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Passive income : app development

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

In this article we look at app development as a method of generating passive income. App development is often touted as one of the big ways of making money and of course some people do get lucky and strike gold but thats not the norm I’m afraid, also sometimes the costs are hidden away as it can cost more than you think. There is also a barrier to people who want to create an app who believe that they need to be a genius programmer with a university degree. This is not true either. I created apps so it can’t be.

uBuildApp build your app for as low as $279

When I say apps I also mean games for mobile devices as well – its the same idea, mainly

App development options

You can learn how to use the development environment for developing and Android or iOS app and all of the programming knowledge that you would need to create an app from scratch. There are several programming languages available, you can even create an application use web based technologies and package it as an Android App

You can use an online app builder where they generally have a selection of templates or screens that you can piece together to create your own app. This is a far quicker way of creating an app but there are extra costs. Some companies charge per app, a monthly or annual fee or a fee based on how many users.

Another option is you can go to a site like codecanyon and pay for a template and customize it either yourself or by hiring someone to do this. A lot of these templates are easy to modify – for example a common idea is to put your content on a wordpress blog and the app simply displays the pages.

Monetization

There are a few ways to monetize an app

Paid – If your app or game is very good then users may pay a fee like any software prior to downloading. I would be careful as Android and iOS users are used to free apps and you would have to offer something that is not available in an existing free app

Freemium – These are the apps that are free to install but have lots of in-app purchases which range from removing ads, unlocking features or in game tokens. If you have a game then these can be a money spinner, if you have a popular app with ads then an in-app purchase to remove the ads maybe a money spinner as a lot of users will pay a small fee rather than look at these ads.

Free (ads) – Free app, the most popular type for users but there are ads which can range from Admob banner ads to video ads to interstitial ads for other games which the user must wait a period of time before closing. These ads are popular but damn annoying for the user. There are many ad networks and options.



Promotion

There are many ways you can promote an app, here are some examples.

A basic website detailing your app, a youtube video showing the app usage, tweets via twitter, instagram posts of you using the app, pinterest pins of the app screens,a facebook page.

If you wanted to could also create an ad campaign on one of those sites

In short there are many ways of promoting your app – just remember and point to the app page from your web site or social media content

Tips

Research the popular apps on the app store – what is popular. If there are no apps out there or they don’t get many downloads then maybe its not a popular topic.

Do not overload your app with ads – nothing makes a user deinstall and add a negative review than a 15 second in-app interstitial ad that appears every few screens or minutes.

Try and come up with an idea that can have spin offs – a quiz app formula that can have sub-niches, a wordpress app that you could use for multiple niche blogs, a game that can have a sequel if successful – you get the idea.

Always test your app if you develop it yourself – nothing is more off putting than an app that crashes on a phone or tablet or a feature that doesn’t work
Support Android and iOS – If you can, both have different development requirements (there are exceptions to this using certain build environments) and also costs. I would focus on Android as its cheaper and get money coming in.

Amazon app store – Don’t forget that the Kindle tablets do not use Google Play but rather the Amazon app store – this is free to join. Not as many users but you can get your app out there and making money. They also support web apps which are easier to create.

Research native app development – if you can master this then you can create an app which would work on multiple devices. Game development engines seem t have cracked this as many have options to export to Android, iOS, Windows universal app, HTML5 and so on.

Using a CMS as a back-end is a good idea, you would publish content on WordPress or perhaps even a static html based site and the apps only function is either to show the static site in a web browser or pull the WordPress posts into the app. This way you can easily add content, fix typos without the release of a new version of the app. you are modifying the content only.



Myths

Not every app makes a massive amount of money, it depends on user numbers.

You still have to look at customer feedback and work on releasing bug fixes and new features to keep your app competitive.

Apps are not free and never will be – there is a cost to registering an account on the 2 main app stores. You need to pay these before you even publish an app.

An app needs a team of developers – not true, where the bigger games have teams of people developing them the more basic games and apps are still developed by single people or at most a small team.

You need to be a developer – no you could use an online app builder or hire a freelancer

An app does not need marketing – now once listed on the store a few people will find the app but remember the App store tends to list things by amount of installs or a certain number of ratings which are usually ranked by the highest. So you will need a user base who install and then rate the app, this then has a knock on effect of more downloads. You need to push the app listing on as many sources as possible.

 

PASSIVE INCOME APP DEVELOPMENT

PASSIVE INCOME APP DEVELOPMENT

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Passive income – putting money into High-Yield Savings Accounts

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

Off all the passive income methods on this website this will easily be the most boring, the one with the least risk and therefore the lowest returns.

Yes, we are talking about a High-Yield Savings Account, despite the fancy name its basically a bank account that pays a slightly higher rate of interest than the standard dismal rates on your day to day current account which can be 0.01% to 1% (if you get anything at all). So obviously if you do have some excess cash keeping it an extremely low interest account where you earn very little makes no sense at all – the only winner is the bank.

In this article I will be highlighting UK banks but the same rules generally apply if you are in the US as well

These bank accounts tend to have a few drawbacks and here are some of them that I have noticed

You need to pay a ‘maintenance fee’ which can be monthly.
You need to invest a minimum amount of money at the very start which can be quite a high minimum
You need to invest XXX amount of money every month.
You need to give notice of when you want withdraw your money – there is no instant access here
A lot of these accounts are online only – so internet access required and no physical presence if you have issues (although that is getting rarer anyway)
A lot of the high interest terms are for only one year – after that time frame you drop down to the base rate they offer or move all your money and start again elsewhere

Anyway on with some of the offerings in the UK – some of these are staggeringly bad

UK Listings

Virgin Money – 1.5% interest rate with a £1 deposit , you can withdraw twice a year only and its online.

Sainsbury’s Bank – 1.39% interest rate with a £1000 deposit , you can withdraw three times a year only and its online only.

TSB Classic Plus – 3% AER on the first £1,500 and you have to deposit £500 per month

Nationwide FlexDirect – 5% AER interest on the first £2,500 of your cash, fixed for a year and you have to pay in £1,000+ each month

Metro Bank – 2% interest rate with a £500 deposit , you can open an account online or in a branch but this is for 1 year only

Post Office – 1.7% interest rate with a £500 deposit , you can open an account online. The Post Office in the UK is a big brand, so at least that’s something

Tips

Make sure your High-Yield Savings Account is protected, in the UK this is FSCS PROTECTION and in the US it is either the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the National Credi Union Administration

Find out the minimum balance requirements. If you don’t meet the minimum balance, you will be charged for this.

Read the small print – minimum deposit, monthly deposit, fees, amount of withdrawals allowed – these are all gotchas when you select an account.

Pick established brands if possible – bank Of America, Chase, Nationwide, TSB are more risk-free compared to some internet only operation that no-one has ever heard off – although not always completely risk-free

Summary

I find it hard to recommend this anymore to anyone unless you want a genuinely no-risk investment (and that is debatable if you look at the last financial crisis). There are far higher return of investment opportunities out there that offer far higher returns such as P2P lending and REITs. If you look at some of the safest P2P lending options even they will pay 4% plus.

PUTTING MONEY INTO HIGH-YIELD SAVINGS ACCOUNTS

PUTTING MONEY INTO HIGH-YIELD SAVINGS ACCOUNTS

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Passive Income : coupon sites

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

This is another that I have seen ebooks touted as a great passive income idea – lets put coupon sites to bed quickly.

coupon sites

The basic concept is that many merchants supply ‘coupons’ which can attract customers in with deals and bargains on products. The product may have a 20% coupon which gives the impression that the customer is getting a bargain and a great deal.

So if you think about it the ability to create a site with coupons listed which is basically the form of an affiliate website as you are sending people to another website to but a product or even spend a site wide coupon on multiple products

Issues with coupon sites

There are huge players in the coupon site space, lets look at some names.

ebates- massive site which has been on the go for years now
groupon- massive, global site
coupons – they own the domain name, lets not mention the amount of coupons they have
hotukdeals – big UK site where people actually submit the deals when they find them
RetailMeNot – claim to have thousand of coupons and they do.

That’s just a small selection and they are huge companies with teams of people finding and listing the coupons, try and compete with that. i very much doubt anyway could

A coupon site takes time to create, setup and populate with codes you have to find the coupon codes, list them and a key thing here – keep an eye on the end date. A lot of coupons only run for a limited time and you have to remove old, out of date ones. This takes time and effort and kind of kills the passive side of things off.

Traffic – since a coupon site in the eyes of Google is just a glorified affiliate site its very thin on content hence these companies spend a large amount on advertising and word of mouth via social media to drive the traffic to the site. This is another nail in the coffin for the passiveness of this idea.

Summary

I would not even waste my time with this type of site, the only way I could see coupon codes working is part of another offering. Lets say you flip sites for a living but do not offer hosting, maybe mention a coupon code which mentions a host with a discount.

Maybe on an niche site – depending on the niche a page with coupon codes for products if you can find any.

I’d personally just promote via social media like twitter or pinterest and just promote codes.

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Passive income – Get Paid to Watch Videos and TV

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

Do you spend hours watching youtube videos and getting bombarded with ads that you earn no revenue from. STOP NOW, you can earn money watching videos

There are actually a lot of companies out there that will pay you just to watch videos and television either on your PC or on a mobile device. Most of the time you will have to register on an app or sign up with a website where you get access to videos and television programs which you can watch and be compensated for your time in watching them.

Get Paid to Watch Videos and TV

There is not much more than that to this opportunity so lets look at some companies and apps

Apps and websites

swagbucks – You earn swagbucks by watching videos on a wide range of topics. You can also earn bucks by taking online surveys and searching the web. You can redeem your earning through PayPal or exchange them for gift cards. This is truly one of the best legitimate money making sources.

viggle – Viggle is an app which is available for ANdroid an iOS devices, after you download the app there is a list of videos and television programs available which you can watch which earn you 1 point per minute that you watch them. You can either cash in these points or they can be used to purchase various products online. Viggle has a variety of interactive games that allow you to fully engage with your favorite TV shows. Show your loyalty to your favorite TV series through check-in streaks and quests. Enter sweepstakes and contests too, all while earning Perk Points.

InboxDollars – Another company which is similar to Swagbucks in that there are a lot more ways than just videos that you can earn money from.

Inbox Pounds UK – This is the UK version of InboxDollars

https://perk.tv – You earn points by watching trending videos and watching movie trailers. There is ana pp available for ANdroid and iOS devices

paid2youtube – You earn money by watching the YouTube videos that are featured on their site.

creationsrewards – Earn Rewards Watching Videos & Exploring Sites. If it’s a video, you’ll watch & interact with the video.

There are many more apps available on the app stores – just search for paid videos or rewards

Tips and tricks

Switch off that ad blocker if you have one in your browser as a lot of teh websites will detect these and you will not see any videos

Sign up with as many sites and app as you can to maximise your earnings

Many sites use offerwalls which show the ads – a lot of these are the same offerwall so once you have completed on one site you may not be able to watch videos on another

Do not try and cheat – a lot of sites track IP addresses to make sure people aren’t watching the same videos with multiple accounts

Saying that – do use multiple devices if you are allowed to do so. Some apps allow you to sign in with more than one devices. Check the terms and conditions.

Use a secondary email for registering with any online websites – for your own sanity

If the site or app has a referral link – use it to refer others and increase your earnings.
You will need a paypal account for a lot of the sites and apps/

Summary

It is passive as you just sit and watch videos and ads – if its on an android or iOS device then you can still do work on your PC or Mac just do not expect to get rich with this and do not expect a ton of videos this isn’t like watching youtube there may not be that money. Saying that the bigger sites have other revenue earning methods like surveys or installing apps or signing up for offers.

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Articles

Passive Income : online surveys

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

In this article we look at taking online surveys as a method of earning passive income. This in my opinion is a slightly dubious way of earning passive income but I have seen it mentioned in many articles and eBooks that I thought I would look at here.

We try and be brutally honest on this site – we are not going to fob off and claim that every passive income opportunity is the greatest thing on earth that will make you rich – online surveys fall into this category

survey

Overview

Making money with survey site is extremely easy. The process begins with you signing up with the company, you fill in your individual details that enables surveys to be tailored for you, some surveys have age restrictions or are only applicable for parents or perhaps are aimed at women only – you should make certain that the information you fill in is accurate. You then login to the site and see what surveys are available , you complete the survey and you will get paid for filling it in. Some surveys only pay a small amount of money and others may pay in gift cards. The surveys are usually questionnaires about new products, services, and the very latest trends.

You should always check the surveys dashboard and look at email address from time to time as many companies will send survey requests via email only and I would recommend that you sign up with as many companies as possible. The rate of surveys can vary wildly and this is definitely not a consistent source of income, also the rate of pay can vary wildly per survey and company.

You should also do a bit of research, make sure the company is a known player in the market and not scam artist who will run away with your earnings. Luckily we have several companies listed below which are all reliable.

Survey Companies

There are lots of differing survey companies out there that you can join. Here is a selection to choose from

Click here to join SwagBucks.com
https://uk.toluna.com/
https://www.lifepointspanel.com/
https://www.globaltestmarket.com/
Pinecone research UK
Ampsurvey
SurveyJunkie
Zen Surveys
MyPoints
Get Paid to Read Emails, take surveys, Search the Web, $5 Signup Bonus.
Inbox Pounds UK

There are many more than this, a quick search on the net should produce some examples.

Some pay in cash via PayPal so I recommend you have a valid account to receive payments, some pay through bank transfer, and some companies through rewards which can be in the form of gift cards such as amazon or iTunes. There are other options as well – I have seen discounts being offered on products

 

Tips

Sign up with lots of survey companies to improve your chances of making money – the more companies you signup with and surveys you submit the more emails you will get

Fill out your profile thoroughly and accurately. A lot of surveys that will be available to you rely on the information that you have entered into your profile.

Do not use your main email address but use a legit secondary email address – check this email address regularly for new surveys.

Take your time when completing the surveys. Some surveys throw in similar questions and if your answers are inconsistent you may not be paid and may not get other surveys.

Fill out as many surveys as possible and as quickly as possible – a lot of surveys are limited with regards the amount of valid responses. If you are too slow or too picky then you may miss out.

Bear in mind that depending where you are located in the world will impact the amount of surveys and the money earned from them. Its a simple fact that companies want people who live in wealthier countries to answer the surveys.

Summary

A very easy way of making money online – in fact one of the simplest with many surveys being simple question like yes or no or true or false (not all of them though)

You should only treat online surveys as a complimentary source of income, it is not really passive other than the fact you signup with a site and surveys are available but it can take time to complete these surveys and fill in your profile. Some survey companies have referral schemes and if you can refer others then that would be a passive source – you either get a percentage of their earnings or a flat rate.

If you need an extra source of income it can be a reasonable source but the online survey space is way past being saturated now – there are hundreds of thousands of people doing this already and the days of doing this full time to earn a living is gone. Saying that if you need some money then its better than nothing

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Passive income : Reseller Web Hosting Business

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

In this article we will look at Reseller web hosting as a passive income opportunity. This is a business that I have tried a couple of times and I also have many websites so I will explain the concept and some of the pitfalls and also the web designer or business thinking taht i personally have when it comes to hosting.

What you basically do is purchase a large reseller web hosting package from another host and split it into smaller packages and charge a monthly or yearly subscription fee. This is where the passive income comes in, the theory is that you can have a monthly or yearly recurring income. The company you deal with is effectively a wholesaler.

server

Drawbacks of web hosting reseller

As a business or a web deesigner I am looking for a trusted name in the field, I want to see reviews from others that recommend the hosting service and I want to make sure that my money will be spent well on a reliable service with many features. You have to be able to guarantee this.

Despite what other passive income articles and books say you do have to handle all customer support, this is a major source of time and effort. If a customer site goes down they expect a response and a fix promptly no matter what time of the day, this means that you may just be acting as a middle man keeping in contact with the company you are buying the services from but you still deal with your customers.

It is a very cutthroat market – there are a huge amount of people who do this. In fact just look at ebay and you will see people offering hosting packages – I do not recommend doing this personally, nothing in my opinion smacks of amateur as selling hosting on ebay.

You have to promote the hell out of your business – you need to get word out to as many people as possible. This means social media – maybe even paid advertising, I’ll say this a few times in this article its a very competitive market.

You need a domain name and a web site already with a hosting style theme, this can be doen in wordpress. Your site needs to look great and work perfectly – nothing puts off a customer in this market than an amateur looking business site.

Usually you have to put money down up front to buy the packages you will resell

Reseller hosting Ideas

Offer hosting packages to people you know, local businesses , free giveaway – basically try and build a portfolio of customers who can recommend you and you can use for positive quotes regarding your service – hopefully.

One of the main ways to sell hosting is to offer it as part of another service that you may sell – here are some ideas

You could incorporate the hosting as part of a niche website package that you sell
You could sell a domain name and offer the hosting as part of a package. Some customers might think that this makes their life easier having the domain name and hosting from the same source.

Find a niche in your packages – some of these maybe programming language support, control panels or the content that is allowed on your service. The last one is a topic you need to think about some resellers based in certain countries allow ‘controversial’ subject matter like pornography, warez and other possibly illegal subject matter. I would leave this to your own morals.

Reseller hosting Summary

Yes, this is passive income opportunity but there is more effort in this than many other passive income ideas – if you sell websites, domain names you can maybe offer this as an add-on but otherwise for beginners I would not recommend this there are far easier and less time consuming methods.

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Passive income : Price Comparison Website

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

The next passive income opportunity we will look at is a price comparison website. When you think of price comparison websites depending on what country you live in you will have heard of popular sites that advertise and offer the consumer the chance to compare prices from a variety of sources so the consumer can get the best deal.

price-tag

Some Price Comparison website examples

Gocompare – is a site that offers comparison of many insurance products and advertises heavily in the UK
Trivago – a site that allow you to search various hotels to find the best deal
moneysupermarket – a huge player that has credit cards, loans, insurance and much more

OK, that is some examples of popular price comparison sites but how do they make money – that is why you want to create one, right

These sites make money by offering a variety of products or services and the sites take a commission of the sales – so in many cases all of the listings they show will pay them. That is correct basically this is a form of affiltae website selling products but they do offer some content and guides as well to make the consumer make the best choice.

Now the sites I mentioned earlier are huge players, you could make a dent in the hotels, insurance, credit card markets but it is unlikely, what you need to do is find a niche with a decent amount of products and focus on it. Now, you need to create some useful content as well, maybe some articles, tutorials, how -tos and guides. You should also create multimedia like photos and videos to promote products if you can.

Lets look at an example, you may want to look at 3d printers as a niche – you could write an article on what to look for in a 3d printer, costs of 3d printers, 3d printer materials. You can then have a price comparison page of a 3d printer model.

You should have a comparison table which lists all the products and you should list the key features and rate these features so customers can see these side by side. the features could be cost, speed in fact it could be just about anything that a customer may be interested in with regards the products.

Now a site like this will take time to setup, you need to find a good modern design which should be clear and easy to navigate. If you have minimal money then wordpress and a price comparison theme or plugin would do for starters unless you are skilled at design or can afford a freelancer.

Traffic is key for a site like this – you should use all social media like Youtube, Facebook, twitter, pinterest and instagram. Lets take the 3d printer example, how about a video review pointing to your price comparison site on  youtube, tweet about the product on twitter or an article (even the video), pin an image to pinterest or instagram. The key to these sites is traffic – employ all the methods you can find to drive people to your site.

This site is a great passive income opportunity – better than an affiliate website but it takes more time to setup and long term you will spend more time on this than say a niche website

You should also keep an eye on trends – imagine you got in when home automation started becoming popular and put up the first comparison site

Summary

Pick a topic you know about – this will come across when the product features are rated and in the content you produce. Visitors will trust your opinion more as they will believe you know what you are talking about
Keep the products up to date – no-one really wants to look at a 10 year old product
Focus on keywords with low competition – dominate these and get the traffic in.

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Passive income – membership sites

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

Lets take a look at membership sites in this article.

First of all, What exactly is a membership site?

A membership site as the name may suggest is a website where a visitor may go and pay a recurring membership fee to get access to content that is not available to others. You can think of this as an exclusive club that only a select few get access to.

Now for the owner of the membership site the passive income opportunity is fairly obvious, you get recurring revenue which may be weekly, monthly or yearly depending on the plan that the subscriber has chosen.

What can sell on your membership site?

As stated it has to be something fairly unique that people are willing to pay for (that is not freely available anywhere else).

Lets look at some examples in more detail.

PLR products – this was and is still one of the most common membership sites, you pay a fee and get access to products you can resell or use on your own sites. these are varied and can be ebooks, videos, images, infographics and a common example is article packages.

App development – there were a few sites that allowed to pay a fee and allowed tou to easily create apps based on generic templates, nice exampling of cashing in on the mobile phone boom.

Clickbank product launches – again there have been many product launches which have involved a membership fee. The most obvious one at the time of writing this article is https://www.clickfunnels.com, to get access to the service and tools you pay a set price. There are many examples of services and tools like this.

WordPress content – exclusive themes and plugins, maybe tutorials as well. Envato Elements is a great example of a membership site with stacks of content for a recurring fee

Photography or graphics – These could be unique photographs, infographics, vectors

How do I start a membership site?

The most obvious way is to go down the WordPress route, install wordpress on good hosting and then find a membership site theme or plugin. There are a few that should do the trick.

MemberPress – this is the big player in the plugins for creating a membership site

Paid Memberships Pro – another huge plugin for membership sites

MemberMouse – membership plugin that allows you to sell products, subscriptions and memberships easily

You may want to create the content yourself but for simple ebooks, reports, articles and images you would probably be best to outsource some of this work. Fiverr and Upwork are examples of sites where you can get content created, for a reasonable price.

Membership site gotchas

A membership site can take a lot of time to get started, you have to design the site, you need something to sell, you have to get word out there about your site and why people should visit.

Depending on the membership site, you may need to keep adding content regularly. In the earlier example where I mentioned PLR sites a subscriber expects to see updates, they want to see new content every so often. The content also has to be of a decent standard so people want to use it and pay for it, no-one will pay for rubbish.

If you host the membership site you will need very good hosting. Your subscribers may be downloading products, viewing videos, listening to podcasts – all of these require bandwidth and web space. You may go down the route of hosting the content on a site like amazon web services but thats an extra cost.

You have to provide support when and where required. People have paid to use your software, view your content or download it. If there any problems then you need to be able to answer them or at the versy least hire someone to do this for you.

Membership site tips

Research – look at other membership sites, what do they offer, what do they cost, research your niche – you don’t want a niche that is saturated but there again you want people who are actually interested in the niche you are selling memberships for.

Create a forum for members to interact and get a community feel. Make them feel they belong to the site.

Offer deals and discounts to your members, make them feel taht the membership fee they pay is giving them some real exclusive benefits.

Vary the content – the plr model as I said earlier relies on many types of content. Even if you offer video training, throw in a podcast or free ebooks every now again. Make your members again feel like they are getting a great deal.

Keep the content up to date – there is nothing worse than looking at the same article packs and ebooks that have been bouncing around for years on the internet. If your site focuses on subject matter that frequently updates then you have to keep up and make sure your content is up to date.

Offer some ‘teaser content’ – a few reports, articles, sample audio or video. Tease new visitors in and more of them will want to pay for a recurring fee if they can get sample of what you are offering them first.

Membership site summary

This can be a money earner but you need a reasonably large initial investment, there can be a lot of customer service and you need to keep adding to your member site. So this is not a true passive income source where you can put your feet up.

This would not be my first choice for earning passive income

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Passive income : online courses

by passiveincome71
written by passiveincome71

In this article we will look another popular method for creating passive income : online courses

The market for online courses is huge, there are always people to learn more about a topic and on just about any topic that you can imagine.

Basics of Online Course creation

Now there is a bit of work at the start, you need to do some planning on the content which may involve writing a list of topics and then writing a basic script that you read from, video recording, record your voice if required, and then putting this all together in a collection of videos. Once the hard work of creating the course has finished, there’s not much work left aside from promoting the course. There are various pieces of software that may be required if you need to edit your video like Screenflow, Camtasia , ShareX etc.

You may need a webcam or camera to record your face – a lot of popular courses have the computer screen with an embedded video of the instructor.

Of course you can record the video and then add your voice later.

Niche research

The online course market can be very competitive depending on your niche, again you should research your niche thoroughly for the demand (amount of potential customers) and also the popularity of the niche (how many people already have courses, how long is the course, what is the price of the course)

Analyse your niche and see if you can create a whole series of courses. If your first course is a success you will get a good name and customers will be enthusiastic about your new course. Some examples

You have a photoshop course – what about other adobe products like Illustrator or Premiere
You have created a bitcoin course – what about altcoins, forex investing, stock market and other investing
You have created a basic programming course – how about intermediate and advanced topics, other languages.

Most of the profits from selling your course are mostly passive in nature. Depending on the subject matter you may have to update the course and you will also be expected to be available to answer questions – remember you are the subject matter expert here and customers may ask you questions.

I mentioned updating the course depending on the content, if you chose a topic that can change for a reason then customers may expect updates, some examples. A new version of a piece of software, differences in social networks, changes to youtube, new electronics – this will vary depending on the course subject.

Some Online course ideas

These of course are just some ideas to get the creative juices flowing. There are literally thousands upon thousands.

Using Photoshop – record yourself using photoshop and guide people through the steps
Microsoft Windows – How to use Windows, record the screen and talk about it.
Programming – Do you know how to program, record the coding steps, explain it and then show the results. Lots of programming languages available, people are interested in ones that they can make money from
App development – iPad apps, Android apps, games
Social media – Are you good on social media, you can explain how to grow Youtube channels, create videos, craete pins for pinterest, instagram – in short basically anything
Web design – Can you create websites, wordpress themes, setup wordpress – record the process and talk in detail about this
Crafts – Wood turning, sewing – anything here
Cooking – show how to cook with detailed steps and instructions of the recipes
Fitness – big niche, can you do yoga, individual exercises with equipment.
Problem solving – people are always looking for answers to problems like working from home, making money and generally improving a skill

This is only some quick ideas that I brainstormed writing this article

Online Course Sites

Udemy – One of the big players, loads of courses on many topics. Look at what’s available and how the people structure courses. You earn money based on sales
Skillshare – Differs from Udemy in that people pay a subscription model which allows them access to many courses. You earn money based on the number of minutes students spend watching your courses.

There are many other sites to investigate which have their own pluses and minuses, here are some of these sites

Teachable
Thinkific
LearnWorlds
Click4Course
CourseCraft
Course Cats
Zippy Courses
Kajabi

These sites have all sorts of pricing and tools, you should investigate them and find the best one for you.

Online course promotion

There are lots of ways of promoting your online course, here are a few that I could think of

Social Media : send tweets via twitter, create a facebook page, capture a screenshot and pin it on Pinterest.
Youtube : Create a small sampler and link to the main course
Blogging : Create some articles and then link to your online courses on a blog
Email list : build an email list and promote your course

You can use paid ad promotion if you really want as well, facebook ads or adsense

Online Course tips

Make sure you genuinely are interested in the topic – if you get bored or aren’t really interested then you will struggle to create content
Research the niche to ensure that your course idea has a high market demand. If no-one is interested you will make little sales and very little money.
Structure your course correctly. The general rule is to start with the easiest lessons then slowly move to the more advanced lessons.
Use various media – videos, audios, images and documents like spreadsheets, word documents, source code if its a programming course
Research pricing for your course – do not get too greedy and price yourself out the market. The more expensive the course the more the customer will be expecting.
You do not need to use a hosted platform, you can set up your own membership site and host the course.

 

Summary

Does require some technical skills in the creation process, you will have to spend some time in planning and creation phase and you do have to supply after sales support and answer questions. Pick the correct niche and create a popular and quality course and you can earn very good money.

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