10 Techniques to Create Passive Income

Author’s Note: Sorry for the formatting error yesterday. I am not sure what happened there. But it is fixed now

Picture this: You’re laying on a beach enjoying a nice drink and contemplating the universe (or checking out the nice-looking, half-naked person walking by) and though you are in paradise, you are still making money.

Unless you were of the world’s wealthy elite, this was virtually impossible until recent years. But now with the openness of the internet, all it takes is a wise entrepreneur, an internet connection, and a little prep work.

Why do I bring this up? Recently I have been experimenting with Passive Income as a means to make money with little effort so I can invest more time and money into what I love to do in my business and to achieve my eventual goal of traveling the world while I work. Passive Income is one of my ways to make this happen. (I will be covering more ways in the future.)

Some people, like Jeromy Shoemaker (a.k.a. ShoeMoney), even make passive income their main revenue stream.When you are a business owner, you do not have the luxury of steady income. Money may come but it may not. There is a lot of uncertainty, especially when you are a small or one person operation.

The benefits of Passive Income then are great for people like us.

1. Provides more steady and increasing cash.
2. Adds stability to your venture.
3. Gives you extra capital to invest back into your venture.
4. Gives you more flexibility to travel and vacation.

Basic Idea: More money, less work.

It is not something that can happen over night though. There is work involved that takes time and in some cases, money. Here are some ideas that are good for generating passive income.

1. Resource Websites - Having a website that displays valuable resources, whether it is informational or creative, can generate a lot of traffic and income.

2. Subscription sites - If you can create an automated service or really valuable content that can be used over time, you can charge for the service monthly without lifting a finger.

3. Application sites - How many people would visit your site if it could check their Google Page Rank for them? Even the most simple functions can be valuable to a niche of people.

4. Directories - By targeting niches and keywords, a directory can generate a lot of visits as it builds up a lot of website links.

5. Blogs - This one requires more work over time than the rest but a blog is a great way to bring in consistent traffic and provide a source of income.

6. eBooks - Unlike traditionally published books, ebooks can have less pages as long as the content is valuable and there is no cost for distribution. You can even have purchasing and receiving the book be automated.

7. Hosting - As long as you find a reliable server to rent or buy, your involvement in your hosting service will be minimal. You can charge basically anything for hosting and as long as you deliver on the quality promised, people will be willing to pay it.

8. Selling Stock Files - Whether it be photos, graphics, flash, video, or any other type of computer file, there is a resource site to sell it on. Get the most value out of your extra design work or file properties you own by selling them as stock.

9. Sell Infinite Products - What are infinite products? They are products that have an unlimited inventory. This includes any type of computer product such as software, web scripts, CMS systems, blog themes, etc.

10. Sell for Someone Else - If you can set up a website that is targeted for someone else’s products, you can sell them on the site (once you make a deal with the business), have the money and order info go straight to the manufacturer and just collect the commission check at the end of each month.

These are of course just ideas. In a post soon to come I will talk about how to optimize and monetize these ideas to give you the best value.

Be sure to subscribe to Zen Problog for more.

Several of these were covered more in depth in a resource website / ebook by Collis Ta’eed of FreelanceSwitch. Check out Not By The Hour if you are interested in more.

photo credit: muha…