Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
First, I want to rectify something I said in the last episode. Remember I spoke about a Facebook group I started, to make it easier for everyone I bought a domain that is easy to remember, which was Shabbir on facebook.com, and then I redirected that domain to my Facebook group. But three days later I received an email from Face book’s legal dept. Asking me to stop and remove that domain for copyright infringement. So I had to cancel that domain. Now here is a new one for you, type in ShabbirHossain.net and it will take you to my Facebook Group.
This episode is all about passive income ideas. But first, let me define what is really passive income. Well, passive income is a way to earn money where you are not actively working every day like you are in your gas station business. It is something that set it up once and see that work produce fruit every so often without you doing anything more. So it is more like a hands-off approach. You do work hard at first but then just let it set free and see it produce income which is in my book truly passive since you are not actively involved at the time it is producing that income.
I want to talk all about 8 ideas and theories that I have tried since 2012 and started making some money; I will talk about other businesses I am Involved in and how you can do the same and make money On and offline too.
1. Book Publishing
I got involved in book publishing back in 2012 when I was working on my own book, I started learning the fascinating world of book publishing and realized that many people like you and I are already making good money by publishing books.
If you have a creative writing side in you, use it, follow your passion, if you are always passionate about a topic or subject, and put your mind to the paper. There are many writing tools out there that can help you write that book you always thought about writing.
I am not a writer, never was one, I was terrified about writing essays in school and colleges, and so if I can write a book, I know you can too. I am sure most of you are afraid of making mistakes too. Well, that is why there are editors you can hire to fix your errors, and I did too. But it is still your book and your thoughts.
Once you write the book, you can then hire an editor, cover designer, even if you need someone to do the layout of the book for you, all from online. There are many websites where you can go and hire qualified professionals for very little money that will do all these jobs for you.
Once the book is ready, go to Amazon, Smashwords, Draft to Digital and on ACX and publish it by publishing in all three sites you will have the book available everywhere.
(Talk about where to go for book cover, where to go for editors, what programs that can use to help them write, lastly talk about Amazon, Smashwords, Draft to Digital and ACX)
2. Buy & Sell Websites
This may sound strange but just go to Flippa.com and you will see a big market place where people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy or sell websites. It has become like buying actual real estate or homes; people even buy them just to flip, like some people do house and another real estate for profit. I have done it a few times but realized it takes a lot of time and money to buy the good ones. There are websites that can earn you thousands of dollars each month in ad revenue.
But be aware not all sites are money-making ones, some may look great on paper but in reality, they are not very good, just remember if it is too good to be true it probably is. If you see a site is making hundreds of dollars but only been established for a few months, then be aware, as some people can bring in paid traffic to a site and make you believe this is really happening naturally. A site that has been around for a while is usually always a better buy even if you have to pay more for it upfront. One good indication is google page rank, for example, Google ranks CNN at 9 out of ten, so CNN’s page rank is 9, now if you build a site today, Google will show it as an NR or 0 for next many months till Google sees it as a site where people come and visit often. And as you keep publishing content, you will see it rise up in ranking but slowly. So any site with page rank of 1,2 and higher shows that the site has been there for a while
3. Buy Sell Domains
Similar to Websites people do buy and sell domain names too, and some people even rent out a name for monthly income. Some people have made millions of dollars doing just this business; they got in back in late 90’s when domain names were just coming up for sale. To give you an example, say you registered the name finance.com or food.com or health.com. How much do you think you would be able to sell them today? My guess is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some people did just that. There are many sites you can go and see and try to buy them; there are auction houses that sell expired domains too.
Food for thought, the smaller the word count is in a domain, the better off you are, as they are more brandable. For example, health .com is unique and says a lot about what it is right? But if you buy a domain like BestHealthAdvice4You.com may not be as desired as it is a long tail keyword and may not be as brandable.
4.Affiliate Income
This is the best and easiest way to make money in my opinion without investing a lot of money from your own pocket. Affiliate income is like referral commission but done online. There are many ways you can earn commission online by referring people to various products or services.
First, let’s talk about what you need to make some affiliate income. As I said affiliate income is done online, means you will need some kind of online presence like a blog or a website to be able to utilize this money making method. Now you can recommend a product or services to your readers, and if they buy those products or services, you get a commission. Sounds easy right? It is easy.
The most common way people make money with this is by building something call Niche sites, what is a niche site? Well, niche sites are websites in a very targeted and specific niche that is somewhat untapped or unsaturated. A website on body building or how to lose weight will not be considered niche sites because the topics are very popular and broad. Now if you build a site on how to build and tone triceps then yes you are getting closer to a niche, but again since bodybuilding is such a hot topic, you may still have to do some more research to see if that is niche enough or not. Maybe you can create a site on “how to build triceps for men over 50” now that maybe a niche enough topic. I am sure you get the idea. Similarly with diet, you can try a specific diet, but again as hot of a topic as they are you may have come up with a niche within that niche.
Once you know, you found a niche that people search for but has relatively low competition; then you can build a site with good information that people are looking for. Only then you can monetize the site either with Google ads or some relevant Amazon or other products that you can make affiliate commission from. A good niche site can make money many different ways, for example, say you have a site where you rate and compare home loans or consumer credit cards, if anyone clicks any of the credit card links and applies for that credit card, you can make anywhere from $10-$50 just from that one click.
But to be successful in the niche site market, it takes some good research first. You have to find a good keyword that has some search volume but also has low competition. The best way to search for keyword is by using a keyword tool like Long tail Pro. This tool does everything for you, just look at the snapshot of a result. It tells you how competitive the keyword is, what type of ad revenue you can make from that, what are the top sites that are ranking for that specific keyword. Once you have that keyword, rest are usually simple; you buy a domain name that matches the keyword and then get a hosting account and build a site. Sounds foreign? Well, it is really quite simple, buying a domain, a hosting account and installing your first site on that hosting account can be done in about 15 minutes. Let me explain these steps more in detail as we talk about #5 on the list which is Blogging, as both #4 and #5 both ideas both have the same requirements.
5. Blogging
This is another way to earn money online. If you have a blog or want to start one, by all means do so, it doesn’t cost much to get started. The difference between a blog and a niche site is simple. A blog is typically a website where you discuss something that you are passionate and knowledgeable about, whereas a niche site is a niche that has not been properly filled yet, so you are filling that void with some good quality information even though you are not very knowledgeable about that topic. For example, my gasstationbusiness101.com is a blog site, since it is an ongoing site, meaning I am adding different content to it often, and as you can see I do not run advertisements on my site either. But if it were a niche site, it would not be as large, and there would be some type of advertisements displayed on the site.
Let’s talk about the cost; you can buy a domain for around $10/year and a hosting account for around $30-$50/year, and you are done. Nowadays most good hosting companies like Blue Host where I host my sites, are one of the easiest ones to deal with and offers great prices. If you think you want to try this, you first need to find a niche that you want to build a site on, or if you want to start a blog on a passion that you have, then this may be the best time for you to do so. Simply go to www.Name.com as they are usually the cheapest to buy domains from, then go to www.Bluehost.com and buy the lowest priced shared hosting account you can buy. Once you do that, you are almost there, now go to YouTube and watch this video to learn how to set up your site in 5 minutes then start blogging, whatever your passion is, and it could be anything really.
The best thing about affiliate income is that it is a win-win situation for you and your readers, often your readers will get a better deal like some percentage of the sale and you, on the other hand, make a commission from that same sale.
The key is to gather enough readers, and once you get enough people coming to reads your blog, you can then start to monetize the blog in few ways and start seeing some cash.
Best and fastest way to monetize your blog is by Google Adsense; it is one of the easiest ways to get started.
6. Apps
Apps on both Apple and Android platforms are and have been very popular for last few years, people that got in early made a lot of money as the field was not as crowded as it is now, but there is always room for more. If you have an innovative idea for a new App, even if you are not an App developer or a programmer, you can still get an app developed. You can always hire a developer from one of the freelancer sites and explain to the person what you are trying to get done and let them do the work.
But before you do any of that, some in-depth research needs to be done, first, you need to find out if there is enough demand for the idea, second you need to find out how many apps are there, thirds if there are apps out there in the same market/niche, how will yours be different. Once you know the answers to all that time for you to hire a developer and get the ball rolling. No worry if you are not a programmer, as I said it is very easy to hire a professional and have it all done in just a couple of weeks. But for a good app development you need a clear idea and vision as to what the app should do and how it should look, if you are good with drawing, then you can draw it all up on paper as to how the app should look and then write up all the functionality it should have. Pass all that on to the developer and see them come up with the final product. Once they hand you a prototype, test it, ask them to tweak whatever you think needs tweaking. After they deliver you the final version, just simply upload it on Itunes or Android and watch it make money. It is that simple.
7. Youtube
If you are like me, you go to YouTbe often, I use youtube like a search engine, anytime I need to know how to do some specific task I go there, I am sure you do too, but you don’t realize that the videos we watch are made my people and often they are making money each time we watch their video. Yes, it is a huge business. If you are good at creating video and want to show off a talent that you have, by all means create a free Youtube account and start putting up videos, and soon you will see people are subscribing to your channel, and once you hit a certain number of views, Youtube will start sending you money.
8. Prescription card
This is an offline way to make money; it is a very old MLM method but still works like a charm. I use this myself; Let me explain what it is first. It is a business card shaped prescription savings card that you can sue when buying prescription drugs from a pharmacy and get good discount especially if you do not have health insurance. I got into it about a year ago. It was rather simple and easy to open an account, and I think I paid around $70 for all the business cards, flyers, business card holders- the whole deal. I then started to display few cards in a holder and placed them in many of our stores at the checkout counters. Then forgot all about it, about 3 months later I logged on to my account and noticed I made $72 the previous month and $37 the month before, it’s not a lot of fo money but I was delighted to see the result since I really didn’t do much other than putting a few business cards in 4 stores.
The prescription discount card saves an average of 15% on brand-name medication and 55% on generic medication. The bearer of this card will always receive the lowest price available for any particular FDA-approved medication at the chosen participating pharmacy. The card is accepted at over 80% of pharmacies in the U.S. and its territories, including both major chains and independent pharmacies and the card never expires.
Not only will you receive 7,500 cards when you sign up, but you will get two free websites. The first website, your .org site or cardholder site, enables you to direct people to a place where they can compare pharmacies and drug pricing to make sure they receive the best discount available with the card. The second website, your .info site, enables you, the Rep, to share this opportunity with others so you can start growing a successful downline.
You can check it out by following the link below.
http://AmericasDrugCard.org/ASPI
Remember it has to be a niche, as they say, “riches are in the niches.”
This week the book I want to recommend is a book that is my own if you recall two episodes ago I mentioned that I was putting the finishing touches on a retail marketing book call Sales Genie, Retail Marketing 101. Well, it has finally been published!!! You can find it on Amazon, B&N, Apple Kobo and few other online retailers.
This book is all about how to increase your retail sales by 25% in just 60 days, in previous episodes I covered a lot of what I talk about in this book. I took a broader approach and talked about what issues most retail businesses are facing now a days, I detailed out a 5 step plan if followed well one can boost their retail sales by as much as 25% in just two months. Some of the examples I gave are from my gas station business, but most of them can be applied to any other type of retail businesses too. Hopefully, you will enjoy reading this book. I did put in some hard work into it for last few months.
Once again don’t forget to join my Facebook group where we can discuss and chat about business. I will be mailing out my Free EBook all about affiliate income to every subscriber of my newsletter, so if you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter yet, please go to http://GasStationBusiness101.com/subscribe and sign up.
Cheers!
Useful Links and Resources
Domain and Website Hosting
Bluehost.com For hosting account
Hire editor, designer, logo designer or any other work online
Publish Books on
Prescription Card
http://AmericasDrugCard.org/ASPI
Affiliate Market Place
Business 911
Coming Soon! "Small Business 911" Sign up for the newsletter to know when it's here!