eCommerce: Earn Passive Income with a WordPress Website

According to Entrepreneur, focus, quality, value, engagement, and authority are all important qualities that determine the success of a blog or website.

Once your site or blog effectively demonstrates these qualities, you’ll be better positioned to monetize your content. Leverage your hard work using a WordPress.com plugin-enabled plan to make your website work for you and generate passive income online. The eCommerce features available to website owners on the plugin-enabled plan make earning money online straightforward and effective.

A plugin-enabled plan overview

WordPress.com offers a variety of plans, and each is designed to meet a different set of needs. The plugin-enabled plan is specifically geared toward small business owners and entrepreneurs.

A plugin-enabled plan allows you to install third-party plugins, as well as provides access to unlimited premium themes, which can help you to create a professional website without hiring a web designer. The plugin-enabled plan is also equipped with Google Analytics support, which provides insights about your target audience, and unlimited storage space to host your content.

This particular plan also provides various options for site monetization. However, some of the most versatile ways to earn money with a WordPress.com site are available with all paid plans.

Sell digital and physical products with a click 

The WordPress.com Payments Block lets you create and embed credit and debit card payment buttons into your WordPress.com site, making it convenient for visitors to send money. You can use Payments to sell downloadable eBooks, online courses, or to accept donations. If you have a WordPress.com plan, you can add a Payments button to a post or page in just a few steps.

Add existing Simple Payments button

Payments buttons are also integrated with Stripe, which adds an extra layer of security without needing to collect your visitors’ personal information. 

Use the Payments Block to earn money with subscriptions

You can also use the Payments Block for recurring fees — another effective way to monetize your website and earn passive income. The feature allows you to collect monthly or yearly payments from customers.

This is useful for professionals who charge their clients a monthly retainer fee. It can also be used for a subscription service in which you send products to customers on a regular basis. However, one of the most common ways to use recurring payments is to create a membership website and couple it with the Premium Content block.

premium content block

Combining these two features creates a simple way to provide exclusive material to members who are willing to pay for access to what you’re creating. These recurring payments connect with Stripe to automatically collect subscription fees and send receipts to your subscribers.

Offer a collection of digital products or services

Since the WordPress.com plugin-enabled plan comes with unlimited storage space, you can use it to sell a full-range of digital goods. Rather than offering a single eBook, song, or online course, you can store and offer a comprehensive collection of these products.

With this option, you’ll want a more robust payment system in place to support your expanded offerings. As a plugin-enabled plan subscriber, you’ll have the ability to integrate eCommerce plugins, like WooCommerce, into your site.

Generate passive income with WordAds

WordAds is the official WordPress.com advertising platform. While it’s not an eCommerce feature, with WordAds, more than 50 of the world’s biggest ad suppliers — including Google AdSense, Amazon a9, AOL Marketplace, and Yahoo! — bid against each other to deliver ads to your site, maximizing your potential revenue.

Activating WordAds

With a WordPress.com plugin-enabled plan, you’ll have access to WordAds and can immediately implement advertising on your site. Just check a box on your dashboard and WordAds will serve ads to your site visitors, optimizing their placement on your pages to give you the best return. You can expect to receive payments through PayPal the following month.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The WordPress.com Team

We're a team of happiness engineers, developers, editors, and WordPress experts. Our team personally curates and serves up the best resources to help you no matter where you are in your blogging or website-building journey. At WordPress.com, our mission is to democratize publishing one website at a time. Create a free website or build a blog with ease on WordPress.com. Dozens of free, customizable, mobile-ready designs and themes.

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