Start your own ESL website.
ESL is the best internet industry there is because of the turn over of teachers. There is always room for one more ESL job board out there. However difficult it seems to make a website it is quite easy. I studied art so I like to make a lot of bells and whistles but content is the key to a successful site.
Website hosts
For you to have schools post information on your site you need to have a PHP application. So when searching for hosts look to see if they have My SQL. This means you can make a forum using PHP and simple to install on your server.
I don't use PHP and out source my forms so I can make tailored made pages. I use this company www.mycontactforms.com. They have a free service but there will be advertising or pay $30 a year without advertising and you're able to have attachments on the form.
Making money
I was using Google until they shafted me, I was making good money but then I got an email saying I was no longer allowed to use this service. They gave many possibilities for closing my account such as clicking on my own site, encouraging people to click or having other ads from different companies. There was no exact reason but I searched the internet and found this is very common. Google likes to shaft a lot of people especially small website owners.
A year later I was allowed back in the program, so if you sign up with Google you must be careful of their guidelines. It might happen to me again but I think so many people complained about this happening them that maybe they have resolved it.
I only use Google on my teaching site because Google is based on keywords, for example the Google ads will pick up the title on this page and will see ads for teaching. However this page has so many words about websites so ads might say "make your own website." This is because Google is a search engine and ads were originally made for search pages.
Pay per click advertising is a good way to make money and there are many other companies other than Google. Such as "Adbrite," their ads may not relate to ESL but you will be surprised how many people will click on "work from home," "dating" and "online games." I really like their "In words" which is a form of advertising by high lighting some key words on your page. I found a lot of people click on these ads and not one of those ads related to ESL. They also have advertising on photos and videos so they are more versatile than Google. Adbrite is an ad broker which means that you can choose the keywords that advertisers will use. For instance, I choose keywords such as travel, make money and online games which means that in their network ads relating to these keywords will appear.
ESL Traffic dot com is another pay per click and this is all for ESL sites only. The ads are a set price so you will receive about 4 to 5 cents per click.
Then there is "pay per sale" ads, such as affiliate advertising which means that if someone clicks on an ad and then paid money you will receive a commission. For instance, Amazon is a great way to make an online store such as books, DVD's and so many other products. They have an "Astore" which means that instead of designing an online store you can just make customized pages. I prefer to make my own pages so I can put other ads on the pages. They also have "widgets" which are devices such as slide show of products you want to promote or search boxes. Go to this page to see my online store as an example.
Another "pay per sale" is Commission Junction, this is where you can find a lot of banners to place on your site. Such as TEFL courses, because they want teachers to get certified when one does then you will get a commission. When it comes to "pay per sale" you have to understand the "law of averages." This is used in sales, if you talk to 100 customers maybe 20 will buy from you, so if you want 30 sales then you need to talk to 150 people. That is why traffic to your site is important because of law of averages.
Then there is "Click Bank" which is widely used by so many advertisers, for an example an internet phone company wants to sell its products using Click Bank. You can place banners or text links into your site and just use your Click Bank id. You can have all these companies advertised but the payment will come through via Click Bank. Say one product sells a few but another product sells a lot and instead of trying to keep track of all these companies you just need to check you Click Bank account.
Having a Niche
Take my website for instance, I make job ads for schools I have worked for and make a guide on living in that town. I also offer schools in other areas and also made a guide for that town. This is something that foreign affairs should be doing with the schools' websites but fail to do so. This gives you the opportunity to make a website of that city. List all the places to go and see and schools. Just food for thought but it is really easy with a digital camera and a website.
Some sites allow schools to post not just photos but also videos which gives an edge. Allowing photos for schools to attract teachers is a very good option. Then you will need to search hosts' My SQL PHP boards that allow people to do this.
Free service or charge 'em
Some websites charge posts from $10 to $100 per ad but this all depends on the quality of your site and how well it ranks. Such as Serious Teachers dot com charges about $100 per month but if you look at what they offer such as photos of teachers then they have an edge. So if you want to charge schools money then you need to have something in return.
Some websites offer different packages such as gold, silver and bronze, where you can post for free but to get a bigger and bolder ad you need to pay. This is a good way to get posts and then eventually some will pay.
Then there is Dave's ESL cafe, schools are willing to pay almost a hundred dollars per month but his site only offers ads without photos and it's just a message board. The reason is because of high traffic, a hundred dollars is better than paying a recruiter if you find the right teachers.
Spammers and fake recruiters
Many web masters will tell you they have to clean out the forums from a lot of penis enlargements and viagra spammers from posting. So moderators have to inspect the ad before posting which take some time doing.
There are ways to avoid this and some websites make schools and recruiters fill out a company registration before they post ads. So when the school is accepted then they can post as many ads as they want.
Fake recruiters are what I call those recruiters who take schools' information from their site and change the schools' name. Some have tried to go around me using my information but only to find that my service is free. To avoid them is the same as spammers, registration and a company website.
Websites such as ESL teachers board dot com allows people to post without registration so many of the posts are fake recruiters.
A school will at least go to a little trouble for a free service but I don't think spammers and fake recruiters will.
Advertising
You don't need to pay for advertising and there are many ways to build traffic. First is simply doing an email invite but it is not spamming. Spam is when you send hundreds of people a single email and that just goes straight to their junk mail. Send one person at a time and write "to Mr. John Smith" not "to school or recruiter." Make the email more personal and introduce your website this way. If you have a free job post then they will be more than willing to post.
To get teachers to your site is by recruiting for your school and have a link from another job board to see photos of the apartment. Then the teachers will come back to look for more jobs on your site.
Also is to network with other ESL sites, exchanging links is a good and free way to advertise.
Introduce you sight on forums, "hi everyone take a look at my ESL site and tell me what you think." With my site I barely spend any money on advertising, I simply post ads for the schools on other ESL boards to come back to my site to look at photos of the school.
Or simply make pay per click ads to get things rolling but you really don't need to spend money on advertising.
Offer RSS feeds from your site, websites like mine have other feeds from different sites so i can have the latest jobs.
Class projects.
Others.