7 Ways to Generate Passive Income from Your Website
You probably already know your website is a great tool for generating passive income. But did you know there are a full 7 ways to generate passive income from your website?
Blogging can be awesome. It gives you a way to get your message out to the world, and offer solutions for other people just like you. But the reasons most brands blog is to drive traffic to their site in order to generate revenue.
Because even though it can be fun, blogging takes way more time and energy than we think.
So, it’s totally natural to think about ways to monetize your website. If you take the time to create great things and put them out into the world, it’s entirely natural to want to be rewarded for it.
When you’re monetizing, just remember the golden rule: the most important thing is to add value to your readers.
By clicking to your site, a reader should get immense value: learning something, getting freebies, resources, or support.
As long as you do that, there’s nothing wrong with also finding ways to earn money from your website. It helps ensure you’ll keep putting out valuable content in the future.
So without further ado, here are the 7 ways to generate passive income from your website:
- Adertising
- Sponsorships
- Offer Services
- Digital Products
- Physical Products
- Affiliate Marketing
- Market Your Social Media Accounts
1. Ads
The first of the 7 ways to generate passive income from your website is advertising. Advertising is one of the simplest and easiest ways to generate revenue – as long as you don’t go overboard.
Essentially, you allow ads to be placed on your site and earn money based on clicks or impressions.
Google AdSense is one of the most popular advertising networks, and it’s free to sign up. Once you’ve been approved, you allow them to start placing ads on your website and start earning money.
It’s so important to strike a balance between generating revenue and maintaining a good experience for your readers though. We’ve all seen sites with too many ads – it will definitely turn off visitors. Experiment with different ad placements and formats and find what works best for you.
2. Sponsorships
Sponsored content is another great way to monetize a website, albeit with a bit more effort. This one involves partnering with companies and publishing sponsored posts about their products or services. In exchange, you can receive payment – or free products.
With sponsorships, it’s so important to be upfront with your audience.
Always make it clear when a post is sponsored, and mention that you’ve received compensation before you ever mention the product. It’s also a given that you should also only ever partner with companies that you truly believe in and are relevant to your website’s niche.
Remember again: your ultimate goal is in adding value to your readers’ lives. Recommending a bad product is the easiest way to lose your audience.
3. Offer Services
Paid services are a great way to diversify your website’s revenue, no matter how established you are.
Whether it’s consulting, coaching, teaching, event planning, organizing, training, or more, think about what your readers could benefit from, then offer those services related to your website’s niche.
To get started, think about what services you could offer and how much you’ll charge. A great way to ideate is to look at others in your industry and see what they’re offering and charging.
You can then use platforms like Calendly to schedule appointments (or set up your own booking system).
4. Digital Products
Here’s a secret to monetizing your website that not many people know: selling digital products is one of the best ways to earn money online.
We’re talking about things like:
- E-books
- Online courses
- Audio books
- Membership sites
- Printables
- Workbooks
- Software
- Music, art, digital templates, etc.
- Other digital products related to your website’s niche
This can be lucrative, especially if you have expertise in a particular area. Why?
Because it’s one of the highest-priced passive income streams.
Have you ever considered buying a course that was hundreds of dollars online? If so, you’re one of the millions of people each year that finds ways to improve their lives through online courses.
Prices can scale from $1 up to tens of thousands of dollars. You won’t be able to charge that off the bat – but once the content is created, the work is done.
Aside from marketing it, there’s no additional work to sign person #1000 up to to your course as there is signing up person #2.
To get started selling digital products, you’ll need a highly valuable offer. It’s essential you know your audience inside and out, their pain points, their hopes and dreams, and what keeps them up at 3am. A great way to do so is by performing a buyer persona template.
Once you’re ready to build your digital product, you can use platforms like Thinkific to set up your digital academy.
Remember, it’s important to create something high-quality, that provides immense value to your audience. Also plan to do a fair amount of marketing around the product itself. Because if nobody knows about it, nobody can buy it or benefit from it!
PS. Shopify has a great guide to selling profitable digital products.
5. Physical Products
Next up on the 7 ways to generate passive income from your website is through physical products.
Is there something your audience could use that you could sell?
If you’ve got the skills and know-how, by all means go with something you make yourself (like a shirt, art piece, mug, jewelry, etc.).
But if you don’t have that skill set, there are still ways to do this. You can simply find products for sale in bulk at a lower price, and sell them on your site.
Or, you can try drop-shipping, which is where you accept and fulfill orders without ever having stock on hand.
No garage filled with products, simply acting as the middle man in helping suppliers and consumers connect.
6. Affiliate Marketing
If the term “affiliate marketing” has you Googling its definition, don’t worry – it’s so much easier than you’d think.
Affiliate marketing is essentially just promoting other people’s products and earning a commission for each sale made through your unique affiliate link. If you aren’t quite ready to create your own products, this is a great way to earn a percentage of products other people make!
To get started with affiliate marketing, you’ll need to find products that are relevant to your website’s niche. There are two ways to go about this.
Option 1 is to do the research, communication, and negotiation yourself. If there’s a great product you think could be really valuable to your readers, reach out to the brand directly, offering to promote it in exchange for a percentage of the sale. The pro is you usually get a higher percentage of the profits, but the con is it takes much longer and in some cases you might just never hear back.
Option 2 includes signing up for an affiliate network. There are many out there now, where you earn a percentage of the profits when people click your unique affiliate link – including Amazon Associates, ShareASale, and Commission Junction.
Just as with other strategies above, it’s extremely important to be transparent with your audience.
At the very beginning of your post, make it clear that you’re an affiliate and that you’ll earn a commission if they make a purchase through your link. And only ever promote products that you believe in and that you think will be valuable to your audience.
7. Market on Your Social Media Accounts
Our last of the 7 ways to generate passive income from your website involves platforms outside of your actual website!
It taps into your social media accounts – because these are a great place to implement the strategies above to generate revenue as well.
For example, if you have a YouTube account, think about if you’d like to allow ads there.
If you have an Instagram account, consider that as one of the places you can display sponsored content.
Don’t go overboard – always remember your audience, and follow all the proper transparency rules.
But get creative, and think about which of the website monetization ideas above can work for your social accounts as well.
Go Monetize that Website!
There you have it! The 7 ways to generate passive income from your website.
Will you become rich overnight?
No – and contrary to social media, nobody gets rich from their website overnight.
You need to build a loyal audience in order to make any real money. And how do you build that loyal audience?
By consistently creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience.
As much as I’d love to promise you a magic pill, the true answer is that consistently creating quality content that people love to read, share, and return to is the way to build lasting online revenue.
Always, always, always add value to your reader. Add more value than you think you need, thank you think is fair. Give away content freely, and openly, and build trust over a long period of time.
Then, when you have a fantastic thing to sell and your loyal readers know about it and believe in you, the magic will happen.
You’ve got this, friends!
– Danielle
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