Do you want to make money with your WordPress website? Whether you want to generate some side income or make it a full-time job, WordPress offers plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs. Create and sell products, teach or manage othersā websites, or just blog; you can make good money from WordPress. Shot for ideas? No worries, thereās an infinite number of things you can do to earn revenue with a WordPress site. This list is just the beginning, but it should point you in the right direction.
How to Layout a Winning Digital Product Website
Youāve conceptualized your digital product store and youāre ready to start selling your products ā now what? Well, now itās time to organize your products and content into a cohesive website that enables your customers to get to know your brand, and easily browse and make purchases. Having an attractive, efficient website layout and an up-to-date, streamlined purchase process is essential if you want to get your store up and running ā and see some results from all of your hard work! So, letās take a look at the most important elements you need to bring your store to life.
Conversion Rate Optimization for WooCommerce [Guide]
When it comes to WooCommerce, what does conversation rate optimization look like? How much will it cost? Are there things that are easy to miss but could make a big difference? And — if you had thirty minutes a day to spend on conversion rate optimization, here’s where you should begin.
16 Ways to Generate Client Referrals [List]
If you have freelanced or owned your own business for any length of time, you know how difficult it can be to create a constant, steady stream of qualified clients who are happy to pay you what youāre worth. From marketing and social media efforts to networking and advertising to strategic partnerships and public speaking, it takes a lot of time, energy, and effort to persuade a stranger to hire you or buy from you. Here are 16 simple things you can do to provide remarkable service, turn your clients into raving fans, and earn more referrals.
5 Ways to Get More Traffic & Make More Money With Your Blog [List]
Every blogger who starts with the WordPress, sooner or later, want to increase both traffic and profit from his investment. And, why not? The online world is full of opportunity, and you can reach new heights if you know what you are doing. In this article, we will show you how to build traffic and more profit from your WordPress blog.
How to Monetize Videos With WordPress
Having a strategy that diversifies your revenue streams is now a prerequisite in many niches for success. As such, hunting for every opportunity to monetize your content should be a task you fully commit to as soon as you can. One area thatās relatively low-hanging fruit in this regard is your videos. In this post, weāll discuss video monetization a little further, including what it is and why you should do it. Then, weāll talk about the WP Video Monetize plugin, which lets you make money from your videos by harnessing WordPressā native technologies. Letās get started!
How the Discover Phase Can Save Client Projects
The discovery phase is a crucial part of a project if you are hoping for an accurate understanding of what the client needs, who will be using the end product, and what the technology behind each step is. At the end of this phase of the project, you will know the scope of the project and you should be able to deliver a document for each piece of the puzzle you ādiscoveredā along the way. But this process is not free. Either the client pays for it, or your company eats the cost. Here’s why it’s worth it.
How to Sell Graphics & Digital Artwork
Graphics and digital artwork are some of the most popular types of digital products to sell online, with a variety of lucrative avenues for generating income. But if youāre a graphic designer or digital artist, you might not feel 100% confident about how to monetize your artistic talents to earn a living. eCommerce has opened a whole new world for artists, removing the overhead costs and extra hassle of setting up a traditional store, printing physical copies, and shipping goods to customers. Itās now more convenient and affordable than ever to buy and sell digital designs, which creates a pretty significant win-win for artists and customers alike! Here’s how.
How to Make Good Affiliates Great
When it comes to affiliate marketing, itās all about partnership. Providing the right support and resources can take your affiliates from good to great, significantly increasing your revenue, brand authority, and opportunities all at once. But how exactly do you nurture these relationships to maximize results and make your affiliate program a flourishing success?
Key Channels for Marketing Your Online Business
Whether youāre just getting started, or youāve been around the block and back again, marketing will always be a part of your business. Marketing is broad. Itās not just an ad in The Economist, or a billboard in Times Square. You donāt need a multi-million dollar budget for a 60-second spot in the Super Bowl ad break, nor do you need to try and win awards at Cannes. When you speak to someone about your company, thatās marketing. When you send an email with your company signature, thatās marketing. When you give a local meetup talk or participate in a podcast about your expertise, thatās marketing. And it is crucial to the success of your business. Here are the channels you could use to do it right.
14 Ways to Ensure Your Next Web Design Project is Successful [List]
At the heart of every successful client services business are happy and satisfied clients, streamlined project management, and web design projects that boost the bottom line. Thatās why it pays to develop strategies that will ensure the success of your web design projects ā and your business. Here are 14 ways to make that happen.
How to Create a Roadmap for a WordPress Plugin
A product roadmap ātranslates strategic decisions into actionable plans that provide direction for the development team and other stakeholdersā (Strategize). It is a Document (the smaller the better) that you share with key stakeholders (the folks who care about / are affected by your product) to communicate direction, get their input, and facilitate alignment. A roadmap is not a backlog or a checklist of todos (those are important, but different).
Plugin Developer Stories: Zero BS CRM by Mike Stott
Mike Stott, one of the developers behind Zero BS CRM, answered my questions about the origins of the plugin, the decision behind the name and what itās like building what is traditionally a SaaS application as a self-hosted solution. Mike was gracious enough to spend a lot of time on these answers and I wanted to thank him publicly for going the extra mile.
How to Streamline Your Membership Business in 6 Steps
As a membership site owner you may have so many things to keep track of, produce, and manage that simplifying things sounds like a far-off dream. Decluttering, consolidating, and automating are all key words here, but youāre looking for specific tips and strategies for accomplishing these things within the context of your membership site. Here are 6 steps to doing that and make your life a little easier!
The Key Metrics for an Ecommerce Business Selling Digital Products
Numbers and metrics can be stressful. As a business owner, youāre likely swimming in numbers every day. Revenue, net profit, tax, expensesā¦ numbers and statistics are your life. Plus, youāre also the creator of your digital product or service, working tirelessly in an increasingly saturated online market, getting it done. Here are the most important website and eCommerce metrics specifically for digital products, so you can spend less time living in a statistical slurry, and more time working on improving and growing your business.
The Ultimate Guide to Starting an Online Business
How to start an online business: Itās a giant question, one thatās loaded with lots of ins and outs. And itās one that I (with a little help from someone on my team) will attempt to answer for you in this post! Iām first going to share what I consider the crucial first three steps you must go through (plus a couple more key tips) before building an amazing online business. Then weāll introduce some of the things weāll be talking about on the blog in the near future about the less sexy but still super important parts of creating a business that will stand out and stand the test of time.
How to Revive or Repurpose Dying WordPress Plugins & Themes
For a variety of possible reasons, if youāre a WordPress plugin or theme owner, you may find yourself in a situation where your product is slowly dying out (or can pretty much be declared dead already). With the number of abandoned plugins and themes, we all know that dying products are a rather common sight in the WordPress ecosystem. If this has happened to your product, or if you fear that someday it might, then read this article, in which Iāll provide you with several salvation options that can help either revive or repurpose your dying product and help it continue to bring value to you and to other people.
How to Make $150,000 a Year with Affiliate Marketing
I never thought this would happen to me. In 2 years I went from making $20k to $80k, then $150k in 2018 (see my income reports). I did this by dropping all my SEO clients and tried making money with affiliate marketing (I write tutorials on SEO and website speed). 90% of my affiliate income comes from referring people to SiteGround, a hosting company who awarded me affiliate of the month in July, 2017. So what do I do?
How to Find Your Very First Vendors to Jumpstart Your Marketplace
Launching your new marketplace is an exciting time! But first, you need to get some vendors on board. Whatās a marketplace without products? You can build the most beautiful website in the world, but if you donāt have any products, youāll probably be hearing crickets! The question is, where are the people who make the products you want to sell? Where should you be looking? In this article, we talk about some of the best places to find your first marketplace vendors, so you can start selling!
A Realistic Perspective on Freelancing
You can find plenty of positive things online about being your own boss, and we all know someone who says going freelance was the best decision they\’ve ever made. With this article, we want to give you a more realistic view of this often glorified way of living.
Plugin Developer Stories: Simple Giveaways by Igor BeniÄ
Simple Giveaways provides WordPress site owners with a way to grow their mailing list by incentivizing visitors to sign up in exchange for a chance to win a product, discount code or more. Automation gives Simple Giveaways users the ability to have winners chosen and notified without any fuss: everything is handled by the plugin without user intervention. Developer Igor BeniÄ took the time to answer my questions about Simple Giveaways. We discuss the usual topics (development hurdles, marketing and pricing) as well as what heās learned developing premium WordPress plugins.
How Web Professionals Can Leverage Affiliate Links to Generate Additional Revenue
Affiliate marketing is a strategy that many bloggers and content marketers rely on as an additional revenue source ā or even a major stream of income. Often those conversions depend on how you present information on a given product or service through a blog post, video, podcast or other medium. As a web developer or designer, you have an advantage. The reason is simple. Because you are in a direct, one-to-one working relationship with a client, your influence is much greater when it comes to suggesting products or services for a project you will be delivering.
The 10 Rules of Customer Service for Web Designers & Developers
As website professionals, we function mainly as a service-based business. And like any service based business, customer service is critical to our growth. Itās also critical to manage a client list that doesnāt drive you crazy. As some would say: happy client, happy web pro! Since we are our own boss, itās easy to avoid common customer service rules. We excuse ourselves from doing certain outreach or extending extra care because there is no one looking over our shoulder. Avoidance, however, only ends up costing us greatly later down the road. Here\’s how to do it right!
5 Ways to Scale Your Membership Site Business [List]
Youāre getting new members, retaining old ones, and building a community; your membership business is growing! Awesome. But, what adjustments should you make in order to manage the increasing load? Letās face it, running a membership site is no small task. Though rewarding, it requires a lot of dedication ā and as you scale up your business, you may identify some areas that need fine-tuning. You also might find yourself struggling to manage a bigger enterprise, with more content, more members, and more responsibility. Simplifying your membership business is a good place to start, but when it comes to growth, there are some specific things to look out for.
How to Price Your Digital Products Right [Guide]
Pricing digital products can be a challenge. If youāre not sure where to start, getting a ballpark idea from your competitors can be a helpful reference ā but thereās more to it than that! Creating your own pricing framework can help you to qualify your products and place them into tiers based on predetermined categories and criteria. There are also some different concepts and pricing models you can utilize to take some of the decision-making weight out of the process and make it a little easier to settle on a number. Letās take a look at some tips for structuring your digital product pricing for success!
Plugin Developer Stories: Fatal Error Notify by Jack Arturo
Developer Jack Arturo, from Very Good Plugins, sat down and broke the record for most thorough answers to my questions since I started this site. Jack talks about the genesis of the idea for Fatal Error Notify, the ups and downs of developing products aimed at developers and his interesting project, ErrorWire, that is meant to help WordPress users prevent plugin errors before they even begin.
15 Niches to Make Money with Online Courses [List]
If youāre thinking of selling an online course, then step #1 is to find a profitable niche. Everyone has things that theyāre good at, but itās more important to find something that you are good at and that is proven to sell if youāre planning on starting an online course business. There are literally thousands of profitable niches to choose from, but here are 15 great ideas for those looking to begin selling an online course.
How to Fix Your Abandoned Cart Problems [Guide]
If youāve been running your eCommerce store long enough, youāve probably heard this statistic: 69% of carts are abandoned by shoppers. In fact, you may be a bit tired of hearing that number, especially if youāre not sure if it even applies to your store, or what you can actually do about it.
Plugin Developer Stories: Permalink Manager Pro by Maciej Bis
Maciej Bis recently joined the Selling WordPress Products group on Facebook where he was introduced as the creator of the WordPress plugin Permalink Manager Pro. This plugin gives you a set of power tools to edit and manipulate permalinks for posts, categories and more.
7 Steps to Becoming a WordPress Expert to Start Charging More [Guide]
If you\’ve been using WordPress for a while, it\’s likely that you feel pretty confident in the day-to-day operation of your site. In this post, we\’ll discuss how to become a āWordPress Expertā and then we will walk you through some steps to help you achieve that status. It\’s important to note that when we talk about WordPress āexperts,ā we\’re using the term somewhat loosely. WordPress is a massive platform. There\’s no real way to become an expert on every aspect of the entire Content Management System (CMS).
9 Ways to Get New Clients for Your WordPress Agency [List]
There is one thing every digital agency, WordPress agency, and services company needs: clients. In the services world, clients make the world go āround because, without clients, you wouldnāt have a business. Here\’s your 9 steps guide to getting more cients to grow your agency.
Your Guide to Selling Digital Products with WordPress [Guide]
Do you want to sell digital downloads in WordPress? If so, then youāre in the right place! Choosing the perfect eCommerce platform is half the battle, and youāve already won that! With WordPress, you can easily set up a full-fledged eCommerce store for selling digital products, without having to touch any code. If youāve no idea how to get started, weāre here to help you. In this article, weāll guide you through the entire process of creating a WordPress eCommerce store for selling digital downloads, step-by-step.
How to Become a Full Time Freelancer with $0 in Savings
Recently, I was put in a position (through my own doing) of full-time freelancing with absolutely no preparation or savings to support it. While jumping into the freelancing market without a financial safety net was difficult, I managed to get through it by tapping into some powerful networks and putting myself into the right mindset. While I\’m not necessarily endorsing jumping into the freelancing deep end without a life jacket, I wanted to share my experience and create a helpful post about what to do if you find yourself in a similar situation.
Selling Digital Products? Ā Here’s How to Write Your Newsletters [Guide]
A quality newsletter can do a lot of things, from announcing new products, services, and sales, to passing along useful information to your audience and promoting customer retention. You can send out newsletters to ask your customers for feedback, or showcase customer success stories and real-world use cases. But, what are some of the best practices when it comes to writing digital product store newsletters in particular? In this article, weāve put together a brief guide to help you create stellar newsletters for your own digital product store!
Plugin Developer Stories: MaxButtons by Bob Senoff
Bob Senoff, the business man at Max Foundry, answering some of my questions about MaxButtons regarding itās origin, their target customer, successes with their marketing approach to the plugin and solid advice on how to enter the premium WordPress plugin marketplace.
How to Price Your WordPress Services
Pricing is tricky, to say the least. And no doubt youāve had a similar conversation to this one I had recently with a massively popular (and profitable) blog I wanted to write for: Client: āIām sorry to break this to you ā but youāre nowhere near the $XX rate.ā Me: āThanks very much for your feedback. Much appreciated š Cheersā Whether youāre a writer like me or a developer or designer, no freelancer wants to work for peanuts. Maybe you offered a client an estimate and didnāt hear back? Or, maybe the client got back with a reply similar to the one above? Ā Whatever the case, here\’s how to charge what you\’re worth!
Does a Freemium Business Model Work with WordPress Products?
Can the freemium business model benefit your commercial product in the WordPress ecosystem, i.e. help you sell more premium licenses? This article looks into the 3 most popular business models in the open-source ecosystem and specifically breaks down the arguments for and against the freemium business model in WordPress. Letās try to understand if freemium is the right business model for your WordPress product!
Plugin Developer Stories: Simple Feature Requests by James Kemp
WordPress developer James Kemp has recently released a plugin aimed at software developers called Simple Feature Requests. With this plugin software developers can collect and manage user feedback about their product. You might remember James as the man behind Iconic where he makes and sells a host of WooCommerce plugins. We spoke with James about Iconic last year and now heās back to discuss his newest product with us.
How to Launch a Product in a Crowded Market
In the following post, Iām going to teach you a handful of new words and phrases. They are based on the kinds of curriculum that business schools around the world are teaching. When training people who aspire to be corporate executives, establishing long-term competitive advantage is the ultimate goal. Itās within these frameworks that we found guidance, if not answers, on how to stand out in a crowded market.
How to Get Over 100,000 Subscribers in 11 Months
We all witnessed the rapid rise of Groupon and its similarly fast demise as the offers became too much for people to keep up with. A former business partner of mine also saw quick financial success with his deals website, but attention waned as fast as it appeared. As someone who constantly researches online business opportunities, deals websites donāt seem to be āhotā or interesting any more, but the following research might change your perspective as it did mine.
What to Earn More Money? Ā Never Negotiate Your Rate.
āEverything is negotiable. Whether or not the negotiation is easy is another thing.ā The problem with selling time is that the buyer knows margins are high. When I ran my consultancy, I was constantly pressured to negotiate down our rates. Our formula was pretty simple: We had a client rate, and then we had what I paid my staff. The difference is what paid me, our non-billable staff, outfitted our office, and whatever was left was profit.
How to Sell Photographs Online
A picture is worth a thousandā¦dollars? If priced correctly and marketed to the right customers, it certainly could be. Photographs can definitely be distributed as products on the web and thereās a huge market of customers looking for just the right image. Do you have an interest in turning photography into dollars? The following hopefully gives you some food for thought before getting started.
How to Use Instagram to Get More Web Design Clients [Guide]
In this post, Iām going to share some Instagram for business tips. Weāre going to go over how you can get the most from the link in your profile by creating a custom landing page made just for the āgram. Weāre also going to cover Instagram Shopping and how to set up Instagram for business.
All of these tools will allow you to build a sales pipeline for Instagram so you can influence the influencers. With so many Instagrammers switching over to blogging, there is definitely an increased demand for personal lifestyle sites, so letās turn those double taps into dollars.
12 Tips for Becoming a Freelance WordPress Writer [List]
So you want to start a freelance writing business, and youāre interested in writing about WordPress? The good news is that anyone can write. The bad news is that not every person who writes will get published. Furthermore, not every good writer can turn writing into a profitable business.
30 Ways to Make Money Blogging [List]
First, a word of warning: these arenāt āGet rich quickā schemes. If you are looking for a way to get rich quick by making money online, then youāre in the wrong place. Many of these methods require some investment of time and/or money to get started. As long as youāre willing to put in the effort, youāll reap the reward.
7 Ways to Monetize a Blog [List]
You must have seen or heard about people who make a lot of money from blogs. One of the best ways to do this are by monetizing the list you build. List building refers to adding new subscribers to your email list. You can entice readers to subscribe by offering a free gift exclusive to subscribers and, of course, by consistently producing great content that people want to come back to.
How to Win Credit Card Disputes for WordPress Themes & Plugins
In the past few months, Iāve stumbled across multiple online discussions among WordPress plugin and theme developers on how hard it is to win Stripe/Credit-Card Disputes. So much so, that many developers gave up on dealing with them entirely, as they feel it isnāt worth their time. We were in the same boat when we just started Freemius, averaging at about a 4% success rate. Over the years, we managed to develop various and unique techniques that helped us increase our Credit Card Disputes winning success rate by 740% (from 4% to 29.6%), and almost without losing any PayPal Dispute and recovering most of the Chargeback.
Plugin Developer Stories: WP Security Audit Log by Robert Abela
Developer Robert Abela took the time to discuss how he became interested in WordPress security, the biggest difficulties that have come up during WP Security Audit Logās development and some interesting talking points about why his company stopped using Easy Digital Downloads.
How to Price Memberships Right
Figuring out what to charge your members can be downright confusing! Some membership sites seem to have such high prices, yet others are so affordable, leaving you wondering: whatās the value of my own site anyway? In this post, weāve discussed some perspectives to help you get a bit clearer on what you should charge and why.
How to Pick the Right Affiliates
Running an affiliate program is a great way to boost your traffic and bring in more business. But for the program to be a success, you need to have the right affiliates. The article below is all about helping you find the affiliates that are the best match for your business and goals. It shows […]