Passive Income Generation – Methods, Efforts and Income Potential

• Tweet
• Sharebar

• Tweet

So you want to start your own business online and you are considering the many options and the income potential for each of them. Like I’ve said before in the previous post, attempting to generate passive income straight away can have negative consequences for your online business. That is if you turn your website into a pure business sales page when nobody knows you. The key here is to have content, build authority and then monetize, not the other way round.

There are many ways you can build a website and start seeing some money. We’ll see them and then we’ll go through each of them.

1. Create Niche Sites
2. Blogging
3. Affiliate Marketing

A. Niche Sites

Methods

Building niche sites can be easy. All you got to do is to get a domain, get a hosting account, figure out a niche you want to go into and then set it up. Again, I’m a great fan of using WordPress, build your website on this platform and you won’t go wrong.

The next thing to do is to add some content on a regular consistent basis and you are on your way.

Efforts

What I mentioned earlier, is the easy bit. But there are a lot of intricate details you must not forget. The next bit is the HARD part. You must not forget that there are many big niches that you might have heard already. Dog training, Weight lost, Gardening etc. I’ve lost count how many weight lost or dieting tips are there on the internet and most of it is trash..

Research your niche and don’t do just focus on weight lost as a niche itself. Find more specific niches like alternative weight lost methods or Indian weight lost method or whatever niche you can find. Once you’ve chosen it, use a keyword tool to do the research on search engine traffic, competition and potential income revenue.  A good tool to use is Market Samurai. It is the best tool to do niche analysis HANDS DOWN!

After that, you need to generate content and distribute content to article directories. Choose good article directories like Ezinearticles and publish them on a regular basis. And then apply the next few steps to promote your content like:

• Commenting and Networking
• Web 2.0 sites
• Microblogging
• Social Networking
• Video Promotion
• Partnering and JVs

(P.S I’ve actually outline briefly what you should do to promote your content in this post.)

Income Potential

Income potential varies depending on the niche you are in and the amount of effort you put into it. If you are lazy and thinking of quick ways to see some early earnings you can use Google Adsense. Set up multiple niche websites and use Google Adsense. The earnings could pay for your hosting, Personally, I don’t think this is a good way to earn, unless each of your niche websites are high traffic.

If you are thinking big and long term, then you need to do MUCH more.

You need to do the HARD part that I’ve mentioned on top and either:

• Sell an affiliate program/product
• Sell MRR or PLR or info products
• Create your own product

Of these three, probably the easiest will be to sell affiliate products or PLR/MRR products. There are also plenty of things to know about affiliate marketing which is beyond the scope of this article.

Creating your own product takes a lot of time and I don’t suggest going into this before learning the basics of product creation. I suggest reading Steven Aitchinson article on product creation here.

Income potential can go up to 5 figures or even more, depending on what you do to monetize it.

B. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing also involves the same process. You need a website, you need to promote it just like how you promote niche sites and the income earned varies depending on the effort you put in.

Almost everything that you’ve read on top is similar to what you need to do here.

C. Blogging

I’ve chosen to write about this last because I am sure you have already seen many different articles and posts to set one up, promote it and monetize it. I’ve also talked about it before in some of my previous posts.

Methods and Efforts

Have a look at my newbie blogger checklist and then check out ways to promote your blog.

Income Potential

Income potential varies significantly from zilch to 6-7 figures a year. Let’s have a look at the breakdown of how to make money blogging.

• Opt In List
• Adsense
• Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Information Products
• Joint Ventures
• Membership sites

Opt-In list

The reason why I’ve included this in the list is because it is vitally important and it should be the default monetization method you use!

No matter which other methods you use to monetize your blog it is important that building your list is included as the “must have” way to build long term income.

One of the most important parts of monetizing your blog is having your own highly responsive list of people within your niche who buy whatever you promote on a regular basis.

Once you get this right you are on your way. An effective way to build your list is to have an:

• Email marketing services like Aweber or Getresponse
• List Capture Service/Plugin or Form
• RSS Subscription

Once you have done this you can choose any of the following methods to generate income for your blog.

• Adsense
• Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Information Products
• Joint Ventures
• Membership sites

Again this varies, but don’t be disillusioned to think that you can replace your day job YET.

Final Thoughts

Passive income generation from niche sites, blogging and affiliate marketing is possible and it really depends on the work you put into it. This may be a very long list of things but this guide (quite brief actually) will definitely give you an idea what it takes to earn from 3 different kinds of websites.

Related articles

• How to Increase Affiliate Income by Hitting the Affiliate Marketing Sweet Spot
• Making use of AffiloJetpack For Your Affiliate Marketing Needs
• How To Make Money With Your Blog (With Case Studies As Proof)
• Affiliate Marketing For Beginners [Interview with Corbett Barr]

Tagged as: Affiliate Marketing, blogging tips, home business, home business tips, make money online, monetization, niche websites