How to create passive income from a static site?

September 9, 2016

Hi all,

I've enjoyed hearing about your side projects and I'm very happy to see the forum!

I'm reaching out because for a few months I've been working on a small side project called uxtools.co. It's created a small buzz within the design community and was featured on Product Hunt.

I'm searching for ideas of how I could create a small amount of passive income from this site. So far I have only have two ideas:

Ads
Businesses occasionally reach out to me so I can add them to the site. I could charge a fee to add their app or highlight their features.

Thanks for reading.

Taylor Palmer

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6

Capture email of visitors and tell them you'd send them news about UX once a week or a month. Get companies to sponsor that newsletter.

Shobhit

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10 years ago
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  Put in some time last night to set up a simple Mailchimp sign-up. Onwards and upwards! http://eepurl.com/ce9aV5
  
  Taylor Palmer
  
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  10 years ago
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  Thanks, that's a great idea.
  
  Taylor Palmer
  
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  10 years ago
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  Could you elaborate on how to get companies to Sponsor the newsletter?
  Do you mean adding sponsored ads inside the newsletters?
  
  tsaprailis
  
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  10 years ago
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    If you have a targeted audience (which you probably do if you have a popular newsletter), think about companies who sell to those people and reach out to them. In the Indie Hackers newsletter, I just assumed some of these people might be subscribed, so I literally included a paragraph asking for sponsors and got a few responses, two of which panned out: http://i.imgur.com/EknpPux.png
    
    Courtland Allen
    
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    10 years ago
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    Yes. Subscribe to Ruby weekly or the hustle or other such publications, it's a pretty standard practice and done by many weeklys/monthlys.
    
    Shobhit
    
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    10 years ago
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Hey Taylor, I just looked at the site. It looks pretty cool! Outside of the table view does UXTools provide any other service? Perhaps that's where you can generate an income? Like an email list or tutorials vids? I think that would be valuable. Seeing simple videos for any of these services as a subscription model.

Or perhaps these services has referral/affiliate programs? Could be helpful to check those out and link it up. I know some hosting companies give you credit towards their service when people sign up through affiliates.

Michael Lee

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10 years ago
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  Thanks Michael, the affiliate program is an interesting idea.
  
  Taylor Palmer
  
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  10 years ago
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You could leave it free, or even freemium, but just use it to promote another product/service of yours if you have one

aaronm14

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10 years ago
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Have you researched for affiliate options?

Adobe has one: http://www.adobe.com/affiliates.html

0xsven

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10 years ago
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This comment was deleted 7 years ago

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10 years ago
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  Thomas,
  
  I was initially against doing this, but you have very clearly articulated the need for some sort of landing page/experience. While this is very much aimed at industry professionals, I don't have to limit the market so much.
  
  I don't feel that I have enough traffic to really charge money for it or use affiliate, but I'm having good success with the newsletter I started last week (from the suggestions here) and I hope to grow that. I'm leveraging my blog posts to generate traction for the newsletter (blog posts ~3000/day, site ~500 views per day).
  
  Much thanks for the thoughts!
  Taylor
  
  Taylor Palmer
  
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  10 years ago
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    This comment was deleted 7 years ago
    
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    10 years ago