Passive Income Opportunities
Are you trying to generate extra income while you are waiting for your original artwork to sell?
Why not generate some extra income through your art blog?
This post will discover how to create an artist blog that generates passive income and will help you through the slow-selling periods.
There are many opportunities available for you to create an artist blog that generates passive income.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase by clicking on an affiliate link, Nevue Fine Art Marketing may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Affiliate relationships include, but are not limited to, Bluehost, Tailwind, Skimlinks, SareASale and StudioPress. To learn more visit Affiliate Link Disclosure Policy
Before we get started, let’s talk about passive income.
What Is Passive Income
Angie Nelson expresses her feelings about passive income in a post she wrote.
Angie went on to say, “people love talking about passive income online. But, everyone seems to have a different view on what’s passive. For me as a blogger, it means doing the work once and continuing to earn money on that work for months or years down the road with minimal upkeep. Sorry, folks. Passive income doesn’t mean getting paid for doing nothing ever.”
Related Post: How to Earn Passive Income as a Blogger.
I agree with Angie.
If you work hard now and create value for your audience, you can continue to earn money in the future.
There are countless ways you, as an artist, can produce passive income from an artist blog.
Amy Lynn Andrews explains different ways blogs generate passive income:
Bloggers make money in a variety of ways. They might:
- Put ads on their site and get paid when you click on those ads.
- Promote products or services for others and get paid a commission when you click through their “affiliate link” and purchase. (This is called affiliate marketing.)
- Sell digital products and get paid when you buy those digital products from them.
- Sell physical products and get paid when you buy those physical products from them.
- Sell services and get paid when you provide them.
You can find out more by visiting How to Make Money Blogging.
Once you have decided how you will be generating passive income and start implementing your strategies, you will want to begin working on building an audience.
Passive Income Strategies
Below are strategies that will help you to create an art blog that generates passive income.
Pick A Niche
The first step is to pick a niche.
The niche you pick should be something you are passionate about.
If it is a topic you do not care about, you will not put all your efforts into it, and you will eventually quit.
The niche you choose should complement your artwork and artist brand.
You want to generate passive income from your art blog when sales are slow with multiple revenue streams.
At the same time, your goals are to attract people interested in purchasing the style of artwork you create.
The challenge is to intertwine the two together.
For example, you might want to teach online courses about your painting techniques.
Maybe you would like to teach people how to sell art and crafts at local art fairs successfully.
Are you good at time management or organization? Many artists struggle with time management.
There are multiple opportunities to generate income by recommending your favorite art supplies through affiliate marketing.
Decide on what you can see yourself writing about in 6, 12, or even 24 months that will help you to earn passive income.
I need to tell you that blogging does not generate income fast.
It will take you about a year to start generating some decent income.
Be patient, consistent, and implement tactics that compliment your strategies.
The art blogs you have come across from the search engines have been around for years.
The artists have worked hard to be ranked in the search results and can enjoy the types of passive income streams they have set up.
Write Blogging Goals
After you have decided on a niche for your artist blog, start writing some goals you would like to achieve.
- How much money would you like your blog to generate?
- How much art would you like to sell from your artist blog?
- How much traffic would you like to be receiving at the end of the year?
- How many posts would you be writing for a week?
- How will you be monetizing your site?
- Will you include affiliate links in your blog posts?
- Will you monetize your blog with adds?
- How will you be promoting your blog and blog posts?
- Will you have a newsletter?
- How many people would you like on your email list?
Making passive income from your art blog starts with having a clear vision of your objectives.
Your unique goals will determine what you will blog about.
Related Resource:
- How to Write Goals You Can Achieve Workbook
- Artist Goals Planners in Light Blue
- How to Write Goals Online Course
Purchase Hosting
Before you can start earning passive income on a blog you will need to invest in a blogging platform, hosting, and a domain name.
I recommend using WordPress as your blogging platform if you are planning on earning passive income from your site.
WordPress will allow you to publish blog posts that will generate money, and you can incorporate an artist gallery on WordPress to sell original art and art prints with WooCommerce.
WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to sell tangible and digital products.
For more information on WooCommerce visit:
- How To Install WooCommerce On A WordPress Artist Website
- How To Add And Manage Products In WooCommerce
- How To Add WooCommerce WordPress Categories
Before launching your WordPress site, you will need to invest in a domain name and hosting.
Popular Hosting Services
Bluehost is one of the easiest ways to get started. You can purchase a domain name, and hosting, and use the “one-click” WordPress install.
SiteGround is a popular hosting service used by many professional bloggers and small businesses. Their hosting is secure, will not slow your site down, which is essential for SEO, and it is also easy to launch a WordPress site.
Write Content
The hard work begins right after you have launched your blog.
Multiple blog posts make passive income and drive organic traffic to your artwork.
Organic traffic is free traffic from search engines like Google and Bing.
The blog posts you publish will be ranked in Google’s search results based on the content’s quality.
The best content is ranked number one, and so forth.
Start writing content now.
The more content you publish, the better your chances of being discovered in the search will be.
For example, if you have 20 blog posts published and your competition has 40 blog posts published, your competition will have 50% more chances of being discovered.
The key is to write much valuable content your readers will want to read.
Your goal is to get to know and understand your reader to write content they want to read.
Understanding your reader makes passive income because they will see you as an authority and visit your site regularly.
According to HubSpot, companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts.
Before you start writing, take out the list of your goals and decide what topics will resonate well with people interested in your niche.
Create a master list of ideas.
The next step is to see if people are searching for the topics you will be writing about.
This is known as keyword research.
If you publish posts that people are not searching for, no one will read your posts. You will be wasting your time.
Keyword research makes passive income.
For more information on keywords, visit:
- Keywords 101 – How To Generate More Traffic To Your Art Gallery
- How LSI Keywords Can Help Artists Rank Higher In Search
- How To Use Keywords Effectively In Art Blog Posts
- How To Optimize Your Art Blog Posts With LSI Keywords
The last thing you will want to do before publishing your post is to write a headline that people will want to click on.
On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest, according to Copyblogger.
Test your headline with CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer. This is a free tool that will score your title and provide you with valuable tips.
For more information on writing title, visit:
- How To Increase Blog Traffic With Catchy Art Blog Titles
- How To Write Great Titles That Generate Blog Traffic
Create An Outline For Your Blog Posts
Creating an outline for your artist blog posts will help you write better, faster, and stay on topic.
After you have decided on a subject to write about, scribble down some key points you would like to cover.
Once you have finished completing the outline, go back, and add detailed information for each key point.
Here are a few more writing tips:
- Use easy-to-understand language.
- Stay away from slang.
- Keep paragraphs and sentences short.
- Have plenty of white space.
- Use the words “you” and “I.”
- Use subheadings, numbers, and bullets
- Highlight relevant text with bold or italics
The tips outlined above will make your content more skimmable and enjoyable for the readers.
Encourage your readers to engage with your posts by asking a question at the end of the post.
Write Consistently
You will see better results by publishing posts 1-3 times a week.
I built my artist blog up faster by publishing 5-7 posts a week in the beginning.
Now that I have a large following and I am ranking high in the search results, I am posting 1-3 times a week with more in-depth content.
Another tip is to write every day.
You do not have to sit down and write for hours, but you will see great results if you can put aside thirty minutes a day for writing.
Your writing skills are similar to your art skills. The more you work at it, the better and more productive you will become.
Link To Other Blogs
People will trust you and find your content credible if you link to other sources that back up your saying.
When the reader feels confident you are providing them with accurate information, they will use your site as a go-to source when trying to find a solution.
Linking to other blogs with high page authority is also a great SEO strategy that Google rewards.
To learn how to add links to your blog posts, visit:
How To Insert Links On WordPress Blog Posts
Build Your Email List
An easy way to have more people read your posts is by building your email list.
There are many tools available, like OptinMonster that make it easy for your audience to sign up for your email list.
People sign up for your newsletter because they already enjoy what your site has to offer, and they want to be kept up-to-date with what is new with your art business.
It is easier to sell to people on your email list than it is to find new customers.
For more information on email lists, visit:
- Email Marketing Guide For Artists
- How To Create A Successful Art Newsletter
- Top Tips For Creating A Successful Newsletter
Passive Income Ideas
Now that you know how to start an art blog and drive traffic to your site, let’s go over how to monetize your website.
Keep in mind. Traffic makes passive income.
If you do not increase your traffic, the passive income strategies outlined below will not produce any results.
Ads
Many bloggers generate income from advertisements like Google Adsense or affiliate marketing.
The easiest way to start earning income from your blog is by using ads on your posts.
Most of the blog posts and YouTube videos you visit have ads on them.
The ads help to support the creator of the valuable content they are providing you.
Most people start with Google Adsense, but I recommend waiting until your blog generates over 10,000 page views a month and then applying for Moumetris.
Monumetrics is similar to Google Adsense because they place ads on your site, and you will receive income via people clicking on the ad or how many times the ad was shown. (The more traffic your website gets, the more money you will make.)
I use and recommend Monumetrics because you will have a team of professionals working behind the seans for you, and you make more money from the ads than you will with Google Adsence.
Another benefit is that Monumetric ads will not slow down your site as much as Google Adsense, and site speed is so important when it comes to PageRank.
Affiliate Marketing
Pat Flynn from The Smart Passive Income Blog, is an excellent example of a blogger who generates a generous income from affiliate marketing.
Visit Pat Flynn for some of the best advice about affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service.
You will make a commission when someone clicks on the affiliate link you provide and makes a purchase.
Here are some of the top affiliate networks:
You can also find affiliate programs from many websites that sell products or services that complement your niche.
To make money from affiliate links, you have to recommend products and services that you use and trust.
Your loyal readers read your posts because they trust what you have to say.
You can earn money with affiliate links if you provide them with valuable information about art supplies you use or courses that you find useful.
Create Products
Another opportunity you have for generating passive income on your artist blog is by creating products.
You are already selling original art, but what about selling prints of your artwork, eBooks, courses, or calendars.
There are so many things you can create and sell that relate to art.
Passive Income Ideas Relating To Art
Here are a few of the most common ways artists are supplementing their income from their artist blogs.
There are many more opportunities out there.
You just have to think outside of the box.
POD – Print On Demand sites
You can sell prints of your original artwork on fine art paper, canvas, and other merchandise like mugs and shirts by using a print-on-demand service.
For More information on POD services, visit:
POD Websites: How To Increase Your Art Sales
Printful is a POD site that integrates with WooCommerce directly on your artist website or Etsy shop.
For more information on selling prints on Etsy, visit:
How To Sell Prints On Etsy With Printful
All you have to do is decide what product you would like to offer your prints on, upload an image of your art and Printful take the order, process the order, and ship the order directly to the buyer.
Benefits of Printful:
- Easy to set up to your WordPress Artist Blog
- High-quality prints and merchandise
- You control how much you will make per sale
- When you make a sale, you will get paid immediately
- Your brand is in the shipping package
- Great support team
Sell Digital Products
WooCommerce makes it easy to sell digital products like eBooks, workbooks, PDFs, etc.
Selling digital products is just one more way you can make money from your artist blog.
Teach
Do you have a passion for teaching others as I do?
You can make money by monetizing your YouTube videos, sell video courses, work one-on-one via Skype or email, write in-depth blog posts, and monetize them with Monumetrics.
Promote Your Artist Blog
In order for you to create an art blog that generates passive income, you will have to develop an online art marketing strategy that will drive traffic to your site.
Here are some ways I generate traffic from my artist blog.
- Promote every blog post you write on all of your social media accounts.
- Answering questions in forums will help you to build brand awareness and build authority.
- Send an email to your email list.
- Pin it to your blog posts to your Pinterest boards.
Final Thoughts On How To Create an Artist Blog That Generates Passive Income
There are many opportunities for you to generate income that relates to art.
Let’s face it. Original art does not sell on a regular schedule. There will be times when you post a new piece of art and it will sell the next day.
Other times your original art might not sell for months.
The good news is that you can set up different income paths that will generate income while you are waiting for your original artwork to sell.
How to Create an Artist Blog That Generates Passive Income overview:
- Pick a Niche
- Write Blogging Goals
- Purchase Hosting
- Write Content
- Create an Outline for Your Blog Posts
- Write Constantly
- Link to Other Blogs
- Build Your Email List
- Monetize Your Blog
- Create Products
- Passive Income Ideas Relating to Art
You might also be interested in:
- How to Optimize Art Blog Posts with Great Content
- 5 Ways Artist Blogs Sell Art and Why You Should Start One
- 5 Reasons Artists Should Blog
- 5 Blogging Mistakes Artists Must Avoid
- How to Sell Art Online and Make Money
Did you enjoy this article? Don’t forget to sign up for my free weekly newsletter.
You can also join me on:
Learn how to start, grow, and monetize your online art business.
Art Business eBooks
Art Business Workbooks
Art Business Planners
