Recently, ThemeFusion hit the $25 million mark in sales on Envato’s Themeforest marketplace. This is a massive milestone for any company and one that needs to be celebrated. ThemeFusion is the team behind Avada, which has amassed over 450,000 sales and 21,000 5-star reviews on Themeforest, remaining the best-selling WordPress theme for 6 straight years – an incredible feat. Here\’s an interview with them.
6 Steps to Building an Online Magazine to Start Earning Money [Guide]
Online magazine websites are the go-to source for the latest news on a specific topic. Whether it\’s food, entertainment, sport, business or even WordPress news, having a single source where you can browse articles and videos from multiple sources is a brilliant time-saver. If you can monetize that, what\’s stopping you?
How to Make Money with the GoDaddy Reseller Program
Roel Zylstra didn’t join the ranks of small business owners fresh out of school. Like many entrepreneurs before him, he hung out his own shingle when he saw an opportunity and when circumstances forced his hand. Then Roel enrolled in GoDaddy’s early Reseller Program as one of the first few hundred to join.
How to Build a WordPress Affiliate Website
Are you looking to build a profitable affiliate website? Or, do you already have an affiliate website that you want to optimize to boost your revenue? Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to make money online. With the right strategy, you can optimize your website so that it attracts the right traffic, in turn bringing in more affiliate revenue to your table. In this article, we’ll show you how to build a profitable affiliate website using WordPress.
Sell More Products & Grow Your Brand with Cross-Promotion
With a continually changing eCommerce landscape, digital business owners must regularly adapt to keep the sales flowing – and cross-promotion remains an easy, effective, and time-tested strategy that is too often overlooked!
Grow Your Income Faster by Getting More Efficient with Building & Managing Client Sites
Becoming more efficient at your work is a huge plus, especially if your job involves developing websites. You can pick up extra work if needed, and enjoy a feeling of satisfaction having completed your tasks quickly and accurately.
Plugin Developer Stories: YouLive by Szabi Kisded
Szabi Kisded is the developer of YouLive which is a plugin to help video content creators integrate their broadcasts into their WordPress sites. Szabi talks about how they got their start with WordPress, the decision to sell the plugin through CodeCanyon and general advice on developing and promoting WordPress plugins.
20 Ways to Get More WordPress Web Design Clients [List]
I think we can all agree that one of the most stressful things about having your own business is bringing in new clients. Have you ever wondered how others are doing it and seem to be doing so well at it? We did too! So, we polled 640 WordPress consultants to get their top tips on how to find WordPress web design clients. You\’re going to love these tips!
Interview with Rich Tabor Founder of ThemeBeans Theme Business & CoBlocks Plugin (Acquired by GoDaddy) [Interview]
Rich Tabor is taking CoBlocks and his other work to GoDaddy, where he’ll continue to development experiences for using WordPress with Gutenberg. Following the acquisition, Rich Tabor is transitioning to a new role now as Senior Product Manager of WordPress Experience with GoDaddy. In the past three years, Rich founded a digital agency, launched a popular PhotoShop resource site, and started ThemeBeans, a successful WordPress theme shop.
10 Tips to Get Clients to Pay On Time [List]
It’s every business owner’s fantasy to have invoices paid on a timely basis: immediately upon receipt, without clients questioning the amount or delaying getting the funds together for even one day. If you’re wondering how to get clients to pay on time, we’ve got answers on how to make it happen.
Want to Learn to Code? Start Here.
Congratulations! You’ve decided you want to learn to code. Whether it’s because you’re interested in tech, or you want a high-paying career — you’re in the right place. How do you learn to code? It’s a big question. And to be clear: There’s no one right answer. We’re here to help. We’ll walk you through how to get started learning to code for the web, how to set goals, how to pick a language, and how to stay motivated to keep learning.
How to Create a Recurring Revenue WordPress Business (Real Life Example) [Interview]
WP Elevation alumnus Suraj Sodha tells the story of how he found great value (and profitability) in recurring revenue business models. But he didn’t stop at selling WordPress maintenance plans to clients. Suraj created WPMaintain, a WordPress maintenance company solely dedicated to providing top-notch after-care for website owners and other web designers.
How to Setup an Affiliate Program for Your WordPress Plugin Business
Marketing is an important part of selling any product, and it can oftentimes be tricky to know how to do it right. One important option to consider for marketing a WordPress plugin is setting up an affiliate program. A properly run affiliate program has the possibility to benefit everyone involved, by getting your affiliates some […]
7 Web Certifications Increase Credibility & GrowYour Earnings [List]
Not every web design certification is created equal. Many are built for those new to design—students, new graduates, and people starting out with their first clients. Some are more technical, helping more experienced designers and developers understand specialized topics like front-end development frameworks and digital marketing tools. Others… well, let’s say some others just aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. So how can you separate the wheat from the chaff?
How to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing [Guide]
Affiliate marketing is about making money. Gobs of money. Money for doing nothing. At least that’s what a quick Google search would have you believe, but as usual, the truth is a little more complex than that. Yes, you can make money through affiliate marketing. Good money. And, yes, you can even make money while you sleep. Here\’s how.
The Ultimate List of Digital Products You Can Sell Online & Start Making Money
It’s the age of the digital product. If you’ve got a bit of passion and some skills or knowledge in a certain area, there’s probably a way to monetize it! Stuck for ideas? Here\’s the ultimate list of digital products you can sell online.
How to Leverage the Lifetime Value of Members to Grow Your Membership Business
One of the best things about running a membership site is that your success isn’t necessarily all about the number of new sales you make, or even member churn. The truth is, your growth and success can be measured by the long-term value of your members – but what does that entail? In this post, we discuss the significance of long-term member value and how you can tap into it to maximize your membership results.
Plugin Developer Stories: Edivently by Martin Shiderov
Paid online training is a hot area for generating income these days. Edivently is a new plugin that turns any WordPress installation into a simple learning management system for building and selling online courses. Martin Shiderov, the creator of Edivently, was nice enough to answer my questions about starting his plugin (including picking the unique name), the challenges of building such a complete learning management system and his thoughts on using Envato to handle his sales.
Plugin Developer Stories: ACF Theme Code by Aaron Rutley
In my mind, Advanced Custom Fields is one of the most versatile and useful plugins for developers of WordPress. It’s a must install for practically every WordPress powered client job I’ve ever done. Aaron Rutley, and his business partner Ben Pearson, obviously feel the same way. They have built their own freemium plugin, called ACF Theme Code, that automatically generates code snippets for you based on your Advanced Custom Fields settings.
The Ultimate Guide to Starting a Travel Blog [Guide]
Do you want to start a travel blog but don’t know where to begin? Travel blogs are a popular medium to share your travels with not just family and friends but also with the rest of the world. In this guide, we will walk you through how to properly start a travel blog and even make money from it without any special technical skills.
The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Web Design Contract [Guide]
A web design contract protects you, your time, your bottom line and your sanity. As with any contract, a web design contract defines the business and legal relationship between you and your client, as well as the personal relationship concerning business practices, communication and interactions. Legally, it’s a mutually binding agreement, where each party makes commitments around deliverables and compensation for the work to create them. If either party fails to meet their commitments, the contract becomes the basis for possible legal action. Here’s how to do it right.
How to Create Web Design Portfolio that Wins Clients & Close Deals
A professional portfolio is key for seeking out new clients. What to include, how to present your work, and how often to update your portfolio are all important considerations that could set you apart from your competition, or leave a less-than-lasting impression on potential leads.
Fix Your Margins by Fixing Your Processes [Guide]
When your business is new, it’s easy to accumulate waste and not realise it. You lay down processes the best way you know how and then focus on charging full steam ahead – finding new clients, building a steady stream of revenue and making a name for yourself as a trusted WordPress expert. The problem is, when you’re so focused on what’s going on inside your business, you lose sight of the waste that surrounds you. Wasted money. Wasted effort. Wasted resources. The second you’re ready to scale your WordPress business, it’ll become painfully clear something has gone askew when your profit margins won’t budge.
How to Use Free Memberships to Grow Your Membership Business
It’s no secret that people are attracted to free stuff, and bringing in more traffic means more leads – and more opportunities to convert sales! But, when it comes to membership sites, having a free option provides benefits beyond the obvious.
The Importance of Profitability in Your WordPress Business
When making the decision to launch a new business, you understand that you’re taking a big risk in doing so. Mistakes will inevitably be made along the way, but you hope your enterprise will be profitable before long. The reason why so many business owners fail to achieve this goal, however, is because they haven’t made profitability a priority, according to Mike Michalowicz.
Why WordPress Freelancers & Agencies Should Consider Specializing & Niching
Many WordPress freelancers and agency owners are specializing or finding a niche in their businesses, They discuss how they need to adapt and change to the WordPress climate. This is the first roundtable of Season 8 where Matt Medeiros, Jason Resnick, Sara Dunn, and Nathan Allotey discuss the changes in the WordPress community.
How to Get Rich [Guide]
Naval is a prolific tech investor and founder of AngelList. We’re going to be talking about his thoughts on “How to get rich (without getting lucky).” We’re going to go through most of his thoughts in detail, give Naval a chance to expand on them and generally riff on the topic. He’ll probably throw in some ideas that he hasn’t even published before.
Free WordPress Website Audit Template
Follow the steps in this guide to provide an audit for your WordPress website clients. Copy the template to your favourite tool for presenting the information. Special thanks to Kristina Romero for originally putting this together. This template was share on the Silence is Golden of WP Elevation.
Plugin Developer Stories: Tripetto with Maarten Behr
Maarten Behr and his colleagues have built a pretty incredible platform for building smart forms and surveys that they call Tripetto. Originally released as an SDK for multiple development environments, Tripetto is now available as a standalone plugin for WordPress that lets users build logic heavy forms, surveys and a whole lot more with an easy to use visual editor.
Site Design Can Make or Break Your Membership Business – Here’s How to Do It Right! [Guide]
There are many elements that contribute to member retention – from membership pricing, to the rate that you replenish your site with quality, fresh content. But when it comes to everyday use, your site design can truly make or break the member experience. Here\’s how to do it right.
Plugin Developer Stories: Kanban for WordPress by Corey Maass
Kanban for WordPress is a communication and collaboration plugin to help individuals and teams stay organized as they work. The kanban method is very popular with software developers but it’s also suitable for content creators, marketers and any other type of person looking to improve their workflow and productivity. Corey Maass, the man behind Kanban for WordPress, was kind enough to answer some of my questions I had about the plugin. We discuss his background in SaaS, the demo system he uses for the plugin and his switch from an extension model to a simple single Pro plugin to generate revenue.
Simple Giveaways: Turning a WordPress Plugin into a $500/mo Side Project
Simple Giveaways is my first \”serious\” endeavor. It\’s a pretty simple product that collects email addresses and then uses an algorithm to select a winner for the giveaway, all while building up a solid subscriber list. It is used by many different industries.
Plugin Developer Stories: WP SVG by Daryll Doyle
I’m sure a lot of WordPress site owners and maintainers are unaware of the inherit security risks involved with the SVG file format. Daryll Doyle knows and he’s created a freemium plugin built on a custom library that sanitizes SVG files for WordPress. Daryll answered some of my questions about WP SVG, it’s free version and the sanitization library he wrote that powers the whole thing.
How to Fix the Top 7 Problems When Selling Online [List]
Creating a successful digital product store is no small feat! We’ve written about common mistakes to avoid when launching your store, but what about the issues you may encounter while running it? As a digital product store owner, you want to be as forward-thinking as possible, anticipating problems before they arise, and being proactive to mitigate risk and complications. But sometimes, things just happen, life gets in the way, or competitors come out of the woodwork. While you can’t predict the future, you can make yourself aware of what to look out for to be as prepared as possible!
Plugin Developer Stories: GamiPress by Ruben Garcia Canto
Gamification is a popular method to increase user engagement, improve learning and build better organization inside of software products. It’s become very common with websites centered around education, personal fitness and other individual tracking applications. GamiPress brings the utility of gamification to any WordPress website. Website owners can setup a handful of points, achievements and ranks for their site that users can earn through whatever means the site operator sees fit. Ruben Garcia Canto, from Tsunoa, has taken the time to answer my questions about how they started building WordPress plugins, the early stages of GamiPress’ development and their marketing and pricing techniques for the product.
What Kinds of Jobs Are Available in Tech?
1.3 million new developer jobs will be created in the next 10 years. No matter your background or previous experience, there’s never been a better time to start your journey toward one of these high-paying careers. But we get the question all the time: What kind of jobs are available? It’s a good question! For beginners, it’s not always easy to decide what job is going to be right for you. We put together this explainer to help you decide.
How to Grow Your Business with Memberships
If you’re a digital business owner, you might be wondering what you can do to expand your brand and revenue. Enter memberships. Incorporating memberships into your existing business can transform the entire experience for you and your customers – from a more streamlined approach to things like payments and delivering content, to vertical scalability that enables you to grow your business to levels you might not have imagined. Not only that; the membership model is rapidly becoming the go-to business model in a fast-paced society that wants increasing efficiency, simplified payments, and regularly updated content. In this post we discuss some of the ways you can beef up your business with memberships so you and your customers can reap the rewards!
How to Leverage Product Bundles to Sell More [Guide]
Bundles are one of the simplest ways to get more of your products into the inboxes of your customers, all whilst giving your customers the extra value they want. They usually contain multiple products that appeal to certain audiences, cover a specific area of interest or specialty, or offer an enticing variety of content. But, what else makes them so effective? Here’s how to do bundles right.
Stop Making These 3 Top Freelancing Mistakes
In the past year, my company has vetted more than 2,500 freelance writers. And before building out a team, I was a six figure-plus freelancer for sites like Kissmetrics, WordStream, AdEspresso and more. Point is: I know how to make money freelancing. I lived the three mistakes below, intimately understanding the problems and issues they cause when you’re trying to make money freelancing. And now I continue to see them played out in front of me by hard-working — yet misguided — freelancers. The silver lining? You don’t have to make these mistakes.
Plugin Developer Stories: MalCare by Akshat Choudhary
One of the leading causes of concern with most WordPress users is security. Any WordPress freelancer can tell you stories about hacked sites, vulnerable plugins and more that have caused problems for their clients. Akshat Choudhary saw the same problems as well so he decided to build a product to help address these issues. He was willing to answer my questions about MalCare, his WordPress security solution, including the hardest parts of its development, how he decided on his pricing structure and more.
How Niching Your Business Can Make You a More Successful Freelancer
“Choosing a niche,” or coming up with strong business positioning, is one of the most difficult exercises for many of the freelancers I’ve worked with over the years. I think they point to a big disconnect between what niching actually is and what niching is thought to be.
Boost Your Sales by Selling on WooCommerce & Amazon Together
A common question asked by online sellers ask is: “Should I be selling on Amazon or through my own online store?”. The answer? Both. Whether you’re just starting out or you already have your own successful online store, here’s five reasons why you should start using Amazon to connect with more customers today.
Plugin Developer Stories: Starfish Reviews by Tevya Washburn
Tevya Washburn started his professional career as a history grad turned web designer (a path I can personally relate to somewhat as a failed history major turned computer science diploma owner). He eventually found himself running an online reputation management plugin called Starfish Reviews that has proven to be quite successful. That story and more feature’s in Tevya’s interview below.
How WordPress Professionals Can Achieve Financial Security [Guide]
According to a recent AND CO report, “Freedom is the new wealth.” What they’re referring to is the actual freedom that comes with being self-employed and away from the constraints of corporate life. Many of the surveyed freelancers reported serious issues with profitability, leaving me to wonder: Is professional freedom more valuable than financial freedom? I’m kidding. Of course, I’m not wondering that. I know for a fact that if you’re swimming in debt, struggling to stay in the black with your business and fighting for every single penny you earn, there is absolutely no freedom there. Today, I’m going to ask you to imagine a world where you had the security of knowing you were financially covered before you even begin work.
Plugin Developer Stories: Toolbar Extras by David Decker
Toolbar Extras is a plugin built with the user in mind by giving easy to reach access to site building resources. This plugin gives you an extended toolbar in the WordPress admin to let you have quick route to features of a wide variety of third-party plugins, like page builder Elementor, and even a handful of themes. Developer David Decker was kind enough to answer my questions about his history with WordPress, how he began building Toolbar Extras, what it’s like to build a plugin that supports so many third-party products and his thoughts on Elementor and page builders in general.
WordPress Developers Statistics: How Much WordPress Developers Make & Much More
As a web developer, there’s always that curiosity about what your peers are up to. Where are they from? How much do they make? Do they work remotely? Over the years, we’ve received questions from our blog readers wanting to know these answers and more so we decided to pull together a little industry survey to find out. We received 420 responses and got some real insight into the careers of WordPress developers. We found out about experience levels, how freelancers are getting clients and much more. Let’s dive in.
How to Sell SaaS Products (Web Based Services) [Guide]
As computing moves increasingly away from traditional practices and more toward cloud-based systems, there continue to be ample opportunities for making money selling web-based services. Are you looking to sell your own web-based service? Hopefully this post gives you some ideas and insights that can help you get started.
The Six Best Places to Buy or Sell Projects & Side Hustles
There are a ton of resources out there detailing how to create a side project, but very few showing you where to buy or sell a side project. I’ve been doing some of my own research this year, here’s what I have found.
High-Ticket Sales Funnels Can Win You More Leads, But Are They Right for Your Business?
Ever feel like you’re spending too much time searching for leads, convincing them to work with you, and then trudging through projects that fail to generate a worthwhile profit? It’s a common enough problem, for sure. But it’s not one without a solution: high ticket sales funnels. They can work, but high-ticket sales funnels are not for the faint of heart.
3 Tips for Becoming a WordPress Freelancer
So you do web development projects in your spare time to expand your skills and make some extra money. Good for you! At some point you may decide that being a full-time freelancer is a viable option. Where do you start? You’ve come to the right place.