-free. So, we’ve got you covered. 🧘‍♀️

In this guide, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of how to set up and teach online yoga classes with WordPress.

Why You Should Teach Yoga Online

When you teach yoga online, you can reach people worldwide. Instead of going to a studio, you have the flexibility to work from anywhere, even in your living room.

This approach can make yoga more accessible for both you and your students.

💡 What’s more, you can also sell your yoga memberships and products.

If you’re considering it, we recommend the subscription-as-a-service model because it enables you to create a steady income stream. Then, you can set it up so that you won’t need to stream live classes on a regular schedule.

How to Take Your Yoga Classes Online

We understand that starting online yoga classes may sound too technical for many folks. We have heard from many users who were reluctant to start, fearing that the technology may be too expensive or difficult for them.

This was probably true ten years ago. But not anymore.

Now, there are excellent tools available that make the whole process less technical. Basically, you can point and click to do everything.

To take your yoga classes online, you’ll need these four things:

• A website or platform to teach yoga live and/or to sell products
• Video streaming to lead your classes
• A way to take payment
• A method for your customers to sign an agreement

To sell your yoga products outside of the live classes, you’ll need:

• A membership site to host your yoga videos and products
• An email marketing service to deliver your products and to stay in touch with customers

We know there’s a lot here.

But don’t worry – we’ll guide you through all the tools you need to get started teaching online yoga classes, making the process as smooth as possible.

Here’s a list of topics we will be covering. You can jump to any section you’d like in the article:

Ready? Let’s get started.

Step 1: Create Your Platform to Teach Online Yoga Classes

People are teaching yoga online in various ways. Some are live-streaming their classes on YouTube, and others are doing Instagram Lives at set times during the week.

While these are easy options, the problem lies in what could happen to your platform. For example, if you build an audience on social media platforms, you can lose your audience because of unexpected policy changes.

You might also face challenges with platforms’ algorithms controlling how you reach your followers. And since you don’t have full control over your YouTube or Instagram account, if it gets deleted, it could be hard to get it back online.

Another problem is that you can’t communicate directly with your customers because of how the algorithm controls who sees your feed.

💡 Knowing this, we’ve put together some ideas for you: if you want to offer live yoga classes, you need an easy-to-use video service.

We recommend Zoom. With the free version, you can have up to 100 participants on your livestream. The primary drawback is the 40-minute time limit.

So, if you want your classes to last longer, their plans start at $14.99/month/user.

Next, you’ll need a platform where users can learn more about your classes and sign up.

Instead of using a third-party platform that takes a cut of every transaction, we recommend making your own website using WordPress.

The benefit of this option is that you won’t be paying a cut on every transaction to a third party. You’ll also have a lot more freedom to grow your business any way you like.

First, you’ll need to set up a domain name and web hosting to set up your yoga website.

To host your site, we suggest Bluehost. They are a WordPress-recommended host and offer a nice discount to WPBeginner readers when they sign up for their first year.

It’s just $1.99/month, plus you get a free domain name with your account.

If you are looking for an alternative, then take a look at Hostinger. They are among the top WordPress hosting companies and offer WPBeginner users a massive discount with a free domain name.

If you can spend a little extra, then we recommend SiteGround. They even offer an automated WordPress installation so you can get your site up and running as soon as possible.

Would you rather skip this process and just get to work on your site? If so, check out our free WordPress blog setup service.

Once you are up and running with your yoga website, it’s time to create some pages.

Step 2: Add Pages for Your Yoga Site

For starters, you only need a handful of pages. Those are:

• An about page
• A services page
• A yoga classes page
• A signup and payment page
• A contact form page

By the way, you’ll probably want to set up more pages later. Here’s a guide to the important pages every WordPress site should have.

🧘‍♀️ Your ‘about‘ page is where you tell us a little bit about yourself. What makes you an expert? How’d you get into yoga? This is typically where teachers put a photo of themselves, too.

🛒 The ‘services‘ page is where you describe what you do and what you offer.

🧑‍💻 Your ‘yoga classes’ page is where you can put the dates and times of your online yoga classes. You can list all the details, such as:

• Start time
• Duration
• Type of class
• Experience level
• Any other pertinent information

Finally, you need a page where users can sign up and make payments.

Step 3: Set Up Payment and Agreement Signatures

To set up payment and agreement signatures, we’ll use the WPForms plugin.

It’s the best contact form plugin for WordPress, and we personally use it for our contact forms and annual user surveys. Check out our complete WPForms review for all the details!

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Now, you’ll need the Pro version to accept payments online. The Pro version also comes with dozens of form templates, email newsletter forms, entries management, and more.

WPForms allows you to accept payments using Stripe and PayPal. For step-by-step instructions, see our guide on how to easily accept credit card payments on your WordPress website.

Now, you can add the form to your payment page. It will look something like this:

You can also use the WPForms signature addon to create an agreement form that your yoga students can sign digitally.

For detailed instructions, see how to create a contract agreement form with digital signatures.

Step 4: Sell Yoga Classes Online with a Membership Site

Traditionally, you only get paid when you teach a yoga class. That means two things:

• Your income is dependent on how many classes you teach per week.
• How much you make depends on your class rate and availability.

So, if you want to make more money without having to do more classes, you could offer courses or products on a membership site.

We recommend the MemberPress WordPress plugin when creating a membership area for your site. It is the best WordPress membership plugin on the market.

We use MemberPress on our WordPress video courses website. In our case study, we shared how our video membership site helped us grow subscribers.

For a closer look at the benefits and drawbacks, check out our detailed MemberPress review!

With MemberPress, you can easily create custom packages and restrict access based on purchases.

For example, you could create three courses based on experience levels. Those levels could be:

• Beginner
• Intermediate
• Advanced

Let’s say someone buys your beginner course. This means they will only have access to the pages you label under the beginner membership level.

But if they bought your beginner course and your intermediate course, they would have access to both areas when they log in.

This way, your products are protected from those who aren’t paying for them.

Since you are teaching yoga online, you are likely using video for instruction and demonstration. You’ll need an easy way to host your videos in your membership area.

For more instruction, you can check out our guide on how to create a membership site.

Step 5: Start a Newsletter to Communicate with Your Customers

Not all users coming to your website will sign up for your class. In fact, 70% of those users will never come back.

This is where you need to start building an email list. This gives you the chance to capture those users’ email addresses, offer them discounts, or reach out to them with new offers.

The easiest way to do this is with Constant Contact. It is the best email marketing service for small businesses, and it is also the most beginner-friendly.

To learn more about it, see our complete Constant Contact review!

The best part is that it integrates with WPForms and MemberPress, making it easy to create newsletter sign-up forms.

For more details, see our guide on how to start an email newsletter with step-by-step instructions.

If you are looking for a free option, then Brevo and MailerLite both offer limited free plans.

Bonus Step: Use OptinMonster Can Help You Attract More Customers

As we mentioned earlier, more than 70% of users will leave your website. Of those who stick around, only a small fraction of them will end up making a purchase.

This is where OptinMonster comes in. It is the best lead-generation software on the market and helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers.

At WPBeginner, we use OptinMonster for a lot of tasks. These include creating beautiful popups, header banners, and slide-ins to promote our special deals. If you want more information about the software, feel free to read our OptinMonster review.

To make your process easier, you can choose from a lot of pre-made templates for your lightbox popups, countdown timers, slide-in forms, and other tools to help boost your conversions and sales!

In a detailed case study, we shared the exact methods we use to grow our email list with OptinMonster, along with easy steps to apply them to your own websites. Don’t miss it!

Final Thoughts for Teaching Yoga Online

We’ve given you much to think about in this article, so let’s recap. You can start offering yoga classes online with a WordPress website. All you need is a domain name and WordPress web hosting.

You can host live classes using Zoom. And you can record those classes to sell later if you want.

Then, you can install WPForms to collect payments and have your agreement form signed digitally.

To make more money without holding more classes, you can easily create a membership site with MemberPress. You can sell courses for people to do on their own, or sell recordings of live classes you hold during the week.

And to stay in touch with your customers, email marketing software is a must. Constant Contact is a great way to get started.

We hope this article helps you learn more about how to teach yoga online. You might also want to read our expert picks on the best WordPress themes for yoga studios and our guide on how to run a virtual classroom.

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