You can actually make money while you sleep? Sound too good to be true? Well, that the reality of the internet age where you can make money without opening yours eyes or even living your house.
Here are some ideas based on John Rampton’s article in the entrepreneur.com. Rampton knows better as he is an entrepreneur, investor, online marketing guru and startup enthusiast. John is best known as an entrepreneur and connector. He was recently named number 3 on Top 50 Online Influencers in the World by Entrepreneur Magazine and has been one of the Top 10 Most Influential PPC Experts in the World for the past three years.
- Start a blog
This is the most popular way to earn a passive income. It only takes a couple of minutes to set up and is cheap to start – just purchase your domain name and pay for hosting. After that, start creating amazing content that people would be interested in reading or sharing. Rampton says if you’re an accountant that has helped small business owners with their taxes, then that could be your blog. “I personally have my invoicing blog to help customers know everything there is to know about invoicing. This draws thousands of signups a month,” he adds.
The topics you write about are popular. If you still love your pet rock, there wouldn’t be enough people visiting your site to monetize it. But, you never know. Once you’ve gained a following, you can start making money from of your blog by:
Earning commissions as an affiliate. This is where you push other people’s products or services on your site. Make sure these products or services are relevant to your blog. For example, that accounting blog could become an affiliate for accounting or invoicing software. Once you find an affiliate partner you’ll be given a unique code so that whenever a visitor clicks that link on your site you’ll earn your commission. In Kenya there are a number of affiliate partners, including Kilimall and Jumia as well as international ones like eBay and Amazon.
Sell advertising: If your site has the traffic to become an affiliate, then it may also be good enough for advertisers to purchase ads on your site. You may start off small, like making under $20 per ad. But, you may eventually be able to charge triple digits. Again, your site must be quality.
Find sponsors: This is slightly different from just selling ads on your site. Sponsorships may be a one-off piece of sponsored content or permanent logo embedded in your footer.
- Sell your own information product.
If you’re knowledgeable in a certain area, then you can start creating products, such as eBooks or videos or even audios, and selling them on your blog. It may take a lot of work to create and market your products, but once all the leg work is over, you can just set back and collect the proceeds.
- Earn royalties
If you’re a talented musician, actor, or author, then you could earn royalties from your work. In other words people will pay you for using your work or creative assets.
- Create a membership community
If you’ve proven yourself to be an authority figure, then you can create a membership community where people pay a monthly fee to receive additional high-quality content and information that’s not available to non-members. One of the best examples is Timothy Sykes in the US who makes more than $100,000 per month in passive income through his membership community which discusses how people can make money in trading penny stocks. May consultants can do this.
- Install an autoresponder
Another common online business model is using autoresponders to sell services, products or memberships. This is where people leave their email address on your site and then they’ll receive an automated email containing the link to download products or quality information you have to offer, as well as follow-up with a series of emails.
- Selling websites
If you’ve put in the time and effort in building a website and you have gained a lot of traffic, then you may be able to sell it to an interested party. KenyaBuzz website founder Alix Grubel recently made a tidy sum by selling the site to Nation Media Group.
- Sell physical products.
Just like with a blogging site, there are several ways to earn a passive income by selling physical products. Probably one of the best-known ways is by selling items you don’t need on OLX. But even if you don’t have anything left to sell you can start drop shopping. This is where you sell products for a company on sites like Kilimall or Jumia and they’ll take care of the rest, including shipping.
You can also launch your own ecommerce store working with Kilimall. They literally give you everything you need to sell products online from a complete online shop. Daniel Ndambuki, aka Churchill, is doing this with Kilimall and making lots of money.
- Invest in stocks or shares
When you invest in stocks you become a shareholder. That entitles you to a share of the company’s profits. Investing in stocks has been a popular way to earn a passive income for years, and thanks to the internet, it’s easier than ever to research and invest in stocks on your own.
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The Nairobi Securities Exchange is open and with 55 companies to choose from. You can open a CDS account with any broker and start your investment with as low as 100, as the minimum shares you can buy per counter are 100 and some shares like Eveready cost less that Sh2 per piece. Keep in mind that the stocks you invest in can change throughout the various stages of life.
- Lending
Kenyans are always in need of cash either for emergence or just for fun. If you have some money to spare, you can lend at a premium interest rate at a personal level. The so-called shylocks are the product of this business. It’s very lucrative with some charging up to 50 per cent interest.
- Rent out idle property.
You can rent out your home. Many people work in town and leave their upcountry homes idle. Why not rent it out while you are away? If you have big land near a town you can rent it out as storage or car park for vehicles. And if the land is even bigger lease it out to someone who can do farming.
- Hire a middleman
This is also known as arbitrage and is basically where you have someone else do the work for you. For example, you could start web design firm, but outsource the actual coding to someone else. Or you start a printing service then outsource the printing to a trusted printer. You’re much better doing anything except being the middleman who is in charge of marketing these services.
Got some interesting ideas on how to earn money without working? Scroll down and leave a comment.
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