WordPress is perhaps the most commonly used and well-trusted website-creation software around. Powering 26% of the entire internet, WordPress is home to a tonne of easy ways to make money through creating a site.
This article will talk through some of the best ways to earn money as a WordPress site-owner.
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Selling Plugins
If you’re completely unfamiliar with WordPress, you probably don’t have a clue what is meant by a ‘plugin’. A plugin, simply put, is a downloadable addition to a website that adds extra features to it that perhaps weren’t available beforehand.
Without plugins, it can be really tricky to have full control over the design/functionality of your site. Thus, almost every website owner needs plugins.
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And, if you hadn’t guessed it already, plugins aren’t free. While yes, there are a number of freebie plugins around that won’t cost people anything, the best and most useful plugins have to be paid for.
If you discover a problem with an online site, one of your own or perhaps somebody else’s, the solution to this problem can be sold in the form of a plugin.
If you’re running dry on ideas, perhaps check out existing plugins in stores such as Pippins Plugins to see the sorts of things that are already selling.
Then, just work out how you can create your own versions of these and you’ll have an infinite source of passive income at your fingertips.
It’s crucial that your plugins focus on something specific – a niche area of the WordPress world rather than random and unrelated plugins.
rather than random and unrelated plugins.
Maybe you wish to specialise in aesthetic-based plugins that help site-owners to create a beautiful and attractive site.
Perhaps you’ve had some difficulties integrating commenting systems into your blog and want to create a plugin that fixes these.
Whatever it is, if there’s a problem you’re having online others are bound to be struggling with the same thing – so why not make money from this?
Once you’ve figured out how to create a plugin and got one ready to sell, head on over to a site such as Code Canyon and list your plugin to be sold.
As well as this, you can work for people as a plugin-creator, making plugins for specific clients rather than generalised plugins that can be sold to anybody. Sites such as UpWork and eLance can be great places to advertise your work and be paid decent money for it.
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Creating WordPress Themes
If you’re a web/graphic designer or a web developer, you can make money by creating ‘themes’ for WordPress. On WordPress, a ‘theme’ is the name given to the overall look of a site. Perhaps this theme is a simplistic, black and white layout, or maybe a more complex vintage-style site.
Themes are crucial to WordPress sites as, without them, they’d simply be pages of uninteresting text. Instead, WordPress users can use themes to make their site stand out, transforming it into something that represents their niche.
Even if you’re not an expert graphic designer or coder, you can still create a WordPress theme and sell it for a decent amount of money.
It is still important, however, to have a target audience in mind – a demographic. Your demographic should include the specific types of people that you hope to sell your theme to.
The way that you design your theme should focus on this audience and you should keep it in mind every step of the way. It’s no good creating a theme that’s a bit all over the place and doesn’t really cater for any particular kind of person.
The theme-creating industry is rapidly growing and so now is an excellent time to become a part of it. If this is your first time creating WordPress themes, you may feel nervous and too inexperienced to succeed.
While this is likely not to be the case, you may wish instead to create a team of theme-designers, selling themes as a business rather than an individual. This can be a very effective way to market your themes.
People are more likely to hire a team of designers to get a job done quicker rather than a freelancer – even if that team collectively have very little experience.
Once you’ve learnt a bit about theme-creation and have designed some concepts to sell, head on over to a site such as Creative Market or Mojo Thenese to list your themes and begin to sell them.
Again, this way of earning is entirely passive and, once you’ve created a theme, you can sell it on as many times as you wish without ever having to make another.
Becoming a Content Writer
If you’re a skilled writer and have some experience in the field (and this can be virtually anything from high-school essays to university dissertations, or even full-length novels – anything goes) then content writing may be for you.
Using WordPress, you can begin offering content writing services to business that need a writer.
It’s possible to find content-writing gigs on sites such as UpWork and eLance as with plugin-creation, however you may wish instead to create a website to advertise your services.
To do this, you’ll first need to purchase a domain and begin designing your website. On your site, be sure to include details of any writing experiences you’ve had and really sell your skills to businesses that may need them.
Alternatively, you could browse the web for existing blogs and submit articles you’ve written. If the site-owner believes that your content suits their site, they’ll pay you for your work.
In doing this, you’ll create incredibly useful backlinks to your website as your work will, in most cases, be credited. This also works as an invaluable way to begin promoting your own websites.
Along your journey as a freelance content-writer, be sure to have a public portfolio that you can link potential clients to. It’s important to keep a bank of all of the work experience you’ve gained to show off to clients in future, letting them know that you know what you’re doing.
If you can, try to include reviews/references from previous clients to show future ones that you provide top-quality services and would be an excellent writer to work with.
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If you are looking for a company that does Managed WordPress hosting, check out awesomewebsiteguys.com. How to Overcome Writer’s Block
Start Earning Money From Your Blog
As well as advertising your content-writing services through your online blog you can also monetize it and start earning passive income.
This can be done in a number of different ways including affiliate marketing, advertisements and ecommerce.
None of these require any extra long-term effort, they’ll just take a couple of hours to set up and can be left to generate constant money thereafter.
Once you’ve got a decent amount of content on your site, begin searching around for affiliate marketing programs relevant to your niche.
Affiliate marketing, simply put, is the process of implementing links to other relevant products on your website that relate to its niche.
When people follow these links and make a purchase, you, the advertiser, will be paid commission for having sent them there. This way of earning is therefore purely passive and requires very little effort to start up.
As well as this, you can add in advertisements using a scheme such as Google AdSense.
These are entirely free to utilise and work in such the same way as affiliate marketing – you display advertisements and are paid every time somebody follows your link.
On your blog you may also wish ‘shop’ pages, pages that give information on products of your own that you could sell & ship to visitors.
If you make products yourself, perhaps these are site templates, ebooks or even physical, handmade goods, blogging can be an excellent platform to start marketing and selling them with.
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If you don’t make products, you can still get started very easily.
You could create digital products if you’re not skilled with DIY, products such as ebooks and design templates that can be sold an infinite number of times (as they are online copies of the same product).
Here’s a great example of a website that makes buyers guides and reviews on DIY products!
These do not need to be created more than once and so, once ready, you can sell digital products on as many times as you wish without having to put in any extra hours.
If you do wish to sell physical products but lack the skills to create them, you may even wish to begin dropshipping. Dropshipping is simply the process of selling products that you do not actually own.
When a customer makes a purchase on one of your listed products you simply have it shipped directly from a supplier to their house.
That way, you never have to store the product nor do you have to package and ship it.
Additional Resources: WordPress Security Questions and How to Protect it, Top 5 WordPress Plugins That Will Surely Strengthen Your Website, WordPress versus Shopify
