There are a hundred ways to make money with WordPress, but none of them will give you instant millionaire status. Instead, you need to put your blood, sweat, and tears into it to make some bucks. That is normal for every job, but the difference here is that your office will be your home, and you will be the boss.
So buckle up, and prepare yourself to learn the best ways to make money with WordPress.
Display Ads
The first option would be displaying ads on your website, and you can do that with Google Adsense. The only thing you need to do with this tool is to add the script from Google to your blog, and voila.
How do you get paid? Well, through something called CPC – cost per click. Every time someone clicks on an ad on your page, you get a fee. This is a great way of making money if you are just starting out and it is a fan-favorite.
You can even go a step further and start showing ads for your site on websites such as NYTimes, TechCrunch, GQ, and so on. How you may ask? Well, easily, with found.ee.!
In a nutshell, found.ee. is a great platform using which you can run ads on premium websites for the fraction of the usual price. And as the icing on the cake, they even enable you to track ad performance, add branded links, use geo-targeted landing pages, and data management.
Become an Affiliate Marketer
By now, you have probably stumbled across the words “affiliate marketing“ plenty of times, but you don’t know exactly what it is. Well, to be honest, it is pretty simple.
The easiest way to describe it would be – selling other people’s products on your site, and with every purchase, you get a commission. You may wonder “How does the product owner know that someone came from your site and purchased the product?”. Well, when you join an affiliate marketing program, you get a special link that has trackers built into it which can then be used to find out from which site a customer came.
The best part of this is that you don’t own the product, so you don’t have to worry about making the product, maintaining it, or giving support.
The only downside is that you don’t build a relationship with the customers, so you can’t sell them another product again. But you can easily fix that by building an email list.
Start an Online Store
Now it’s time to talk a bit about one of the most used plugins in WordPress – WooCommerce. It has everything you need to start your online store, and this little helper is the best and easiest way to do it. With this tool, you can sell anything you want and make money – simple as that.
The only three things that you need is a domain, web hosting, and products. The domain is something like your personal ID, it’s the URL of your site, like, “MYsite.com”. To explain web hosting, we will use non-techy wording. It’s like a remote computer that will store your site.
As previously said, on your online store, you can sell anything you want, but just make sure that is legal in your state/country. Here are some examples of what you can sell: psychical products, digital products, bookings, subscriptions, services, etc.
Offer Paid Memberships and Content
If you already have a website, with some big numbers, and some loyal customers, it’s time to take the next step. The time has come for you to provide premium options for your visitors, monetize your content and make some money!
Nevertheless, you need to make sure that the content you are providing for your premium users is valuable and interesting. People who pay want quality content and exclusive information, or they will leave, so you will lose not only a premium member but a member in general.
Some options that will cater to your most loyal customers/members are:
- Private chats with an expert, or a webinar
- Interesting tutorials
- Prices for premium members only
Once again, make sure that the content you are providing for your premium users is extraordinary and worth the money.
Include Sponsored Posts
You are probably already familiar with this, but we need to include it because it is a game-changer, and you have already seen these types of posts on big influencer sites.
Sponsored posts are practically getting paid to write and post about a product. The product companies usually look for someone to write about their product and goods, with a plan to reach a new target audience.
There are a lot of different types of sponsored posts including:
- posts that are written by a company and posted on your blog
- posts that are written by a blogger
- reviews
- giveaways
How to get someone to pay you for creating sponsored posts? Well, you can either contact a brand or, they will contact you for a collaboration. Just remember that you need to have some good numbers on your platforms. You will get more opportunities if you have a lot of social media followers, visitors on your blog, and a target audience fit for a particular product.
Develop Themes
A skilled developer can make a fortune by creating WordPress themes. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be THAT skilled to make money, you just need to be original and have the right tools. What you need to know is how to code in WordPress, and have some experience in design.
Find the holes in the market, so you can dive in, and wreck the field. With some practice on your own, you can do an amazing job!
Build Plugins
If you are not new to the WordPress world, you have probably stumbled once or twice upon the problem of finding a plugin you want. You looked everywhere, but could not find it, so you probably gave up and found an alternative solution. Many WordPress experts and developers take this route to capitalize and leverage their knowledge.
Yes, the plugin market is huge, with over 50,000 tools, but there is always room for more. Just imagine, how many people looked for the same solution for their blog as you did, but couldn’t find it, and they left emptyhanded.
Knowing your way around PHP is the first step, the next one is to simply have an idea, and you are good to go. You can sell your plugin on your website, or you can list it on a marketplace.
Conclusion
These are some of the most common ways to make money with WordPress, and with just a little bit of your effort, you will make some big bucks!
The number one rule is to be original. Do not create and waste your time on something that already exists. Rather take your time to brainstorm some ideas and see what is missing on the market.
