8 ways to make money as a WordPress professional

There are several ways to earn money as a WordPress professional. In this article, we will explain exactly how WordPress geeks can make money.

WordPress powers approximately 40% of online websites. More than 4 million people visit each month. WordPress is very popular in the online business world because it is easy to use.

We’ll also let you know how much money you can earn with these business models at a minimum and give you a roadmap to get started.

Let’s get started.

Providing WordPress consulting services

Many WordPress site owners aim to rank high in search engines.

To achieve these goals, you can make a lot of money by providing some marketing services to these sites.

Let’s see what services you can provide these website owners to make a living.

become a freelancer

Freelancers are self-employed people who are not affiliated with one company. They may work in many businesses at the same time.

The main advantage of freelancing is that you can choose who you want to work with and who you want to let go.

Take a look at your freelance income potential as a WordPress professional.

How much can you earn from freelancing?

According to research from Upwork , the average hourly wage for freelancers in the US is $20. ( Note: The minimum wage in the United States is approximately $10 per hour.)

Let’s do some calculations:

If you work at least 5 hours a day, 20 days a month, your monthly income will be:

$20 x 5 x 20 = $2000/month. Not bad!

So the next question is, what kind of services can you offer as a freelancer?

Services you can provide as a freelance WordPress professional

• Web Design: Work as a WordPress backend/frontend developer and design websites for clients.
• WordPress Management: Manage your WordPress website with plugins, theme updates, website health checks, and more.
• Content Writing: We write website content and blog posts to increase organic traffic for our clients.
• Graphic Design: Design beautiful graphics for your website.
• Copywriting: We write ad copy for all advertising campaigns our clients run to get traffic.
• SEO Consultant: Create a long-term plan to increase your WordPress website traffic
• PPC Consultant: Plans, executes, and analyzes advertising campaigns for clients.

Where should you start your journey as a freelancer?

The first part of any field is always difficult. Before you start, we recommend that you first decide which freelance field you are most interested in. Once you have done that, acquire thorough knowledge about it.

Once you’ve done both of these things, you’re ready to get some clients and see how it goes.

There’s no better platform to start your career than Upwork.

Don’t you believe us?

This is an example of a list of freelancers who are developers . Please look at the prices. If you acquire the right skills, you can make it to the top one day.

Freelancing is a great career option, especially as a WordPress professional. You can continue to gain knowledge, land multiple freelance WordPress jobs, and work with clients all over the world. This will give you both money and exposure.

You can also try Toptal or Codeable to offer WP development services.

Open a WordPress service agency

Opening a WordPress service agency is one of the best ways to make money. An agency is the best way to start and run a 7-figure business.

Yes, it’s hard and there are a lot of problems when you scale from 10 to 100 clients, but the ROI is very high.

A WordPress agency can fall into any of the categories mentioned in the freelancing part. Freelance and agency business models are almost the same. You find customers and serve them well.

There’s just one catch. When you open an agency, you’re outsourcing work instead of doing it yourself.

So when opening an agency:

• you find customers
• Find freelancers/employees to service those clients.
• All you do is interact and manage clients

How much money can you make with an agency?

A typical digital marketing agency is valued at 5 to 10 times annual revenue.

So, for example, if you can make $1,200 a year, you can expect to earn your agency between $60,000 and $120,000 over the long term. However, remember that doing this requires time and dedication.

Where to start when opening an agency

Starting an agency requires a large amount of capital. You should invest in setting up a website, testing and hiring skilled WordPress professionals, and finding WordPress jobs online. Therefore, it is best to first raise the necessary capital for your agency and then try to get started.

Developing and selling WordPress themes

Every website needs a theme to make it look appealing. If you are a web designer, creating themes can be a great online WordPress job.

You don’t have to be a coding ninja to do this. Basic coding skills and UI/UX knowledge are sufficient.

Get inspired by these three brands:

• Themeforest: has the most extensive collection of WordPress themes
• Creative Market: Browse from over 8000 themes for business and personal use
• Mojo Marketplace: 700+ unique themes with great UI

How much can you make by selling WordPress themes?

The average cost of one WordPress theme on Envato is: ~$60.

Let’s say you create two themes worth $60 each. Theme A and Theme B.

Each month, theme A generates 20 total sales and theme B generates 30 total sales. This brings your total revenue to $3000.

Any marketplace typically charges a 25% fee (yes, that’s huge). In your case it’s $750.

This means you can earn ~$2.2,000 by developing a theme and selling it on the marketplace.

Note: Time spent building these themes is not taken into account.

By selling themes on your own website, you can save on marketplace fees. All you need to do is think of better ways to bring in quality traffic.

Where to start your journey as a WordPress theme developer

Here’s a start-to-finish roadmap for building a WordPress theme that sells.

Step 1: Choose your niche and start designing your theme.

Step 2: Make sure you’re developing a mobile-friendly theme.

Step 3: Design your theme according to WordPress coding principles.

Step 4: Have ready-made page templates within your theme for every page you might design.

Step 5: Create an easy-to-use theme options page where users can change the theme.

Step 6: Select the marketplace where you want to sell. You can choose any of the three marketplaces listed above.

Step 7: Set your price and start selling.

WordPress plugin development and sales

Next to WordPress themes, WordPress plugins can also be a great product to develop and sell. Like themes, plugins play an important role in running a WordPress website.

However, there is one drawback to developing plugins. The market is already quite competitive. Therefore, try to create plugins that cannot be replaced by other plugins.

The key to building a plugin that sells is to identify the problems of WordPress users and design a plugin that easily addresses and solves them.

How much can you make by selling WordPress plugins?

See how much you can earn by selling over 50 of one plugin in a year.

Let’s assume the plugin costs $30 per month and you have a total of 50 sales per year.

Your revenue will be: $30 X 12 X 50 = $18,000/year = $1500/month. Selling on the marketplace can result in a loss of up to $300 and a monthly income of $1,200.

Where to start your journey as a WordPress plugin developer

Marketplaces like codecanyon are a great place to start.

If you want to sell plugins on your website and not give commission to that marketplace, you can use a platform like easydigitaldownloads to set up your store.

Create and monetize a WordPress blog

Creating a blog with WordPress and exploring how to monetize it can be a game-changer for you.

The advantage of this method is that if you are getting decent traffic and revenue from your blog, you can replicate the same business model in different areas and get great results.

For example, if you earn $1,000 a month by creating an affiliate website in the culinary field, you can earn $5,000 a month by creating five such websites over time.

Let’s take a look at how you can monetize your WordPress blog and save some cash.

display advertising

Display advertising shows audience advertising in the form of graphics. When a visitor is interested in your ad, they click to learn more. Earn money with this click.

To manage everything effectively, you can take advantage of platforms like buysellad and plugins like AdSanity.

Did you know: The average CPC for display ads is $0.58 and the CTR is 0.35%.

affiliate marketing

The concept of affiliate marketing is simple. You (as a blogger) promote a company’s products or services. Get a unique affiliate link for each product you promote.

When a visitor accesses a product page and makes a purchase through an affiliate link, you receive a commission.

Let’s say you’re interested in selling digital marketing products and WordPress themes. Two brands that offer great commission rates are Envato and SiteGround.

If you have a significant number of visitors each month, you’ll want to track all the important affiliate metrics and KPIs.

Platforms like ShareASale and CJ can help with that. With ShareASale, you can also get started for free .

google adsense

It’s also a great idea to earn money by displaying blog-related ads on your website. Google Adsense can help you with that.

In 2021, over 38.3 million websites used Google Adsense to display ads and earn money on every click. To get started, you’ll need to have a website with some blog posts. You must be approved by Google to earn money by displaying ads on your website.

Note: The average CTR for Google Adsense across all industries is 1.9%.

Earn money online by browsing websites

Website flipping refers to buying an abandoned website or building one from scratch and selling it. The simple logic behind this business model is to increase your website’s revenue/traffic and sell it to the highest bidder.

If you’re building a website from scratch to sell, keep the following in mind:

• Find profitable and scalable niches
• Choose a traffic generation method and stick to it
• SEO is a must because buyers are willing to pay for a site with organic traffic.
• Choose only one method to monetize your site

How much money can you make by switching websites?

The earning potential of a flipping business depends on the business model you leverage.

For example, if you have a one-year-old website in a niche field that operates on the Amazon Affiliate business model, you can estimate its net worth as 30 times the total profit earned in one month.

So if your website makes $10,000 a month, you can sell it for over $30,000.

Where can I start selling my WordPress website?

You can use platforms like Flippa, FE International , and Empire Flippers to sell your website.

You can also consider some of the best platforms to sell domain names.

Become a YouTuber

More than 2 billion users log in to YouTube every month. S0 making money by creating WordPress related videos can be a very successful business model.

The YouTube market is quite saturated, but with the right planning and strategy, you can make a lot of money from it.

But how can you become a Youtuber as a WordPress professional?

It’s easy!

Start curating videos in any category in WordPress. You can start with a category like “Cool WordPress Hacks” and move on to the entire WordPress category.

How much money can you make by creating videos on YouTube?

On average, Youtubers earn between $3 and $5 for every 1,000 views on their videos. According to Tubular Labs , the average number of views for educational videos is approximately 5,000. That means you can earn around $20 per video.

Earn $600 by uploading one video a day. It’s not that much, so I recommend doing this as a side gig for a few hours to make some extra money.

At a certain point, if you go viral on YouTube, you can make a lot of money doing it.

Where to start your journey as a Youtuber

Step 1: Narrow down your niche and limit it to one WordPress category

Step 2: Know your target audience and create videos accordingly

Step 3: Create a channel that catches your audience’s attention

Step 4: Plan your content carefully and know which videos to upload and when to get the most views.

Step 5: Thoroughly research YouTube SEO and implement it on every video you create

Step 6: Invest in video quality because it matters most

Step 7: Be consistent

Step 8: Track all important metrics and KPIs through YouTube analytics

Create and sell courses

The e-learning industry has grown rapidly due to the rise of digital education due to COVID-19. By 2025, the e-learning market is expected to reach a value of $325 billion . Yes, you heard that right, virion with a “B”.

Students now prefer to enroll in great courses and study sitting at home rather than going to university.

why?

There are two reasons for this.

• Students are reluctant to pay high university fees
• Learn 5x more when you enroll in a course compared to university

E-learning isn’t just limited to students. Companies are also looking to utilize courses to train their employees.

How much can you earn by selling courses?

To calculate this, let’s go to Udemy.

Here are the top-ranked WordPress courses:

You can see that the original price of the course is $130. However, the price has now been reduced to $20.

Total enrollment in courses is 90,702.

If half of these students purchased the course at the original price and the other half received the discount, the total revenue for the course would be nearly 7 million. That’s a huge income.

Where to start on your journey as a course creator and seller

Step 1: Create a course that solves a problem for your target audience.

It’s important to create high-quality courses because your business depends on it. To do this, try to create something that your audience will like. Browse Google Trends and search for trending topics.

Once you’ve finalized your course topics, it’s time to explore the tools you can leverage to create a great course.

One of the tools we suggest is iSpring Suite . From creating professional videos to organizing quizzes with iSpring Studio, you can do it all in one place.

Step 2: Find the tool to manage your registration.

If your course has thousands of registrations, you’ll need a membership plugin to manage registrations, payments, customer care, and more. Here are some of the best tools to do the same.

• LearnPress : WordPress LMS plugin to create, manage, and sell courses
• Restrict Content Pro : Give users roles and easily manage subscriptions.
• Buddyboss: Gamify your courses and customize your brand to your heart’s content
• Teachable: The perfect tool for beginners to create their first course
• Memberpress: Sell and manage memberships the right way

Step 3: Choose a platform to sell your course.

If you plan to sell your courses on a marketplace, you can take advantage of platforms like Udemy.

Set up a dropshipping store

The final way to make money as a WordPress professional on our list is to open a dropshipping store. Dropshipping isn’t easy, but once you set up your store and have everything in place, the ROI is very high.

The best part is that you don’t have to pay anyone a commission for the products you sell. All profits are yours.

It may take years to build a successful dropshipping store, but if you do it right, your store can be incredibly profitable.

How much can you earn with dropshipping?

You’re likely to earn anywhere from $1000 to $5000 in the first few months. Then, as you continue to get traffic, you will earn even more money.

Where to start your journey as a dropshipper

If you like WordPress, WooCommerce is the perfect platform to open your store. However, if you are a beginner and want a platform that has a short learning curve and is very user-friendly, we recommend using Shopify.

What is the best way to make money as a WordPress professional? 💰

Making money as a WordPress professional doesn’t have to be difficult. But if you want to make a full-time career, it takes effort to build something that can earn you profits and a steady income.

Therefore, there is no best job to make money with remote WordPress. It depends on what you want to do and how much time you want to spend.

If you want to earn money as a WordPress professional part-time/side job, you can create a blog and earn money through advertising.

If you’re planning to dedicate all of your time as a WordPress professional, freelancing, opening an agency, or a dropshipping store are the best ways to earn a good income over time.

Finally, if you like management and tracking KPIs, it’s best to take an affiliate marketing or sales course.

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