19

Passive Income Tools of the Trade

I thought it would be helpful to create a resource page that you can always come to for all of your passive income needs. I’ll add to it as I learn more, but you’ll notice that in the future I will reference this page quite often. I recommend bookmarking it for your reference and convenience. Enjoy!

Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links to products that will earn me a commission. These are all things that I have experience with that I am recommending because they are helpful and are companies that I trust, not because of the commissions that I may earn from you using these products.

Blogging

  • Wordpress: The #1 Blog Publishing Platform. Free and easily customizable with wonderful support. All of my blogs use Wordpress.
  • Wordpress Plugins: Download any plugins, widgets, or customizable elements for your Wordpress blog.
  • Woo Themes: The ultimate resource for premium looking Wordpress themes.
  • Revolution 2: Another resource for premium Wordpress themes.

Hosting

  • Bluehost: All of my websites are hosted using Bluehost. Easy to use, 1-click automatic Wordpress installation, and good customer service.
  • PowWeb: Another fantastic and easy to use hosting service. Also includes 1-click Wordpress installation.
  • Amazon S3: The Amazon Simple Storage Service. Reliable internet storage, which is great for putting large files like podcasts and videos, so you don’t create bandwidth problems on your own website.

Product Distribution & Shopping Carts

  • E-Junkie: The shopping cart I use to sell my eBook. It’s compatible with Paypal Standard, Paypal Pro, Google Checkout, Authorize.net, TrialPay, Clickbank & 2CheckOut. Works like a charm, very low price to use. Comes with a decent affiliate program for your products.
  • Clickbank: Another digital products retailer. Probably the most popular. Decently priced, but comes with an amazing affiliate program for your products.
  • Paypal.com: Paypal is just ok for selling your own products through them, but you’ll need an account anyways to configure with and accept payments from the above shopping carts.

Keyword Research

  • WordTracker Free Keywords Tool: Spits out a number for the popularity of a keyword of your choice. Search volume numbers can be compared to find the perfect niche, or to choose keywords for your blog posts.
  • Google Adwords Tool: A tool to help you decide what keywords to use for your Adwords campaigns. You can also check to see the popularity of certain keywords and the competition for ads for those keywords as well.
  • Seo Book Keyword Suggestion Tool: Another fantastic keyword research tool, with even more information and numbers to compare and select the perfect keywords.

Advertising Stuff

  • Google Adsense: Make money by placing relevant ads on your website that are generated from advertisers using Google Adwords. This is free to use, but you have to register for an account.
  • Google Adwords: If you want to begin advertising on Google, you can select keywords and locations and you pay each time someone clicks on your advertisement.

Email Subscriptions & Marketing

  • Aweber: The internet’s most powerful email opt-in service and email marketing/broadcasting tool.

Testing Results

  • Google Analytics: Google’s free website tracking and analytical tool. A must have for anyone with any type of website.
  • Clicktale: You can use clicktale to watch actual recordings of how people use your website. It is actually like watching their own computer screen, so you can then optimize your website if you don’t like what you see. You can view a small sample of website viewers for free. It will cost more for a larger sample.
  • Google Optimizer: This is another free tool from google where you can test different webpages of the same content, only changing one or two things, so you can see which one works/converts best. It’s basically a website optimizer testing tool.

Outsourcing Work

  • Elance: Hired service for just about anything you can think of.
  • Odesk: Another outsource website for freelancers, IT companies, programmers and web designers from abroad.
  • 99Designs: This is a unique website that you can use if you need a logo design. It’s in a contest format. You submit the description of what you want, and designers will compete against each other to win money.

Health Insurance

  • eHealthInsurance: Here, you enter your information, and it generates a number of different health care plans for your particular situation with a variety of different prices and specifications.
  • The National Association for the Self-Employed: NASE has a variety of different benefits to it’s members, including a unique, customizable health insurance plan for the self-employed.

Legal Stuff

  • LegalZoom: Easy online incorporation or LLC creation.

Books

For eHow Users

If you can think of any more great tools and resources, please feel free to leave a comment below. I will review it and add it to the list.

Posted on : December 9th, 2008

Related posts:

  1. New eHow Page on The Smart Passive Income Blog
  2. How to Publish an Ebook Series – Part 5 – Tools and Automation
  3. The “How to Tell if Your Ideas are Good for Online Passive Income” Checklist
  4. The Smart Passive Income Brand and Plans for the Future
  5. Generating Passive Income from Passive Income
  • Share

Enter Your name and email to get Free Instant Access to my complete guide to Publishing, Marketing, and Automating a Killer eBook. You will also get my weekly newsletter with tips that you can't find here on the blog. Learn more...

19 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)

  • Reply Dusty on December 9th, 2008 at 6:12 am

    Nice little write-up. I had started a similar post but never got around to finishing it. I did not think, however, of including books or hosting. I will have to bookmark this page for future use.

    Dusty´s last blog post..Bukisa Earnings: Experimental Blogging vs WriterGig

  • Reply Cyn on December 9th, 2008 at 9:02 am

    Great information, Pat. A lot of people don’t know how lucrative adsense can be. People assume it’s a nickel-and-dime waste of time. I’m here to tell you that –across my several blogs– adsense is a no-brainer, no-fuss way to earn my mortgage payment (and then some) each month.

  • Reply Will on December 9th, 2008 at 10:06 am

    This is a great resource page! I really need to improve my skills at choosing the right keywords.

  • Reply Tight Fisted Miser on December 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am

    This is a great list of resources. I use a lot of them but there are some I need to check out.

    Tight Fisted Miser´s last blog post..FBN Roundup- Final Semester Registration Edition

  • Reply Sarah H. on December 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    Excellent collection of resources, Pat! I’ll be checking some of them out for sure.

    Sarah H.´s last blog post..Houseplant Hacks – Seven money-saving tips when buying houseplant supplies

  • Reply Erica on December 10th, 2008 at 5:04 am

    Thanks, I’ve noted e-junkie as a possiblefuture resorce.

    Erica´s last blog post..The Future of Work for Mums

  • Reply Ryan on December 10th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    Hi Pat! Thanks for giving us all these great tools! I am just starting to dive into my pursuit for financial freedom. I really appreciate all the info you have in your blogs.

    Ryan´s last blog post..Funniest New Show!!!

  • Reply Jessie Ann Heekin on December 11th, 2008 at 10:08 am

    Wow, you’ve created quite a resource. Keep it up!

    Jessie Ann Heekin´s last blog post..Twitter, freelance writing, my new business, and how it all happened in 10 steps

  • Reply Quoc Bui on December 11th, 2008 at 10:42 am

    Very good stuff! Bookmarked for future reference =)

  • Reply Quoc Bui on December 11th, 2008 at 10:50 am

    I might have to take you out to lunch one of these days so you can school me on some seo stuff =). Also odesk is another good resource for outsourcing work. Nothing beats a phillipino programmer for $5/hour! LoL jk….

  • Reply Pat on December 12th, 2008 at 2:17 am

    Thanks everyone for your comments.

    @ Quoc, I checked out odesk, and it seems very promising. I’ve put it in the list – thanks! I’d definitely love to go to lunch sometime. Let me know when you’re free.

  • Reply Maria -- WriterGig on February 7th, 2009 at 12:27 pm

    Excellent resource list, Pat. I use eJunkie for my ebook as well and am very happy with it — and its so cheap! I use HostGator for my hosting though, tried Blue Host at one point too. Good stuff!

    Maria — WriterGig´s last blog post..Free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide from Google

  • Reply Matt Jabs on April 17th, 2009 at 11:13 am

    Thanks for this Pat!

    Congrats on all your success w/online income. Your story is very motivational and is just another reason for me to continue my push to become debt free, and diversify my income!

    I’ll be stopping by more often & of course would appreciate a visit from you.

    Thanks again,

    Matt Jabs aka DebtFREEk!

    Matt Jabs´s last blog post..Interest Amount Paid – Establish a Proper Relationship with Your Debt

  • Reply Weekly Wisdom about Scripture, Income Diversification, Proper Priorities and More! | Debt Free Adventure! on April 17th, 2009 at 11:47 am

    [...] earning passive online income and has put together an excellent resource for our benefit entitled Passive Income Tools of the Trade where he gives a laundry list of the tools he used to help him earn almost $30,000 of online income [...]

  • Reply JIMMY on May 3rd, 2009 at 8:40 pm

    ohh?nice post but really?/? :P

  • Reply Madeline Smiles on June 6th, 2009 at 7:39 am

    I got to this site while looking for imfo to improve my Internet marketing skills and I’m glad that I found it. You are providing good quality all-round info that will be very usefull to anyone in this field.

  • Reply Tools of the Trade on June 24th, 2009 at 2:09 am

    found your site on del.icio.us today and really liked it.. i bookmarked it and will be back to check it out some more later ..Thank you! This is a great site to improve my Internet marketing skills and I’m glad that I found it.Love reading your blog, keep it up.

  • Reply Christina Crowe on July 18th, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    Nice list. I like concise lists like this. I have bookmarked this page, and will be glad to go through all the different and useful links in the world of setting up a passive income.

  • Reply Ben Livingston on July 28th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

    Hey Pat, great site! Just thought you’d like to add a couple things to the resource list.

    http://www.surveymonkey.com/ — It’s a great site to put together and distribute online surveys about future products and ideas.

    http://www.disk.com/ — A great site for the distribution of products, like DVD’s, Cd’s, and so forth. In case you decided to sell your products in this form.

    http://www.vistaprint.com — A printing service site for any kind of printable media. Great for advertising and marketing in the real world.

    http://wahmhosting.com/ — CHEAP web hosting and plans for beginners or those wanting to test ideas.

    Hope someone can find some use for these great sites.

Leave a Reply