17 passive income ideas

Passive income has long been the holy grail for entrepreneurs looking to free up their time, untethering the cord of daily duties and responsibilities from the potential to generate healthy monthly revenues. While the importance of passive income isn't often doubted, the monumental hurdle often required to achieve a respectable amount of cash flow from automatically-recurring revenue streams is often too great for most to bear.

Clearly, it's hard to generate passive income. It requires the upfront investment of a significant amount of our time, usually with little to no returns for extended periods. We can go months and even years without a single dollar produced from passive income activities, making even the most astute entrepreneur shake their head in sheer and utter frustration.

The truth of the matter is that time is far more valuable than money. While money can be spent and earned, time can only be spent once, then it's gone forever. As we age and grow older, we understand the importance of time and being able to freely choose what we do with those precious moments that we do have in life.

What is passive income?

Before covering some of the best passive income ideas that you can use to automate your revenue, it's important to understand specifically what the concept means and what it doesn't. You'll likely find countless posts on the web covering dozens of passive income ideas, whether online or in the real world.

When an income stream is passive, it means it requires little to no maintenance to keep the money flowing. Now, that doesn't mean it can simply be completely ignored or forgotten about. No. Quite the contrary. It's important to track every passive income stream and watch it like a hawk, no matter how automated it might be.

1. Start a blog.

The most important method for generating passive income is to start a blog. Blogs can generate a tremendous amount of income, but not quickly. If you plan to start a blog, understand that it's going to take a vast amount of work and time to succeed.

Regardless of your niche, as long as you have a clear understanding of things like searching engine optimization, social media marketing and the ability to write high-value content, then you will succeed with a blog. Once your blog becomes popular, it provides you with the platform and audience to generate multiple streams of revenue by marketing relevant products and services to your visitors.

2. Write and publish an ebook.

Another great method for generating a respectable amount of passive income is to write and publish an ebook. Non-fiction ebooks that help to educate your audience on topics such as online marketing, business or other self-development areas, are going to sell far better than fiction books at the outset.

Clearly, fiction can make tremendous amounts of money, but it's also highly competitive if you're not an already-established writer with an existing following. Utilize the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform and publish ebooks that will fill an existing need in popular niches where you have some level of expertise.

3. Create an online course.

Have a technical skill? Want to convey that skill to others out there while generating a healthy passive income stream? Creating an online course on Udemy is a great way to automate some of your cash flow. However, like any other income stream that's passive, it takes a significant amount of effort on the front end.

There are so many things that can be taught through an online course. I opt to teach technical skills in my courses such as how you can become a web developer or learn search engine optimization, but you can also opt to teach other skills such as playing an instrument, learning a new language, becoming a photographer and so on and so forth.

4. Produce an audiobook.

I've been in the audiobook business for some time now and it's an incredible stream of passive income if you do things the right way. Leverage Audible's ACX platform to push out your audiobooks to the world's most robust platforms such as Audible and iTunes.

If you have specialized knowledge or advanced skill sets in some area, you could opt to teach them through audiobooks. However, you have to focus on delivering an enormous amount of value and ensure that you have a high-quality production. Don't try to slap things together and expect to earn any money online.

5. Become an affiliate marketer.

Affiliate marketing is likely one of the most powerful ways that you can produce multiple passive income streams. However, this isn't easy by any measure. To succeed at affiliate marketing, you need a large following of users. In other words, you need a big platform and audience.

When you don't have a platform or audience, you need to run ads, which can get costly. If you know what you're doing and you're a seasoned internet marketer (IM), you'll succeed. But it takes time to learn the ropes. Still, this is a great way to sell products and services that you don't own, effectively becoming like a broker while earning a healthy passive income stream.

6. Build a sales funnel.

Anyone in the marketing business understands the concept of sales funnels. Sales funnels conceptualize the process of take prospective customers from browsers to buyers. However, building the proper sales funnel is no easy task. It requires a serious amount of upfront investment of your time, and it also requires lots of browsers to drop into the top of the funnel.

In order to build your sales funnel, you need to offer something in exchange for an email address, effectively creating a free offer. Sign up to a system like Aweber or Mail Chimp and work on building out your sales funnel. Create a free offer and build an automated email series that will move your leads up the value ladder of products that you're selling.

7. Develop a smartphone app.

Okay. Okay. I know it's not easy to develop a smartphone app. You either need a lot of skill or a bit of money to get someone to make your vision into a reality, but it is still possible. While the overnight gold rush to app riches might be over, you can still earn a respectable income if you develop the right app.

If you can create the next Uber, then great. If not, you can opt for some niche app that will help to solve a problem or fill a need that might not have yet been properly covered. Think you can do something better? Why not give it a shot? If you're at all technical and understand the dynamics of business and smartphone applications, this is definitely worth your while.

8. Earn real estate rental income.

Real estate has long been the source of passive income for ages. Investors and owners have opted to rent out homes, apartments, condos and office space to generate a healthy monthly revenue. Clearly, real estate is a great source for generating some automatic income, but it also requires a sizable upfront investment.

If you have extra cash lying around, you can certainly opt to invest in some real estate. You can purchase real estate to rent out to long-term tenants or you can try your hand at vacation rentals through sites like AirBnB or VRBO. Either way you look at it, this is a great passive income idea if you have the cash lying around.

9. Sell digital products on Etsy.

Etsy is a massive resource for people wanting to sell all types of handcrafted goods. But, did you also know that you can sell digital products on Etsy? These digital products require little to no maintenance once they're up and running. All you need to do is put the time into creating the digital products and setup quality listings

Clearly, this will require some maintenance on your part and ensuring that the right traffic hits your listings. However, digital products require virtually no overhead and will sell automatically as long as they are high in quality and are appealing to the relevant audience that you're targeting.

10. Generate royalties from jingles or audio tracks.

If you're musically inclined, one idea for generating some passive income could be to create jingles or audio tracks that you can then license out through popular websites such as Audio Socket, Sound Cloud or Song Freedom, just to name a few. Clearly, this isn't easy. But it is well worth your time if you can come up with something great.

Do your research and due diligence to create audio tracks that are appealing to a large audience. Search for other popular tracks that are being heavily licensed and see what they're doing that you could try to replicate in some format, while not outright duplicating.

11. Make YouTube video tutorials.

YouTube is a great resource for earning a large stream of passive income. While it's not easy, and it will effectively take millions upon millions of views to earn some semblance of a real income from this stream, YouTube does offer a very cost-effective avenue to market.

Research what the most popular YouTubers are doing. For example, Blippi, which is a kid's series created by creative entrepreneur, Stevin John, helps to teach children about all types of subjects and has become one of the most popular YouTube series in its niche with over 500 million views in the past couple of years alone. Seek out successful people and try to replicate their formulas while being unique.

12. Sell professional photos online.

Another avenue for passive income is to leverage photo-selling websites such as iStockPhoto and Shutter Stock to earn money while you sleep. Clearly, you need to understand photography and things like Photoshop if you're serious about succeeding in the photo-selling business.

There's a lot of competition when engaged in this line of work. However, if you have a knack for photography, then selling your photos online should come almost naturally to you. Get really good with photo-editing software and find your niche. Whether it's portraits, landscape photography, business photography, or something else, find it and stick to it.

13. Use cash back credit cards.

Cash back credit cards offer a great resource for earning some passive income, especially if you're already going to be spending the money. While this revenue stream likely won't make you rich, it will help give you some kick backs on money that you're already likely spending in your day-to-day life.

Do a few searches online for the best cash back credit cards and sift through all the posts that detail what the right card would be to fit the bill. Be wary of linking through on some of the posts that might try to push you towards the card that will help them earn the greatest income by referring you to it.

14. Purchase dividend stocks.

Dividend stocks are great resource for generating passive income. You also won't need to sell the stock to generate that income. However, you will need to buy a significant amount of shares to see a healthy stream of revenue from whatever dividend stock you end up selecting.

Do the proper research and due diligence on finding the right dividend stocks. You don't need to start out by knowing everything, but you do need a desire to learn and understand. Start small and build up from there while constantly keeping an eye out for high-income producing dividend stocks.

15. Invest through peer-to-peer lending platforms.

Peer-to-peer lending platforms such as the Lending Club and the Funding Circle make it easy and straightforward to invest in people and businesses to generate a passive income stream from interest payments. Many of these sites have accurate algorithms that will predict risk, taking much of the guesswork out of the equation for you.

Clearly, this will require some upfront investment. If you have some money stashed away, this might be a good avenue for investment without having to rely on low-interest-producing CDs at banks or high-risk stocks. Do the research and judge for yourself on whether this passive income idea works for you.

16. Become an ATM vendor.

Depending on where you live, you could quite possibly make some great passive income by setting up ATMs in a variety of locations such as small corner stores or in malls and so on. Locate a good company that will allow you to place their ATMs at various businesses and earn a small percentage of the income that these generate.

Outside ATM machines can charge upwards of $5 per transaction, and you could get a small piece of that. On volume, this can amount to a lot of money. Clearly there is some maintenance involved in this and it's not fully passive, but it is a great resource for earning a respectable amount of monthly cash flow depending on the volume of ATMs you're able to setup.

17. Build niche or "guide" websites for lead or referral income.

If you have an understanding of SEO and online marketing, you might want to build niche or guide websites to help generate leads and referral income. Popular industries include insurance, credit cards, the make money niche, diets and weight loss, amongst many others.

Find something that you know and ensure that you source the right relationships with the right companies to sell your leads, or make sure that people are referred to the right products or services that will allow you to earn a common with each subsequent sale.

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15 Unique Strategies to Monetize a Facebook Fan Page

There are people out there who grow Facebook pages for the sake of having them. I’ve seen dozens that center themselves around a concept and grow into something larger. For example, the “I Feaking Love Science” page started out just growing a page around cool science facts and developments around the world. Over time it grew and grew, to its current nearly 25 million followers, and it has since expanded into an entire website of its own. It didn’t start with the website and grow the social pages as so many people do these days.

If you have a Facebook page with some level of following, with or without a website attached, there are a lot of ways to make money. Frankly, it’s easier to start with a Facebook page and build a monetized site than it is to start a site and try to build a Facebook following from it.

1. Sell Digital Content Directly
The first option is arguably the easiest among them. You don’t need an external site of any kind, though you can benefit if you have one. The simplest example of this is pretty easy to describe.

Write an ebook and publish it on the Amazon Kindle marketplace. Promote that ebook on your Facebook page. Whatever you were doing to grow your Facebook page to the heights it reached, keep doing that; just intersperse your posts with posts promoting the ebook. It’s simple, it’s easy, and you can even outsource writing the book by hiring a ghostwriter.

There are other sorts of digital content you can advertise and sell directly on Facebook. All you need is some kind of distribution platform. Ebooks are easy because Amazon and Barnes and Noble both have distribution platforms. If you’re selling, say, software, you’ll need to set up a site or sell it through something like Wix

2. Send Traffic to Affiliate Marketing Sites
This is another option you can use to make money by advertising on Facebook, but you will need to set up a site. A microsite with a dozen or so blog posts and product recommendation tables, laced with affiliate links, works well enough.

To discuss this topic in greater detail puts us into the affiliate marketing discussion, and there’s a lot going on with that topic. Your choice of niche, your ability to compel and convert visitors, and the viability of the sales you’re making all play a big part in how well you’re able to make money with this method.

On the plus side, I can guide you to this post so you know how you can and cannot use affiliate links on Facebook. If you’re lucky, you can broadcast your links directly to your audience rather than linking them to your site. George Takei does this a lot; all of his Amazon links hook you up with his code.

3. Send Traffic to Ads-Enabled Sites
Much like with affiliate marketing, you’re going to need to have a website for this method. You’ll need to have a site, though what kind of site is up to you. It doesn’t need to be anything more than a blog, or it can be a service provider, a storefront, or whatever else you want.

The idea is to lace the site with advertisements that make you money. Affiliate links work, but you can also use PPC links like Infolinks or Google’s AdWords text ads. There are a whole bunch of different ad networks you can explore to find ads that pay a decent amount for the traffic you send to them.

You’re going to be subject to a lot of diminishing filters for this method of making money, unfortunately. Out of your whole audience, only a small percentage see your post. Of them, only a few click through to the site. Of those, many of them will block ads or kill scripts that would track their value.

4. Sell Products Through a Facebook App Store
Facebook apps have fallen somewhat by the wayside in the last few years. They’ve been slowly moved further and further down the sidebar and there’s not as much room up top for them as there used to be. Gone are the days of the large icons up top.

That’s not to say you can’t still use them. All you need to do is set up one of the many Facebook tab commerce apps. Pick one and use it to set up a little storefront right there on Facebook.

Well, it’s not technically on Facebook. It’s a hosted microsite on whatever the hosting is for the app provider, which you configure and which users access via an iFrame on Facebook.

5. Sell Products Through a Website Storefront
The exact same concept as above can be applied to setting up your own storefront. You have two options for this; you can either set up a hosted solution on a site like Wix, or you can host your own storefront on whatever hosting and using whatever eCommerce system you want. The latter is more expensive but a lot more customizable and better for SEO in the long run.

From there, you can either set up your own iframe app – adapt the same sort of code as the previous example – or you can just refer people to your site. Promote products and link your audience to the product page, that sort of thing. Paid ads will help a lot here, because there’s not of leeway with promotional organic posts. Facebook and Facebook users both don’t like overt promotion on a consistent basis, so your reach and following will drop if you go too all-in.

Promote a Mobile App for Sale
Facebook can be used to promote things other than goods. One of the best options you can take, if you have the resources available to you, is to develop a mobile app. Over 50% of the traffic that browses Facebook every day is mobile traffic. If you can capitalize on a mobile audience by promoting a mobile app, you can find quite a bit of success.

What kind of mobile app should you make? That I can’t tell you. There’s so much possible variety, some that plays off your current presence and others that are out of left field, that it’s impossible to give you a recommendation. Find a niche and go for it if you have a good idea.

7. Promote a Mobile App with In App Purchases
In the previous example, I suggested a mobile app. This one is also for a mobile app, but the idea instead is to offer the app for free. You can monetize the app itself rather than monetizing Facebook. The app can offer in-app purchases, or it can have display ads, or both. It depends on what works for your app and what you can add to your code.

Some affiliate programs also do app affiliate links. You can promote an app you didn’t create, and get some money for the people who download it. This is going to be less lucrative than a good app, but sometimes it’ll be better than whatever app you throw together.

8. Promote Products with Exclusive Facebook Offers
If you’re selling products, you can do more than just post “hey, have you see X product? It’s cool you should buy it.” You can incentivize the traffic and the conversions. All you need to do is run offers, either as an organic thing or as a paid thing.

The organic way of running offers is to simple create the offer for a limited time on your site and promote it on Facebook. The alternative method is to use the ads system on Facebook to run offers. Either one will work, and you can use both if you want.

9. Sell Advertising Space on Your Feed
This method is a little frowned upon on Facebook, and there’s no easy way to advertise that you do it, but you can if you keep it under the table. The idea is to write posts that promote something – a product, a service, a blog – in exchange for a bit of cash from the owner of that thing. In a sense it’s a lot like affiliate marketing, except the payouts are generally higher and they aren’t predicated upon performance. People pay you for the post, and they get what they get, so long as you’re making a good faith effort to advertise them.

Just don’t tell people publicly that you’re willing to accept cash for posts; that’s going to get you flagged or banned by Facebook.

10. Sell Products Through a Third Party Service
You can design and sell products without having to do any of the product manufacturing, shipping, inventory, upkeep, or anything else. One of the biggest examples is the Teespring/Society6 method of creating art, putting it on various products, and selling it. These sites allow you to create an account and slap art on their inventory. They print the shirts or phone cases or socks or whatever else and sell them. You get a cut of the profits. It’s pretty simple and it’s a route that a lot of mid-range Facebook pages take, particularly artists.

11. Promote a Local Event with Your Vendor Presence
If your Facebook page happens to be centered primarily around a geographic location, you can use it to promote local events. You can drive a profit in a few different ways from this. One of them is to set up a vendor of your own at the local event you’re promoting, so that by promoting the event, you’re promoting yourself. Get more people to attend the event, and more people will find your storefront within it, so you can make more sales.

You can do the same thing with a local service; advertise to your local audience and get people to sign up for trial runs of the service.

12. Promote a Local Service to For Cash
This is very similar to posting content based on the payment you get from the owner of that content. The difference is it’s all local, so you can do your networking offline and stress the importance of both minimizing your obvious involvement with the payments, and avoid Facebook’s wrath.

I would essentially just start promoting an event and go through to talk to each vendor for the event. Set up a sample content schedule with the posts you have available to rent out and sell each of the slots. Now your followers think you’re promoting the event by promoting the businesses in it selflessly, but in reality you’re being paid to make those promotions.

13. Sell Your Services Growing a Page
There’s more to sell than just products, services, and posts. You’ve grown a Facebook page to its current level, and you’re achieving some amount of success. Others would like to reach that success. You can share your skills in a few ways. You can write and sell a book about it. You can sell a service where you write up a plan of action for the page owner. You can come in and manage things for an ongoing price, though if you don’t want your business to be managing Facebook pages, this might be a bit much.

14. Sell Your Industry Consulting Services
You may have expertise in an area beyond Facebook, and you can sell that expertise as well. I’ve seen several different folks on different social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and others – gain fame through managing a page and then say “oh by the way, I’m a freelance ___, feel free to hire me.”

They gain clients, they don’t sacrifice their pages to the whims of marketing, and it works out for everyone.

15. Build a Mailing List that Promotes Products
A mailing list has several benefits. For one thing, it’s a way to reach people independent of the low reach metrics on Facebook. It can be used to promote yourself or others, both organically and in a paid way. Plus, it’s value that will last beyond something happening to your Facebook page or your website. A newsletter can help with all of the above techniques as well, which is why I listed it last.