Earning a Passive Income from your Blog

[vangogh]

For those of you blogging you've probably thought about the idea of 'passive income' as a way to make some extra money from your blog. I came across a post on ProBlogger earlier, How to Make Money (Passively) With Your Blog (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/07/27/how-to-make-money-passively-with-your-blog/). The post is fairly basic and I'm pointing you toward it more as a way to start a conversation about passive income here.

I can't say I've done much to create a passive income stream on my blog. I did run AdSense when I started and it's still on some of my older posts. I also have some affiliate banners in the sidebar and occasionally post an affiliate link. I've made some money, but hardly anything worth writing about.

How many of you have experimented with passive income streams and how has it worked or not worked for you? Do you have any tips to share with the rest of us?

While I haven't made much to date, it is a goal of mine to create more passive streams of income. Contrary to what some might think passive in this sense doesn't mean 0 work. The passive is in the sense that your revenue isn't directly tied to the hours you work. You can stop working and still be earning an income, though realistically you'd still be doing some work.

What do you think of the idea of building passive income? Is it realistic? Just a pipe dream? Have you considered setting up a passive income or are you currently earning a living from passive revenue streams?

[orion_joel]

It is an interesting topic and the article is not to bad. I think one of the points that seems to be focused on it Affiliate programs where you get a monthly recurring commissions. This to some part is the passiveness of this.

I am really unsure on the concept of passive income from your blog. While i do know that there is going to be some work no matter what, and passive income is almost defined better as making one effort and continually reaping the reward. However as i am sure many of you have also found the volume of traffic to some degree is based on the amount of effort you put in to drawing traffic to your site. I know if i put in concerted efforts of 30-60 mins a day my traffic is often anything from 10-20% higher that day then if i spend 0-15minutes. There are of course ways that you can automate this. However the more automation, over the longer period. The more chance something is going to be off target when it comes around. Or more so the longer the term the more planning is required up front.

Maybe the best way to generate some passive income from a blog or your site, is to create something that relies on user submissions, that are automated, and after spending a month building the user base, it would last you would hope sometime as a automated system, and generate some income.

[billbenson]

The people I've run across on forums that make a lot of money have:

A lot of sites - some sending traffic to others
Multiple revenue streams
Have been at it for quite a while.


One I can think of puts out at least one site a month, maybe more. Has a staff and farms out a lot of stuff. All sites are over 100 pages. Multiple niches. He's been at it for 10 years. He works 12 hour days with an occasional day of or a vacation.

That's not passive, but I suspect he could slow down to mostly just making an occasional site and managing his existing sites. He has just recently just started writing blogs. I suspect they are more just to support his other sites. He's also very knowledgeable on SEO and marketing. Not terribly. techy.

That's obviously not passive. I think a site ignored will eventually die, although some types of sites are more prone to work well with little management. You can have some blogs or sites and go on vacation, which isn't something that a lot of businesses can do.

[vangogh]

Yeah I think the word passive might have been a poor choice for the kind of revenue we're talking about. I compare it to running a service based business. In a service based business your revenue is directly tied to the hours you work. If take a week off you make no money during that week. If you decide to stop offering your services you stop making money.

With "passive income" your money isn't tied directly to future hours worked. You work to set up the income stream, but then you can take a week off and still make the same amount of money you made the week before. Of course you can't completely ignore working on your revenue streams and the more you work on them the more money you're going to make. It's not entirely passive.

Joel the recurring affiliate subscription is a good one to illustrate all this. Most people don't change web hosts unless the host gives them a reason to. Say you manage to sign up 1000 people into your affiliate hosting program and for the sake of easy math the commission to you for each account is $1 per month.

You wouldn't have signed up all those people instantly. Maybe it was 25 a month for 40 months. More likely you did lose a few people so maybe it took a full 4 years to get those 1000 people. Now you're making $1,000 a month. Not bad for one affiliate program. If you stop signing up new people you'll still make that $1000 next month. But we're assuming some loss will be natural so maybe next month you only make $995 and 6 months from now you're at $975. You're still making decent money for doing nothing.

More likely you keep signing up new people though maybe you only spend enough time working at it to maintain the $1000 each month.

Essentially you build a system to generate revenue and then leave it on auto pilot. You still need to make sure the machine is running. Maybe you need to oil the parts once a month. You might still want to work on improving the efficiency of the machine or add new machines to the mix to improve the overall efficiency of the system. But it's still running mostly on auto pilot and your money is directly proportional to the amount of time you spend working on the system every month.

[KristineS]

I've thought about this, but haven't really done anything about it yet. With blogs, there will always be some work, because you have to write posts, so I guess I'm not sure how passive that would be. I suppose a news aggregator might be closer to a passive venue, in that you'd have to find the feeds and set them up, but it would update itself. I'm not sure how I feel about those news aggregator sites though. In fact I'm not entirely sure how I feel about passive income in general. Isn't that where a lot of the spammy tactics come in?

[vangogh]

Isn't that where a lot of the spammy tactics come in?

Spam comes in because of the people who use spammy tactics. It's not specifically a passive income thing. Compare it to someone owning a gun. Whether it's used for good or bad is about who's hand it's in and not specifically the gun itself. I probably opened up a new can of worms with that, but hopefully you see the connection.

Kristine a simple passive income site could be you picking a niche topic, doing some research, and creating 10 - 20 pages of content on it. You do some simple seo things like adding the site to a few directories and pointing a few other links at it. You slap AdSense on it and you have a passive income stream. It probably won't be making much money, but from there you could put more into directing traffic to the site and replacing AdSense with something better.

Realistically you could build the site in a week. Some could do it in a day or even a few hours. You spend one month doing the early link building and then an hour a month after doing the same. Maybe another hour each month to tweak things like replacing AdSense with affiliate links or tweaking the design slightly. Hardly a lot of work, but it the site would exist and have potential to make you money.

Say it only makes $50/month. You could spend the other 11 months of the year building similar sites with a similar profit. Then you'd be making $550 the next year with a few hours work each month.

[KristineS]

O.k., I see what you're saying. I know that there are people who do this and have been successful with it.

[billbenson]

Spammy sites are usually ones that use black hat techniques. In a lot of cases, the owners build them for a quick 3 months of profit before Google bans them. Its a silly tactic IMO as they could probably make just as much money building up ligit sites.

Also, you just can't walk away from this as its a market in its infancy. The technology, SEO, etc is always changing. If you walked away from a profitable network of sites and the industry several years ago and came back now, you would probably be busily trying to find recip links. You would have a lot to learn.

You just can't walk away and have the business sustain itself.

[Dan Furman]

Agree with the consensus. From what I have seen, many people work very hard at trying to obtain a passive, non-working income.

To me, it's a myth. Not technically, mind you - I too am looking to reduce the direct correlation of "I hit keys / I earn". But it's always going to take hitting keys to some degree. There is no "walk away and earn for doing nothing" unless you have a pension or something.

I almost guarantee the biggest internet earners work many, many hours. They may "sell the dream" of working a few hours a week, but I guarantee they don't live it.

[vangogh]

Oh yeah, It's a misconception that you don't have to do work to generate a passive income stream. To me it's about not having your revenue be directly tied to each hour you work. Those of us in service based businesses only make money when we put in the time. You spend your time working on a project, get paid, and then you need to get another project to work on if you want to get paid again.

If you can change things so you can work on something once and still get paid for it over and over again then you've moved toward the passive income side of things. Dan for you it's writing a book or ebook that you sell instead of writing things for clients. For me it's selling themes and templates instead of all the work being custom. Naturally we still have to work at marketing our products and maintaining their sites. There's always work, but you can still earn money one month without doing any work during that same time.

[KristineS]

You could also say, I suppose, that sites that grow via reader contributions are passive income sites in a way. I'm thinking of sites like All Recipes or something, where there is work to set up the original site, but then viewers or readers come in and add their own content, so the site is constantly regenerated by someone other than the person who originally built it.

Not sure if that is exactly the same thing, but it seems like it is at least in the ballpark.

[billbenson]

I know someone with a joke site. He gets a lot of traffic. He has to read the jokes and qualify them as he has everything from offensive to political etc.The site grows virally, but there is still a ton of work.

[Harold Mansfield]

As someone who does not offer service and lives on what I can make online, there is nothing passive about it at all. Especially when you are just starting out and learning.
It is rare that I spend less than 12 hours a day working. There is always something that needs to be done, or maintained and there is always competition that is working hard for your spot, and your traffic....and of course you always need more traffic.

I suppose after a few years of steady income, outsourcing, and learning how to automate things, you could kick back after a few hours of work a day...but I don't see it.

[vangogh]

eborg I was thinking about you when I started this thread. You more than any of us probably know what's involved in "passive income"

I know it's a lot of work. I suppose the idea is that tomorrow you could take the day off completely and still make money. I can't do that. Unless I'm working on a project for a client tomorrow I'm not earning anything. Over the course of the month we may both put in similar hours though.

The word 'passive' wasn't really the best choice when it comes to what this is all about. It's really all about revenue not being directly tied to hours worked. Yes you still need to work hard to earn your money, but with the passive income stream you have the potential to still be making money even when you aren't spending time working.

[billbenson]

And that is why, VG, I really like eborgs business model. I would also say that if he keeps doing what hes doing for 5 years, he probably will be making a lot of money. Me selling products on line which can take 12 hours of my day or you solo doing sites for others as a one man show have a far more limited upside IMO.

[vangogh]

I agree with you. I know I can continue to make a good living for as long as I want to work. At some point I won't want to work as much. I'm little by little working toward changing things so I can have more passive income streams in combination with the revenue I make from services. I have no plans on not working, but at some point in the future I will want to go into semi-retirement and I'd like to have ways to continue to make money when it's time to scale back the services.

[Harold Mansfield]

eborg I was thinking about you when I started this thread. You more than any of us probably know what's involved in "passive income"

I know it's a lot of work. I suppose the idea is that tomorrow you could take the day off completely and still make money. I can't do that. Unless I'm working on a project for a client tomorrow I'm not earning anything. Over the course of the month we may both put in similar hours though.

The word 'passive' wasn't really the best choice when it comes to what this is all about. It's really all about revenue not being directly tied to hours worked. Yes you still need to work hard to earn your money, but with the passive income stream you have the potential to still be making money even when you aren't spending time working.

Well that is the plan, of course many have that same plan...very few of us will actually realize it.I can potentially take a day off without ever turning on my computer, but it's very uncomfortable because I don't have anything that doesn't need more work.


And that is why, VG, I really like eborgs business model. I would also say that if he keeps doing what hes doing for 5 years, he probably will be making a lot of money. Me selling products on line which can take 12 hours of my day or you solo doing sites for others as a one man show have a far more limited upside IMO.

I wish I could say the thing that most attracted me to internet marketing was the actual "internet marketing" part, but it wasn't. Honestly, after years of customer service work as a bartender and limo driver, it was the beauty of making money without having to talk to, or serve people anymore.

I get such a thrill from that alone, that it makes me love this business. If I wanted to, I could litterally go a whole week, or even a month and never answer the phone, or open my mouth to speak with anyone...never hear a complaint..never hear any whining....and still get a paycheck deposited. It's the most rewarding thing I have ever seen.

I know it sounds a little selfish, and maybe anti social (and I'm not)..I am just tired of dealing with customers everyday. (after 14 years in Vegas, you would be too)
Not to say that I can't, or don't do any side work...but it's different when it's not the daily grind


I agree with you. I know I can continue to make a good living for as long as I want to work. At some point I won't want to work as much. I'm little by little working toward changing things so I can have more passive income streams in combination with the revenue I make from services. I have no plans on not working, but at some point in the future I will want to go into semi-retirement and I'd like to have ways to continue to make money when it's time to scale back the services.

I wanted to go into semi-retirement 10 years ago (I'm just lazy....I love relaxing) and I never saw any way to do it at my previous profession. I didn't really have a choice, I had to learn something else or I could see myself as miserable as my friends who are still in the same line of work.
I figured I had better put some boots in the dirt and get the hike started or I would never get to the end of the trail.

[vangogh]

I can understand how you feel about not wanting to serve customers. I've worked quite a few retail jobs and have dealt with my share of bad customers. For me though, it was more about bad bosses. I decided I'd be better off being my own boss.

It could simply be luck or maybe I'm doing something right to attract good clients. In all honestly I have some great clients. Many have become friends and I genuinely like them. Every so often I do get a client I prefer not to work with, but they tend to be the exception and not the rule.

Part of my wanting to set up more passive income is so I can better afford to say no to the few bad clients, while still being able to work with the good one. Also I realize that for any number of reasons my current clients could stop calling. Having income from a more diverse set of avenues is a good thing.

[billbenson]

Honestly, after years of customer service work as a bartender and limo driver, it was the beauty of making money without having to talk to, or serve people anymore.
Your not alone eborg. I am a career salesman. It was fun when I was flying around the world and wining and dining customers. I've grown to hate it.

As a salesman, however, I really enjoy the marketing side of web design. That and having an engineering background I enjoy the techy stuff as well.

I also think that being behind on everything is a part of the business. I don't think the need for 12 hour days will ever go away, but you can take time off and it's better than digging ditches.

[vangogh]

Is it the need for the 12 hour day or the desire for one. Even on days off I still end up doing some work. I think for a lot of us we really enjoy what we do and so it doesn't always feel like work.

I couldn't really imagine being completely retired. I think I'd get bored quickly and would have to find some project to keep me busy.

[billbenson]

I think the affiliate guys that make a lot of money have a lot of sites. Just managing what you have, even if you can farm a lot of the work out, takes time. Lets say you have spent a number of years building 100 sites that make $500 per month each on average. With that much time into it thats your kid so to speak. And that scenario isn't unreasonable.

You can, however, put site down and other alarms on your sites and take a month off doing very little work.

[vangogh]

I'm not sure that's true. I think you're thinking about a certain kind of affiliate site. For example I'd bet Darren Rowse of ProBlogger fame makes a good deal of his money through affiliate sales. As far as I know he runs 3 sites. All very popular of course, and perhaps he has more than 3. It's not hundreds though. He built high quality sites and over time has been able to pull a lot of traffic to each.

Granted most of us are never going to build the following Darren Rowse has, but it is possible.

Also if you run 10 sites each making $500 a month that's a total of $5,000 a month or $60,000 a year. That's not bad for running 10 affiliate sites.

[billbenson]

And I was using $500 per month as a very doable figure. I suspect a well done site with some aging could do much better than that. I've heard of people making $250K per month on an adwords site. I'm sure it happens, but I wouldn't put that kind of number in my business plan :)

The 100 site approach is just one business model. The people I know that are making a good sum of money, are always building new sites. I think it actually is a case of throwing a lot of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. If you end up with one site that is really going well, go for it.

On edit; one other reason to keep building new sites is testing. Testing affiliates, designs, strategies, etc.

[vangogh]

I think it actually is a case of throwing a lot of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.

True. You may have to build 50 sites to get 10 that make decent money. The thing is if done right I think you could have a lot of sites that take very little time if any to maintain. And much of what you do to maintain one site might be be duplicated across sites. For example say most of your sites are on WordPress and you need to update the version for all of them. There are tools or you could write your own scripts to log into all your sites and update them all. Then you could run another script to check and make sure they're all up and running. It might only be a few minutes of work on your part assuming things went well.

[billbenson]

And if the other 40 at least pay for hosting and registration, maybe they turn into something down the road.

[orion_joel]

I think a part of the reason Affiliate marketers would continue to make new sites would to some extent lie in the position that not everything is always in demand.

Something that will kind of put it in perspective for Darren Rowse of Problogger. is that Problogger has over 5,000 posts. Which includes quite a number of really detailed posts. Maybe they have not all been written by Darren himself, as he has guest posts as well. But it is still quite an achievement, the time and dedication put into creating that is worth i am sure every cent that he gets from it. But this is where the different between him having just 3 (or whatever he has) and an affiliate marketer that may have 100+ sites. The affiliate marketer probably is lucky if he has 50 pages on a site, and probably not anywhere near as detailed in some cases as most of Darren's content.

The work is probably the same but it is how you focus your time and attention, as to if you end up with 3 high profile content rich sites, or 100+ sites that make there break even or more month.

[Harold Mansfield]

I think a part of the reason Affiliate marketers would continue to make new sites would to some extent lie in the position that not everything is always in demand.

Something that will kind of put it in perspective for Darren Rowse of Problogger. is that Problogger has over 5,000 posts. Which includes quite a number of really detailed posts. Maybe they have not all been written by Darren himself, as he has guest posts as well. But it is still quite an achievement, the time and dedication put into creating that is worth i am sure every cent that he gets from it. But this is where the different between him having just 3 (or whatever he has) and an affiliate marketer that may have 100+ sites. The affiliate marketer probably is lucky if he has 50 pages on a site, and probably not anywhere near as detailed in some cases as most of Darren's content.

The work is probably the same but it is how you focus your time and attention, as to if you end up with 3 high profile content rich sites, or 100+ sites that make there break even or more month.
You have to have multiple sites. It is very difficult, unless you own a great domain like "Cars" or "Flowers" .com, or have a large ad and marketing budget to utilize TV, to make it off of one site.
Not only that, you need to be diversified. A hot site this quarter can take a nose dive the next, or competition can catch up to you and sales take a dip.
There are always going to be a few sites that are steady money makers, but the prospect of relying on one site is too scary for me. Anything could happen to that site, or the program that it is attached to could change the rules, or commission rates.

It is totally possible to get a hit site. Sometimes a site will just take off. You do everything the same as the others and you can have one that you just have no idea why it's more popular than the others and why it converts well...those you try and recreate as much as possible, but sometimes you'll get a boost from an unexpected link, mention in an article, or a news story that just fell in your lap and you just happen to be there to reap the rewards. The best thing that can happen to you is a news cycle will use terminology that matches a domain you already have...rare...but totally possible if you chose domains wisely.

We have all seen sites that are really nothing special design wise, but are wildly popular.

I have a bunch of sites that I know have potential, but haven't given 100% yet, and some that will never be more than $20 a month, and some that were just bad ideas. At least with the bad ideas, when I let them go, or don't renew the domains, I always have more sites on the assembly line so I'm not lost, starting from total scratch when something doesn't work out.

[billbenson]

The affiliate marketer probably is lucky if he has 50 pages on a site, and probably not anywhere near as detailed in some cases as most of Darren's content.



The affiliate site builders I know shoot for at least 100 pages of good content. They aren't tossing up small sites. And they aren't blogs either, although there is a trend to add blogs to the portfolio.

[Harold Mansfield]

The affiliate site builders I know shoot for at least 100 pages of good content. They aren't tossing up small sites. And they aren't blogs either, although there is a trend to add blogs to the portfolio.

It can go both ways. You can make good money from a well designed landing page (one page), with the right product and decent SEO.
The goal is to get them to click through to the sales page, or the action page.
If it takes 300 pages of content to do that , then that's what you have to do.
If it only takes one page, and a video, then that's the ticket.

There is not really a rule. Some loan and mortgage sites are nothing more than affiliates, yet are filled with information, regulations, calculators, videos, Government Feeds, scrolling interest rates...the whole kit and caboodle.
And some people have a good traffic on a niche blog and can do well with a simple text link.

Travel agents are a good example of affiliates that spend a lot of money on presentation, and yet have had to re adjust to catch up to online affiliates with snazzy domains and good designs that spend only a portion on presentation.

For every affiliate site with hundreds of pages of content, I can show you an affiliate site with very few pages of content that make the same amount or more money...barring companies that have huge advertising and media budgets.
Just depends on the product, the commission scale and the marketing.

Until recently, people were making thousands without a website. Just a snazzy domain, a redirect with a marketing campaign.
Most affiliates have outlawed that now.
There is more than one way to skin a cat online.

[billbenson]

Interesting eborg, and thanks.

I think this is one you have to do to figure it out. Not a surprise!

[Harold Mansfield]

Interesting eborg, and thanks.

I think this is one you have to do to figure it out. Not a surprise!

Unfortunately I am at the stage where it seems you never stop figuring it out. There are many things that I have wasted time on because I didn't know any better, and also many opportunities missed because of lack of knowledge.
No matter how you do it, the constant determiner of success onlline is your traffic building skills. That is the key determiner to just about everything.
The best designed most expensive websites (and we have all seen many of them) will fail miserably without enough traffic.

It is the hardest, yet most important aspect of affiliate marketing, surpassing everything. Even a crappy website with a bad design may fail, but if you can direct good amounts of traffic, you can learn to design and do it better the next time...but it doesn't work the other way around.

[vangogh]

Unfortunately I am at the stage where it seems you never stop figuring it out.

Is there any other stage? Every answer seems to also bring with it a couple new questions.

I don't think there's a one size fits all solution to this. eborg you mention that successful sites need traffic. How about if the affiliate product in question is very high end and a single sale can net you a month's income. In that case you only need one visitor to buy, which doesn't require a ton of traffic. If you can convert 1% you'd need 100 visitors in a month or roughly 3 visitors a day. Granted most affiliate products aren't going to get you that much on a single sale, but the point is traffic is still only one part of the equation. It depends on where the revenue comes from. A passive income doesn't have to mean affiliate products after all. You could create a digital product with a high price tag if you want.

@Joel - Darren Rowse's first real money making site was his digital photography blog. ProBlogger came about after he had made good money with the photography site. So yes he does have more than one site too. I think it's a good example of what we're talking about here. He created one successful site and instead of congratulating himself he saw another opportunity and created another successful site.

I think in the beginning he actually had several, maybe even a dozen blogs. Most didn't make money, but some did.

[Harold Mansfield]

Is there any other stage? Every answer seems to also bring with it a couple new questions.

I don't think there's a one size fits all solution to this. eborg you mention that successful sites need traffic. How about if the affiliate product in question is very high end and a single sale can net you a month's income. In that case you only need one visitor to buy, which doesn't require a ton of traffic. If you can convert 1% you'd need 100 visitors in a month or roughly 3 visitors a day. Granted most affiliate products aren't going to get you that much on a single sale, but the point is traffic is still only one part of the equation. It depends on where the revenue comes from. A passive income doesn't have to mean affiliate products after all. You could create a digital product with a high price tag if you want.


Well high dollar products are a good example of sites that would require a lot more information than a simple landing page.
It's almost relative...the sale price of the product in relation to how many pages of content you will need to sell it.
You can sell diet pills from a simple landing page and make $20 to $100 a pop, but getting someone to invest in something like Forex, or Wealth Management would definitely require a well thought out and professionally designed site with a lot of accurate information.

I mentioned mortgage sites (because I am building one), those are also instances that would require more than just a simple page, even though CPA on them is around $30, down from $75 to $100 in the recent boom where you could sell leads to individual brokers who were begging to buy them.

Lending Tree is a really good example of that. They are a lead generation site. As far as I know, Lending Tree does not actually make loans, they direct the leads to lenders.

A lot of affiliate marketers make good money from product reviews, which is basically article marketing with a text link to the product page. Still effective if you have some credibility and can write well.

[vangogh]

Completely agree about the high end products. Just wanted to mention it as an example so people can see there's a lot of variety in what we're talking about here.

Again to me the idea behind building 'passive' income streams is less about not having to do any work, but rather about not having your income tied directly to your hours worked. There's no question you still have to do a lot of work to build passive income. The differences are that you can take time off and be making money and that things scale better on the passive side of the equation.

[Lyrafire]

As usual, this is helpful stuff. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who is always in learning mode. I'm working on two new blogs, and I have to move an entire website and do a total revamp. Not having had a site during the last few years, I sometimes feel like my head is going to pop--cyberspace is filled with ever-morphing techniques. I don't think I'm hopelessly behind, but I sure am working hard at catching up. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I don't have to try every single thing I could possibly try right this minute. Then today, I learned a bit about vlogging. Oy! Something else to set my sites on.

Passive income is very appealing; my husband and I own a rental, and it's a pleasure when that money arrives every month. But dealing with renters is work too. As you say Van Gogh, passive income is not work-free income.

[vangogh]

You have to be in learning mode all the time, especially where technology exists. Fortunately I like learning new things so it works for me personally and in business, but at times you can feel like you're getting left behind very quickly.

If you have any problems or questions when it comes to moving your site or redesigning and redeveloping it, ask questions. We have enough designers and developers here to help.

Yep about passive income. I think it's a great thing to do. It's also more work than most people realize. People seem to think passive means sitting back and doing nothing, which of course is why they never manage to set up passive income streams.

[billbenson]

Personally, I think a cart site would be easier to make a semi passive income site from than a blog, which is usually an affiliate approach. Particularly if the cart site will support an adwords campaign. Then again, the cart side of things is what I know. While both types of sites can benefit from frequent updates and new content, it strikes me as its more important for a blog/affiliate approach.

[vangogh]

I don't know that it's the type of site in terms of blog or cart. A blog can certainly sell a product and a cart could mean having to store all the products you sell. Either can be a way to set up a passive income stream and either could be meant for non-passive income streams. Don't underestimate the need to update a cart too. Both types of site need to be marketed and pull traffic.

[billbenson]

I don't know that it's the type of site in terms of blog or cart. A blog can certainly sell a product and a cart could mean having to store all the products you sell. Either can be a way to set up a passive income stream and either could be meant for non-passive income streams. Don't underestimate the need to update a cart too. Both types of site need to be marketed and pull traffic.

I know that. I was just putting out a different perspective.

[prettyimpress]

I'm considering this way to make money. But I'm afraid it will take a lot of time before I can get something from it. And I'm not sure how much I can get from the blog. Is it worth the time and hard work you put?

[greenoak]

i want this too!!! of course..making money over and over without carrying something to someones truck sounds wonderful....
.my only idea towards a passive income it is to do an ebook and have it for sale on the blog and facebook....im making on no progress on this...and am looking for other ideas too..
..ads on the side dont seem very likely for me...my blog only gets a few hundred visitors a week....and thats going down becasue im neglecting it...

[Harold Mansfield]

I'm considering this way to make money. But I'm afraid it will take a lot of time before I can get something from it. And I'm not sure how much I can get from the blog. Is it worth the time and hard work you put?

Eventually. But it is a lot of time and hard work before you see anything significant.
It's still a job that you have to stay on top of it.

[billbenson]

Plan on 1 year to make money online if you do it right. There are strategies to shorten the time frame, but don't count on them. Thats why so many people drop out. They think that it will be instant money. It isn't, but then what business is?

[Lyrafire]

That's good practical advice, Bill. It's realistic.

[Lyrafire]

While we're on the subject, on which activities do you think it's best to focus your energies? One website and one blog? Multiple blogs? Learning SEO? Learning copy writing? Staying abreast of the ever-changing web scene? Testing products? I could go on, but you see the issue, I'm sure.

[billbenson]

I don't blog. It's really not a good fit with my site, not to mention the time thing. As I want to grow other product sites in the future, I should be blogging.

I strongly believe that online marketing is by far the most impotent. Of course all kinds of stuff is included in that, but the most important subset is SEO as it affects everything from site design to Adwords, to your blog, to copy writing. In my case, I think the next best thing is adding quality content to my site. I want it to be an authority site in the industry.

[Harold Mansfield]

While we're on the subject, on which activities do you think it's best to focus your energies? One website and one blog? Multiple blogs? Learning SEO? Learning copy writing? Staying abreast of the ever-changing web scene? Testing products? I could go on, but you see the issue, I'm sure.

You need to know SEO, Copywriting, you have to stay abreast of what is changing...you need to know all of it. One is not more important than the other. As for what direction to take..what type of website of blog to do? No one can answer that for you. That's like asking what kind of store should you open.

I suggest your first time out you do something that you know and not choose just based on what is a popular keyword. I also suggest that you don't fall into the adsense trap of thinking that you will make a living on one blog with Google Adsense...you won't.

You have to either do something original, or something that is better than the others. A lot better.

It's not easy. It's actually harder than anything you have ever done and it takes a while to build up a decent income. You have to diversify your income sources, and keep them updated constantly.

Starting a blog and just writing about any subject with some ads thrown around will not make you any money worth writing home about. The blog is not the business model, it's just the medium that you use to communicate it. You have to come up with the business model on your own.

Either that of invent, program, or create something groundbreaking.

[greenoak]

i think the main thing is figuring out what your audience is responding to...and go deeper into that....
.
like my facebook...a perfect fit for my target audience...women homeowners /who can drive to my store in an hour or 2........my customer pool has let me know they are way more interested in my fb than my blog....its easier, faster, and they can see it with no effort , after they become fans....i know because they talk about it to us in the store and comment on the site.....
my goal is always to get better and have better content....and cool pictures...and have the fb blogs and website intertwine...which they are doing now...
but i need to learn the ropes of facebook better....

[vangogh]

I'm afraid it will take a lot of time before I can get something from it. And I'm not sure how much I can get from the blog. Is it worth the time and hard work you put?

Only you can decide if the work and time you put in is worth it. You never know in advance what you're going to get from business. Part of success is believing in yourself and taking a chance.


which activities do you think it's best to focus your energies? One website and one blog? Multiple blogs? Learning SEO? Learning copy writing? Staying abreast of the ever-changing web scene? Testing products? I could go on, but you see the issue, I'm sure.

All of them are good. Don't think of it as doing one and not being able to do the others. Pick one and get started and then when you're ready move on to the next. Personally I think a blog is one of the best marketing channels you'll ever have and I think most any site (probably every site) can come up with something to blog about that will eventually lead to something good.

There's no reason why you can't be learning SEO at the same time you're blogging. Learning copywriting will help with blogging and seo as well as helping to mae more sales. Lot's of things overlap. You have no choice but to keep up with your industry.

We all know it's important to reinvest in your business. A part of that is investing in yourself. In fact if your business is you then you could argue that investing in yourself and your business are practically the same thing. I devote a certain amount of time every week to learning. I subscribe to a few hundred industry blogs and read through the headlines each day. Those articles that interest me I read in full or bookmark for later reading. Some of those blogs are seo and marketing related. I blog a couple times a week and usually have some blogging activity to do every day.

I didn't start out doing all of the above. Each was something I started to do that became part of my routine. Just pick something to start that you think will help you in business and explore that path. It'll lead you to others and tell you when you've explored that path as much as you need or want to.

I can't guarantee you'll learn all the things you want to learn, but I can guarantee if you don't starting learning one of them you'll never learn any of them.

[RealProfitStrategies]

Funny, over the past week, I've been thinking about ways to make "passive income". To me, passive income means that you have x-amonut of money coming in every week or month, automatically, whether you work or not. Things like selling website hosting, autoresponder accounts, membership sites (either your own, or some affiliate programs) and subscription products or services can generate passive income, because you get paid for as long as someone remains a member. So the main work is in acquiring new members and continually giving them a reason to stick around. And you don't even have to do the latter if you're promoting a recurring commission affiliate program - the merchant provides the product.

Adsense can generate "passive" income if you have steady traffic to your sites and you're getting clicks, but you still have to maintain that traffic. With something like an autoresponder service or a subscription product, you sell once and get paid over and over again for as long as the membership lasts.

[vangogh]

I think of passive income as ways to make money that aren't directly tied to your time in a 1:1 relationship. I agree if done right it means money is coming in every week or month, but I think it's more about removing the 1:1 direct time thing. Let's say you spent an hour setting something up and it brought in $20 here and there. One month you make $20 and the next 2 months nothing. Then another month you make $40 and then 5 months of nothing. I'd still consider that passive income as long as you weren't having to spend time in order to pull that money in each and every time.

[billbenson]

Thats the beauty of an affiliate type of site. You can work on the site when you want to and take a week vacation when you like and still make money on vacation. Still, in most cases, the more you work on the site(s), the more money you make. And if you don't work on the sites at all the will generate less money over time or die.

[vangogh]

Absolutely. I think many mistake a passive income for an income you don't have to work at. You still need to put time and effort into your passive income streams and more time and effort likely means more money. However the time to revenue is no longer 1:1. You can make money without having to put in time for any single sale.

[KristineS]

Passive income probably isn't going to be a major money maker for most people, or I would guess it would not be, but it can generate a steady trickle of income. The trick is to create good content that keeps people coming back to the site. You have to have something there they want to read or see or consume or you won't get people clicking the link or buying the product that generates the income.

[billbenson]

There are people out there that make a LOT of money from this business model. They really know what they are doing and have been working it for years and have a lot of sites though. Think about it. A site that makes $1k per month after 1 yr online is very possible. I know someone who has 100 sites he's been building up since the 90's. If 30 of them make $1k per month, thats $30k a month. All I know is that from his lifestyle he is making a ton. A lot of work over a lot of years though.

[KristineS]

Bill, you're right. I'm sure there are people making a lot of money doing this, but they've spent a lot of time getting to that point. I guess I was thinking more of the person who has a blog or a site and just wants to generate a little extra income. They'll probably make a bit, but not tons.

[Harold Mansfield]

In my experience, a passive income isn't really all that passive. The hours are just different.

[billbenson]

I think that was VG and my opinion as well

[vangogh]

Yep. People mistake passive for not having to do anything, which it isn't. A passive income simply isn't tied directly to how many hours you work. When you charge for services you need to put in time to earn every dollar. If you sell an ebook or have advertising on a blog, etc. then you can make money even on days you don't work. You still have to work, but it's not tied 1:1 to how much time you put in.

[Business Attorney]

No "passive" investment really means no work. Even such passive investments such as stocks and bonds need to be monitored. If you buy a stock and don't at least look at the information on the company occasionally, there is a good chance you'll end up seeing even a former star performer turn into a dog.

With websites particularly, the changes in technology, competition, tastes, search engine algorithms, etc... all mean that even a passive website must be monitored and tweaked.

[vangogh]

True and there are people who spend 80 hours a week working on their "passive income." I think it all has to do with some people wanting something for nothing. Some will always look for the easy way out and think for little to no investment on their part they can become wealthy. You always need put something in to get something back out. The advantage of a passive income is really one of scale.