Back in January, I shared I was going to expand my business into possibly offering additional training and a membership program and I still have that vision for this year. It’s all about timing and clearing my schedule to put all the pieces together. But more on this later. What my topic is on today’s Day 7 blog post is what are some ways to create a passive income for an online business. For someone like myself, I’ve worked many, many billable hours over the years, for what is known as “hours for dollars”, but there is nothing wrong with twisting this around and “making dollars for hours”.
If you’re not familiar with what a passive income is, it’s a strategy where you can sell products or services, all automated, so you can earn money without putting in all the time and effort, like in “hours for dollars” mentioned above. Of course, a passive can come in many different forms, but I’m just going to touch on a few to at least get you interested in this concept if you’re looking to increase your income for your business. And if you’re really wanting to venture into more than one form of passive income, then you can set yourself up to pull in money from what is known as multiple streams of income. Whichever you choose to do, my advice to you is the following:
- Make sure you take the time to set up what that form of income is going to be
- Make it meaningful and enticing to your audience so it’s worth your time and effort you put into it
- Plan ahead the development and marketing of the product or program you will be offering
- Test your product or program with a beta group to make sure everything is working on the back-end before promoting it
Create an Ebook
If there is a subject that you are passionate about that you know your audience is engaged in and they may need help in understanding, write an ebook about it! You can self-publish it and offer on a platform like Amazon and you can receive royalties from it. You can also offer it on your own website and receive orders that is set up with a cart system and an autoresponder system once someone purchases it as a download.
Create an Online Course
Maybe an ebook is not enough and you want to create and offer an online course that has a student follow through several days or weeks of a program where they can move along at their own pace. You can offer it on your own website or create is using platforms such as Teachable or Udemy.
Become an Affiliate Marketer
This is actually one of my favorite forms of a passive income and that’s signing up to be an affiliate for products or programs you endorse. There are several platforms I have shared and made passive income from over the years. It could be your favorite CMS or email marketing system or you even sign up for Google Adsense if that’s something you are interested in. Once you’ve signed up as an affiliate, you can add either banners or links withing your blog or website and collect commissions from purchases made by your visitors.
Create and Manage a Membership Program
You can create a community where you share various types of content and resources made only available to paid participants or members. The members would only have access by paying a monthly or annual fee. There would be some time spent in managing and updating the membership content, but if you price it correctly, it would be worth the time spent in setting it up. I have had a membership portal in the past based around my WordPress website training programs and it’s really great for providing a private area for students, using such platforms as WP Wishlist, S2 Member or even AccessAlly if you are using a WordPress platform for the website.
Create and Offer Website Templates
For someone who designs WordPress websites, I could take the time and create different industry templates and offer them for sale. I thought I would throw this up as an idea if someone is a website developer. There are SO many different themes and layouts create by developers and they are definitely making money off of each one of these designs. I have purchased many different themes over the years, so I know developers have made money off of me! LOL
Like I mentioned above, there are tons of ways to create a passive income, including YouTube video creation, creating apps and outsourcing to other biz owners in your industry, but I just gave you a few above to get your wheels turning.
Once I set up my passive income for this year, I’ll be sure and share it on a future post.
If you are generating additional forms of income in your business, feel free to share what they are by commenting below. I always enjoy learning something that maybe I do not have any experience in and could put it to good use in my own business. Until tomorrow…Day 8!
Please keep in mind that I may receive commissions when you click my links and make purchases. However, this does not impact my reviews and comparisons. I try my best to keep things fair and balanced, in order to help you make the best choice for you.
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These are all great ideas! I love the concept of affiliate marketing, especially when the product or service is something I’d rave about anyway.
Thank you, Kandas! Yep, affiliate marketing is a great way to make a passive income.
Great post. I’m working toward building passive income that will eventually replace all the ‘trading hours for dollars’ work. I have several ebooks and other digital products for sale, and several affiliate partners in place, Now it’s just a case of scaling it all up, which sounds easy, but is actually quite time-consuming! I’m starting to realise that there is generally a very ‘active’ set-up phase, when it comes to creating ‘passive’ income.
I certainly do understand about having to revamp and update what you already have. That does take work, but once it’s done, then you’re not pouring all the time you do if you’re just working with a client. Perhaps you put set aside some blocks of time and work on the updates and marketing? I’ve actually had affiliate partners in the past. That’s something I want to offer again, but most likely not until 2020.
Great ideas Aletha! I am an affiliate on a few sites and while I don’t get rich, I make enough to keep my blog going without any out of pocket money. As for the ebook, my granddaughter wrote a blog (long enough for a short story) and many have told her she should look into publishing it. I need to look into how we go about that.
That’s cool, Martha! I hope your granddaughter does create a short-story ebook. There’s money to be made there if she’s getting people telling her she needs to publish it. I would say Google it and see what is the best self-publishing platforms available. You’ll have to keep us updated on the UBC group if it ends up being published. Good luck!