Making money online. When you hear those words, what’s the first thing that pops into your head? A year ago, I would’ve instantly thought "Google ads on a website". I’m sure that’s what many of you thought of too.
There are literally hundreds of ways to make money online, and if you can just perfect one of those methods, you’ll be good to go. Maybe not quit-your-day-job rich, but you’ll have a very comfortable amount of secondary income coming in every week. Who wouldn’t want that?
In this post, I’ll be outlining the 3 best ways to make money with Wordpress themes. I’ve used each of these methods myself, and have experimented around in all three. I know what works best for me, and what doesn’t. At the end of the post, I’ll let you guys know my opinion on what I feel is the best technique.
#1 Sell Your Theme Exclusively
This is how I started out. I’d make a Wordpress theme, log on to a webmaster forum, and sell it to the highest bidder. Now, back in these days, I was new to web design and Wordpress. As you can imagine, my designs sucked (now that I look back at them). The thing is, they only took me 2 or 3 days to make. On day 4, I sold the theme for an average profit of $100. Not bad for a sloppy design that took just 2 or 3 days to complete, huh?
Now imagine if you were decent at making Wordpress themes. You could easily sell your design for profits of $500 or more. Why so pricey, you may ask. The answer is because you are giving the buyer full rights to the theme. They can claim it as their own, they could resell it – they can do whatever they want with it. Simply put, the theme is now theirs and not yours.
For all you non-designers out there, don’t leave yet! So you can’t design websites for the life of you, that doesn’t mean you still can’t profit off of this. All you have to do is get yourself a freelance designer. Get one that is relatively new to the scene so they charge less (make sure their designs are quality, however). Once you get them to make you a theme for $100 or so, turn around and sell it for $300 or more.
This works for all of the techniques I will list, not just this one, so to all you non-designers - keep reading!
Remember to follow my How to Sell Your Designs the Right Way post for guidelines on the appropriate and most efficient way to sell Wordpress themes on these types of forums.
#2 Sell Your Theme Multiple Times
Take the same idea as above, but instead of selling the theme to just one person, sell it to multiple people. The price will obviously have to be lowered because the buyer is no longer getting full rights from the theme. Average prices for decent themes being sold this way range from $19 - $100.
Usually "licenses" are offered when buying themes this way. There is a Single Use License which allows the buyer to use the theme only once on a single site. Then there is a Multiple Use License, which costs a bit more, but allows the buyer to use the theme 3 or 5 times across multiple sites. Last but not least, there’s the biggie, the Developer License. This allows the buyer to use the theme an unlimited amount of times. Of course, this license comes with the heftiest price tag.
If you sell your theme for a price of $40 for a Single Use License and receive 5 buyers, that’s already a profit of $200! Now throw in some Developer License buyers and you’ve got yourself a new PlayStation 3 courtesy of Wordpress.
#3 Give Your Theme Away for Free
Wait, free? How do I make money off of that? It’s simple, really. What do advertisers want? Publicity. On the internet, however, advertisers also want backlinks to their site. This boosts their site ranking in search engines like Google. Using this technique, you can give them both!
Firstly, you need a theme. Either make one yourself or get a freelancer to make you one. Make sure it looks great and has a few unique features like a built-in Twitter feed or a Theme Options page. The better the theme, the more money you’ll receive.
Once you have the theme, head over to one of the popular webmaster forums like DigitalPoint. Once you’re there, create a topic announcing that you’re looking for advertisers to sponsor your free Wordpress theme. Usually, designers offer 4 slots for these advertisers in the footer of the theme. Three of them are regular links, but the fourth one is called the "designer link." Essentially, this link gives credit to whoever buys it as the owner of the theme (and not you). In the end, the footer of the theme will look like this:
Designed by DESIGNERLINK. Sponsored by LINK1, LINK3, and LINK3.
The better your theme looks, the more you’ll get from the advertisers. A good amount to charge for the three regular links for a really nice theme is $90 - $125 a piece. At that rate, the "designer link" should go for $110 – $150. When you sell all four, you make a profit of about $420!
When you go with this method, you’ll have to advertise the theme at a good amount of Wordpress theme showcase sites and then provide reports to the advertisers to confirm you’ve done it. This basically provides free publicity for the theme, getting it more downloads. You can do this yourself (time consuming) or outsource it for $10 or so.
And there you have it. Three great ways to make money online with Wordpress themes. Personally, I’ve found technique number 3 to be the most profitable and easiest to manage. The other two ways either sometimes ended up in either a disappointing sale or no sale at all! Plus, it generates a buzz for your site when you give away a quality Wordpress theme for free. Hell, money and great publicity? Sign me up!
Good luck guys, if you have any questions, feel free to ask away in the comments.
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I agree sell your theme to multiple people.