Passive income is defined as income received on a regular basis, with little effort required to maintain it. In theory,that is an accurate statement, but in practice there is a lot more to it. Most people understand that creating a passive income stream requires a lot of work. And even if you are successful at generating a passive income, there will always be a requirement to tweak and fine-tune your system. Also, creating a passive income is not easy, but it is certainly doable.
Traditionally, passive income is generated by using a blog, an email list or some form of ebusiness. Personally, I believe those are the best methods of producing long-term income, but to implement them takes time, knowledge and patience. If you are someone completely new to making money online there is a lot of information you must learn before you will earn your first dollar. As the saying goes, you must crawl before walk and walk before running.
There are several other methods of generating passive income online, that do not require a blog, an email list or ebusiness, but they still will require a lot of work if you want to successfully earn.
Passive Income Ideas
Leverage the popularity of coupon sites – RetailMeNot is one of the largest coupon sites online. They receive millions of visitors per month who are all searching for the next bargain. What is key about RetailMeNot is, you know up front that the majority of visitors are not only there to save, but also to SPEND MONEY. So a great way to take advantage of this opportunity to generate some passive income, is to create your own coupon codes and sell some products.
Steps you need to follow:
1. Create an account on RetailMeNot. The quickest way to get signed up is to use a Facebook account if you have one.
2. Once your account is created go to coupon codes and you will see the following banner:
3. Apply for an account with Amazon Associates so you can sell Amazon products.
4. Once you are approved you will create coupons and present your offers as discounts. Remember, this is a discount site so an easy way to market your coupons is to mention the amount of savings and the free shipping. The added advantage of listing products on RetailMeNot or other coupon sites is, you know that the traffic is full of buyers. They are simply looking for the best deal before they buy. This increases your chances of making sales as long as you list the right products.
Write on Web 2.0 Sites - Hubpages and Infobarrel are websites that will pay you for submitting articles. They generate income by monetizing the content on their sites and then sharing the revenue with their members. So the content you create will be monetized with contextual advertisements and Amazon products that fit the subject matter of the content. Using this method will take a lot of work because you normally have to have a large amount of content before you start making any real money. A great strategy to use is to try and create three articles a week on various topics and over time they will really start to add up.
If you are capable of creating quality articles that get a lot of buzz then you won’t need as many to make money. The key is, your articles need to get views so they can earn money from impressions and ad clicks. Finding low competition keywords will also boost your article views if they are written on popular subjects.
Pay Per Lead Programs – A pay per lead program is basically a program in which you will be paid when you send a lead to a website and they perform some type of action. That action could consist of downloading a file, completing a sign up form or accepting some type of trial offer. If you don’t have a blog, the best way to take advantage of lead programs is to use social websites for promotion. There are plenty of Internet Marketers that are looking to increase their email lists and in some cases they will pay as much as $3.50 per lead.
If you have a good following on Facebook, Twitter or some other social platform, they can be used to promote an opportunity to your followers. Here’s an easy marketing tip. If you are honest with people they will appreciate that. You have to let them know up front that the link is for inclusion in an email list and once subscribed they will receive information and offers via email. You could even consider offering a dollar to each person that signs up once you receive proof.
As long as your subscribers know what they are subscribing to and that no costs are involved, most won’t have a problem supplying a name and email address to help you out and possibly gain some value.
You can find free pay per lead programs on the following sites:
Creating a passive income online, is not easy, but it is not impossible. Trying several methods until you find something that works is a road that many successful Internet entrepreneurs have traveled. Learning from failure and staying humble during success will place you on the right path long term.
