8 Proven Ways to Make Money with WordPress

Now days many people have found ways to make tons of money with WordPress. There are many different ways by which you can also earn a living online with it. Have you ever thought of making money using WordPress? If yes, this detailed post is a treat for you where I will be discussing 8 proven ways to make money with WordPress.

Creating and Selling Plugins

If you have used WordPress, you must be aware of one thing – you can’t run your blog without using at least a few plugins, right? Everyone uses plugins to add extra features that help run a WordPress blog successfully. There are thousands of plugins available in WordPress – some of them are absolutely free and the remaining are premium ones.

If you find a solution to a problem and create a plugin for it (that your audience might be interested in buying), there’s absolutely nothing that can stop you from making passive income from it. Analyze a few existing plugins that are making decent money and figure out how you can do the same to create a constant cash flow like Pippins Plugins or OptinMonster.

If you are thinking to make money by selling WordPress plugins, make sure to create them by focusing on a specific need. One of the best examples in this category is the Comment Luvcommenting link-back plugin. It makes your blog a spam free commenting zone and the free version is used by over 750k bloggers worldwide. Plus the plugin developer monetized their creation by release a premium version with more advanced features.

You can sell your WordPress plugins at CodeCanyon. You may also sell it from your own blog, or by creating a separate site for it. You can also make money by working on custom plugin projects. You will find such projects on freelancing sites like Freelancer, Elance, Odesk, etc.

Develop WordPress Themes

Are you a web designer or developer? Yes! Then you can make money by developing WordPress Themes. You don’t have to be a top class designer or coder to design a great looking WordPress theme, but you should definitely know what you are designing for your targeted audience. At the end of the day, you should know to whom you are designing your theme for, or else you will end up finding zero audience for your theme.

There are so many companies which are designing fantastic themes for WordPress sites to make passive income streams. For instance, people like Brain Clark and Chris Pearson founded StudioPress and Thesis respectively to build quality and appealing themes for WordPress websites. They have been making millions over years now just by hiring few designers and selling appealing themes each and every day.

If you are starting out in creating WP themes and still not confident enough, instead of doing it all by yourself you can form a team, or join a venture that is already in the business of making themes for others. This way you won’t have as difficult of a time making money while completing your work.

You may sell your WordPress themes at Themeforest, Creative Market, Mojo Marketplace or you can sell them from your own website. Just like plugins, you may also work on custom WordPress theme projects for clients to make some extra dollars.

Offer WordPress Consulting Services

One of the easiest ways to make money online using WordPress is to offer consulting services. It can be done easily only if you are good at WordPress – be it creating custom designs for clients, or teaching WordPress tutorials to beginners or advanced users.

Make sure you have a great portfolio if you are thinking of making a passive income stream by using this method. One of the easiest ways to build a great portfolio to increase your income is to offer your consulting services (or select products you’ve created) for free to some of the top influential bloggers in the WordPress community. Ask them to give feedback if they are satisfied with your work or to share a review of your services on their blog. This can really boost your online sales, as testimonials from top bloggers is great social proof.

Blog Setup Service

Are you a beginner or a part time blogger who doesn’t have much WordPress skills even though you want to make money using WordPress? If yes, a blog set up service is the perfect option for you. Even beginners can offer this type of service. But how?

Many people want to use WordPress in their blogs, but they just don’t have much technical knowledge. So they opt for blog setup service. Your task as a blog setup service provider will be to install WordPress, upload a WordPress theme, add the recommended plugins, etc.

To get clients simply create a blog setup service page on your blog or website. Attract few leads or dedicated traffic to that page, either by adding banners for your service on your own site, guest blogging or by paid advertising. Social Media works as well.

If people are interested in your offer, they’ll contact you. But many new bloggers won’t want to pay. You can provide blog setup services for free, but you’ll have to rely on affiliate links within your services page. For instance, if you could recommend that they use Bluehost WordPress hosting, since they offer competitively priced hosting that new bloggers can afford plus their affiliate commission pays upwards of $65 for every successful sign up. Similarly, you can suggest themes, plugins, security services and other affiliate products to them when they sign up through your service page. But remember one thing – only recommend products which you have tested and are good.

Theme Customizations

Are you an advanced developer with some extra time on your hands? Try offering customization services. Many developers are making decent side incomes offering website, theme and/or plugin customization services on websites like Upwork and Freelancer (plus many others – just checkout this post on the best WordPress job sites where you can find client work). You can also offer your services through your own website.

In any case, there are many WordPress users who can install a theme (or maybe their hosting provider offered this along with the setup of their WordPress install) but they don’t have the technical ability to make changes for page layouts, custom post types, etc. This is where you can offer up your services at a set task or variable per hour rate.

Content Writing Service

Another way of making money online is to offer content writing services. Do you have the skills to write well? Yes! Start offering WordPress content writing service. You may find WordPress content writing jobs at ProBlogger Job Board, Elance, Odesk, peopleperhour, etc. Or just visit your favorite online blogs – many have contributor application pages where you can submit your articles and get paid for them. So not only will you get some awesome backlinks from top ranking sites, but you can get paid for your hard work.

Also be sure to have a page on your own website that shows off your previous work. This way potential employers can have a look at your writing style as well as the exposure that your articles get across blogs and social media.

Start Your Own Website

In the online world, it is always recommended to start a website for your business. So, what are you waiting for? Launch your own WordPress related blog and start making money. You can create a dedicated services page and offer what all you can do for your clients. Clearly mention your previous work in the portfolio, and include few testimonials. Try to engage with influential bloggers to create a thriving network around your blog to get more clients.

Not sure how to get started with your WordPress website? Checkout our complete beginner’s guide to WordPress series where we walk you through all the steps of building a website including hosting, posts & pages, plugins, contact forms and more!

Monetize Your Blog

In addition to offering products or services on your blog you can generate a passive income. You can make money using affiliate marketing, selling ads, sponsored reviews, etc from your blog. This requires no additional effort from you – it’s simply a way to take full advantage of the content and traffic you already have.

Most marketplaces and service providers offer affiliate programs. Some of our favorites that are easy to work with include Themeforest, Shareasale, CJ Affiliate and Creative Market. Just signup for a FREE account and add links to you posts where it feels natural.

To sell ads you can offer your own ad packages or work through a company like BuySellAds. Or signup for a Google Adsense account and insert your code to let Google’s network handle the ads while you get a nice little check each month.

You can also offer sponsored posts on your blog. Add a page or contact form to your website so brands can get in touch to pay you for reviews, guides, list style posts or something else. Just be sure to stipulate in your sponsored post agreement that all opinions will be honest.

End Note

You don’t have to be a WordPress genius to make a living. If you can do any of the above and know how to sell yourself or your product you will have plenty of chances to make really good money using WordPress. Also, figure out what your targeted audience truly wants; this way you will be on the right track.