3 Tips to Passive Income Success

Recently, I have been doing more research on the idea of passive income. Of course I'm primarily interested in developing strategies for increasing my ability to generate passive income, but I'm also interested in helping my clients develop their passive income capabilities. For the uninitiated, passive income can sound, and even appear, to be some sort of crazy get rich scheme , or just an absolute waste of time and money. However, passive income, done correctly, can generate profits and produce a terrific ROI.

Definition:

Passive income is an income received on a regular basis with little or no effort to maintain it.

According to the US Internal Revenue Service passive income is defined as "trade or business activities in which you do not materially participate" or "income retained as a result of capital growth or in relation to negative gearing."

A more simple definition of passive income, and probably my favorite, was coined by Dan Miller (48 Days to the Work You Love, No More Mondays) as Sales While I Sleep Soundly (SWISS Income).

How ever you choose to define passive income, the goal is ultimately to generate revenue through your website through some manner of automation. There are several ways to generate passive income.

One of the most popular means to generating income is through affiliate marketing. Instead of selling a product, service or subscription that you provide, manufacture or stock, you provide the avenue for website visitors to purchase a product and receive a commission on the sale. Countless organizations offer affiliate marketing opportunities, including Amazon, Apple, Dell Computers, McAfee, GoDaddy.com, and the list could go on forever, as the products and services are endless.

A second means of generating passive income is through Pay-Per-Click programs like Google's AdSense. By inserting AdSense into your website, site visitors are presented with PPC links that are supposed to be relevant to the content in your website and/or on your page.

My favorite method of creating passive income is the E-Book. E-Books are awesome, because the earning potential for an E-Book is unlimited. Revenue is instant, purchased products are downloadable, and maintenance is almost non-existent. The most amazing part about E-Books is that 100% of the profit (with the exception of any fees your credit card processor may charge) is yours. E-books can sell for as much as $99 depending on the content, but most of the best revenue generators sell for less than $10. That's right. Less than $10.

There are many other ways to build your revenues, but I like these because they require little to no investment and any investment that is made goes into website development or is an investment of time. There is no overhead, no stocking fees and in many cases, these three strategies can be implemented, successfully, within a day.

So how do you make it work?

Tip #1 - Know Your Niche

What do you know? What are you good at? What do you in your business already and is there a way that you can augment your income with resources that relate directly to the field your in. Even my landscaping clients could make a killing by including a DIY section on their websites. How many of us, including me, would purchase and E-Book on getting the perfect lawn in a dry climate while using less water? I'd easily pay $5 for that. Why? Because if the strategies proposed in an E-book would save me on my water bill, and keep my lawn green, five bucks is nothing.

Tip #2 - Be Easy to Find

There are two places that your product needs to be found. First, you need visibility on Google, Yahoo and Bing. With a little SEO and keyword research, your site can top the list. Use the content in your website to get you to the top of the list. You shouldn't have to pay for a top ranking, but you can if you want. The idea though, is to create as much profit, with as little overhead as possible and a PPC is overhead. Back to my landscape buddy, he should fill his website with words like "green lawn", "cutting water bill", "how to use less water on my lawn" and so on. By filling his page and site with relevant content, the site will quickly jump to the top of the list.

The second part of this is ease of finding the product. To many times the product is buried in the site. Look, let's get this out of the way. Website visitors don't want to SEARCH for your products. Don't create a maze which they have to navigate to in order to find the product. Put it on the front page, near the top, in BIG BOLD FONTS! You are trying to capture attention.
Tip #3 - Create a Simple Checkout Process

Here is my pitch for PayPal. It's easy. 73 million active accounts, 190 markets, 19 currencies and 9% of the total global e-commerce market. Do yourself a favor and use PayPal. The payment process has to be simple. If it could be one button, that would be perfection. Unfortunately, many sales are lost due to poorly constructed payment systems. You want it to be quick, easy and fast so that you don't lose the sale to frustration, or re-thinking.

Now, if you are thinking "Eric just gave me the keys to getting rich without doing anything" think again. Get rich schemes are exactly that. SCHEMES! This is not a means to get rich. Passive income is, instead, a means to supplement your current income. You can't afford to drop your 9 to 5, especially in this economy. However, you can take an hour every night and create a great alternative revenue stream. Turn off "Wipeout" put down the remote and start creating a little extra income for you and your business.

3 Tips to Passive Income Success

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