When you first build a website you maybe a bit confused about how to take payments or make money with WordPress. If you are a beginner, it may shock you to learn that WordPress does not pay you directly.
Does WordPress pay you? No, WordPress can make you money through things like running an online ecommerce shop, a small business or just a contact form to sell yourself. WordPress itself is just a platform for your website which allows you to make money through varies means but by itself does not pay you. You must pick one or more of the methods below to make money.
So if you are still curious about making money or taking payment, we will discuss down below how to do all of those things. We will talk about the positives and negatives of each venture on your WordPress website.
Why WordPress doesn’t pay you directly?
People get a little confused when they first dive into working with websites. They rarely understand that WordPress is just a tool similar to that of a car. Your car doesn’t pay you but you can make money by driving with your car.
WordPress is just the vehicle you used to make money, it’s not something that pays you directly unless you do something that generates income on your website. There are many examples of ways of making money on a website besides some traditional methods.
Below we will talk about all the different ways you can get paid if you want to use your WordPress website to make money.
Affiliate Ads
If you want to have a more passive method of making money with your website, then you can use affiliate ads. These are ads that pay you for your traffic by allowing people to click a link that has a special information which allows you to get paid. This is one of the most common ways of making money online and it’s also very easy.
The biggest drawback to this method is that you have to be honest with people when you are serving affiliate products. Basically, you can use this list to inform your traffic of what you think will work well.
- Only use products that you personal use (this is one I follow)
- Only use products that are vetted by someone who you trust (with high dollar products)
- Never agree to agreements that put you in a place of writing a good review for a free product
The biggest drawback to affiliate ads is they require traffic. If your website has 10 to 20 visitors a day, you will not make enough money to live unless every person clicks your link and buys whatever you’re selling. In most cases, you will have a very low conversation rate, higher conversation rates will require more work.
Still this income is often called passive because once you create your content it sells itself if you did a good job explaining it.
Get Paid to Write Reviews
So we mentioned above that you have to follow certain ethic guidelines. Writing reviews is another place that you can get into trouble if you don’t mention to people that the review is paid. Still these type of reviews exist and people with websites can make money with their website by selling reviews.
You have to have a website that often has traffic similar to above and you will most likely need to hire a writer or be a writer but you could make a sponsored post common among website owners, even big websites like Forbes. Companies will often demand several things from you to make money.
Membership Websites
One of the most popular ways of making money is to sell information in the form of a membership website. This Both often use this sleasy websites but is often used established companies. Membership websites require a large amount of work to get setup but once it’s setup, it works with minimal problems.
To use a membership website with WordPress, you will need a plugin which is often more expensive than you might think. These membership plugins can range from a few hundred dollars to thousands depending on the options. Once these are up and running you will need to provide people with a reason to keep paying you money.
Ecommerce Websites
If you have something to sell or you just want to copy many other similar websites out there, you can sell digital products or even physical products to people. The great thing is that many of these plugins are free or at least can start free with some paid options.
Selling your stuff on your website has never been easier with things like Woocommerce which can be installed for free. It requires a decent amount of work since you will input all the items in your store but if you start small, then you can grow it later. The best part is that you own all the items and have full control over what you want to show.
You can also dropship using this method so you don’t have physical inventory but you sell things from a drop shipper which is shipped directly to a customer as soon as something sells. Many people love these type of websites because you don’t have to hold the inventory which is nice.
Create a directory
Websites which become directories are websites which sell digital space to be listed as one business. These type of websites will often work with more traditional marketing so you can make people see the value. But the main selling point of these websites is being listed, examples of this is Angies List.
Be smart with directory websites and charge either monthly fees or yearly fees for the person to be included with the directory. This is very similar to how most directories work, they will then allow for additional services to be included on the website which can generate a revenue for the business.
Sell Ebooks
Similar to using Woocommerce, you could write an Ebook and sell it directly from your website. The downside to this is that you need traffic so you generate buzz. The upside to this is that you can make money by cutting out a middleman such as Amazon.com or any other vendor.
The biggest challenge with writing an Ebook is creating a quality Ebook that someone can enjoy without selling them information they can Google. This might involve including things like worksheets or tear-outs that someone can use. Trying to sell a high quality Ebook is often more challenging that creating an online course which we talk about below.
Sell Online Courses
If you are new to the WordPress game, you might think you can do something like this but in fact you can sell online courses directly from your website with no need to use another service. This one is more involved than most as it will typically require you to use many plugs to create a system that allows you to sell a course online.
There are also several plugins that will handle all of this to allow you to sell an online course but they will require a decent amount of work to get up and running. Do not expect that this is something you can tackle in a weekend because you will need planning to beat this dragon.
Freelance/Sell your services
I am not sure when it became a bad thing to work for yourself but working for yourself is one of the better ways to make money on a website. Working for yourself allows you the freedom to pick who you work for.
Best part about working for yourself is that if your demand is high, you can charge whatever you want. It requires you to give people something in return for their money but that is something that can be developed. Plenty of people have figured out how to make money online and it’s a very simple process. Offer a service or skill that people want a need, do a good job and then profit.
The best part of this whole process is the fact that you control the website which means you can upgrade pricing lists or details whenever you want to. You don’t need permission to sell yourself, you just do it and then see what the market can bare.
Related Questions
Which one of these is the best? The best one is the one that fits what you want done. If you are looking to make quick money, then selling a service or freelancing is one of the better ways because it requires little overhead. Products require you to build a product which can be time consuming.
What about taxes? When you sell things online, you always need to follow the tax advice of a professional. I would suggest sitting down with an accountant to talk about the amount of money you should save for tax time.
Conclusion
This is not an exhaustive list of things that you can do to make money online but it is a starting point. Websites have millions of ways to get paid and hopefully this has helped you see that WordPress does not pay you directly. But you can make money with your WordPress site indirectly.
If you enjoyed this article and you would like to read more about making money online or website design then check out our website for more content.
