Creating digital products to sell on your blog can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be!
You don’t have to spend hours creating digital downloads to give away as opt-in freebies or to sell on Etsy or your blog.
It is really easy to get started!
There are many options that require little to no design skills, you simply take the information you’ve already published on your blog and make it pretty in a program like Canva.
Need ideas?
Here are six digital product ideas that will work with your blog, no matter what your niche is or how long you’ve been blogging.
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What Are Digital Downloads?
Digital downloads are electronic “paper” items that you can download and use or print off.
Many people love digital downloads such as planners, calendars, lists and more because they are cheap and easy to use.
Instead of buying paper products, they can buy digital versions that get instantly downloaded and then print them off as many times as they like.
Other digital products to sell on your blog are not printable.
These include stock photos and courses.
If you are looking for an awesome side hustle you can do from home, then digital products are for you.
Creating digital products to sell on your blog can create an awesome stream of passive income once you are established.
You only need to make the digital downloads one time and then sell it many times.
Where Can You Sell Digital Downloads?
There are two main places to sell your digital downloads.
- Your Own Website or blog
- Etsy
Selling Digital Downloads On Your Blog
Yesterday I attended a webinar from a famous blogger who mentioned that last month she earned over $100,000 selling digital downloads on her website.
The nice thing about your own site is that you will get to keep a lot of the profits rather than having to pay listing fees.
Don’t have your own website yet? It is easy to get one up and running in minutes – here is a step by step tutorial that shows you how to start a blog for less than $5 a month.
If you already have a blog then you can skip right down to the best digital downloads to offer on your blog for free or for sale.
Selling Digital Downloads On Etsy
Etsy is a great place to start your digital download empire.
In fact, there are many people running Etsy Printables Businesses and earning six figures.
Opening your own Etsy store is completely free and you just pay listing fees.
If you haven’t started your own Etsy store yet, you can get 40 free listings by opening your store at this link.
You can then follow this guide to How To Start An Etsy Store Successfully
Tips For Making Digital Downloads To Sell
There are a ton of free programs that you can use to make your digital downloads.
For all the details on the best programs to use and tutorials on making digital downloads read this post: How To Create Digital Downloads To Sell
Top 6 Digital ProductsTo Sell On Your Blog
1. Meal plans and shopping lists.
If you’re a food blogger, selling meal plans is a great way to add an extra income stream to your business.
You can give a sample meal plan as a freebie/opt-in to get your readers on your email list.
Then, send out an email each week and be sure to mention your awesome meal plans and how much time they’re saving everyone!
You can create simple meal plans in Google Docs, or get a little creative and design them in Canva.
Canva has tons of templates you can use to create meal plans, grocery lists, and more.
Make sure to check the Canva license if you are planning to sell your items on a blog.
Turn your most popular posts into meal plans.
If your most-visited blog posts are Air Fryer recipes, make an Air Fryer meal plan.
If they’re keto, make a keto meal plan.
How To Find Digital Download Ideas
- What do your readers want?
- How can you create a bundle of meal plans
- Can you create meal plan service where your readers pay by the week or month and get a new meal plan delivered every week (or month)?
2. Cheat sheets and PDFs.
Everyone loves PDFs!
Whether it’s a cheat sheet about adopting a minimalist lifestyle, or cooking times for the InstantPot, they go crazy on Pinterest.
Look at the most popular posts on your blog.
To do this, go to Google Analytics and select a time frame.
I like to look at the past year, because trends tend to be seasonal.
Though there are exceptions to the rule and anything can go viral at any time, I find that looking at past analytics can give you an indication of what the next year will look like.
Knowing your top ten posts, are there any that match up?
If they’re in the same category, you may be able to create a cheat sheet that you use as an opt-in for multiple posts.
After you get people on your email list, you can upsell them on a bundle of cheat sheets.
How To Find Cheatsheets for your blog
- Which posts can you add cheat sheets to?
- How can you improve your posts with an opt-in?
- Which topics can you create an entire bundle of cheat sheets for?
3. Monthly Membership
One of my favorite recurring income streams is a monthly membership! It doesn’t get much better than consistent bank deposits every single month.
There are many ways to do a monthly membership.
If you’re a food blogger, you could offer new meal plans every month. If you’re a travel blogger, you could offer top secret travel itineraries you don’t offer publicly.
You may have heard of a blog called 5 Dollar Dinners.
She runs a program called 5 Dollar Meal Plan where people pay for a subscription to a weekly meal plan delivered digitally.
If you are a food blogger, this is the kind of thing you can aspire to.
Any type of “insider” information you can share, along with printables or even videos, will keep your readers hooked month after month.
Make sure it’s worth them paying for something each month.
People love to be part of a club, so give your monthly membership a cool name!
If you are running a membership site, make sure to be on time.
People will be expecting their regular delivery and won’t be happy if they don’t get it.
Be sure to load great content ahead of time, just in case something comes up.
If you promise to have new content loaded up on the 1st of each month, have it ready at least a week ahead of time, and all scheduled out – the emails and everything!
That means if something comes up and you can’t get online, or you just want a break, you can take it.
What Kind Of Membership Can You Offer?
- What do your readers need on a regular basis?
- Why do they need it?
4. Mini Courses
You might not think you are an expert at anything but the truth is learning to design and sell a course online can be a really lucrative way to earn an income.
Mini courses are a simple way to grow your authority in any niche, and help your readers along the way.
Again, look at your top posts for inspiration.
What do you love to talk about, help people through, etc?
If you’re a lifestyle blogger that talks about getting out of debt and saving money, you are going to change lives by sharing your tips!
Food bloggers offer courses on a variety of topics, but you can teach a broad topic or a tiny one.
For example, if you write keto recipes, you could do a mini course on getting started with keto.
Do a few short videos, add some cheat sheets, and funnel them into larger courses when you’re ready.
Don’t worry if your topic has been taught before.
Your readers aren’t paying for the information, really.
They’re paying to be taught by you!
They trust you because they read your blog and you’ve helped them in some way, so they want more!
What Kind Of Course Works For Your Blog?
- Is there anything on your blog that you can expand on?
- What questions do readers ask most often?
- How can you help your readers through the next steps to solving those problems?
5. Full Courses and ebooks
If you have a few mini courses under your belt, it’s time to try a full course!
Full courses don’t have to be super long with dozens of videos, but they do need to be more thorough than mini courses are.
Think about the problems you regularly solve on your blog, and dive deep.
If you write about organization, or living a minimalist lifestyle, you may want to create a course walking your readers through the steps of purging all of their junk, and organizing each room in their house.
The best courses I’ve taken combine video content and written content.
Keep in mind that everyone learns differently, so providing audio and video content as well as written content will be most beneficial in the majority of niches.
Bonus – add a workbook to your course
People love workbooks to go along with courses.
Bundle your course with a workbook for extra value.
Each lesson can have a page or two for your students to work through.
If you haven’t created a workbook yet, you can do so easily over on canva.com.
They have several templates you can use.
Really want to impress your students?
Make sure your PDFs are fillable, so they don’t have to print them unless they want to.
You can make PDFs fillable by using PDF Escape.
6. Stock Photos
One of the best digital products to sell on your blog are stock photos.
Obviously, you need to have a knack for photography but stock photos are always in demand.
You can sell your photos individually or offer a membership where there are monthly releases of new photo packs.
Personally I think a membership is the way to go as you will have guaranteed income potential.
Creating digital products to sell on your blog – Final Thoughts
If you run a blog, then you should consider creating digital downloads to sell.
Not only are they a great source of passive income but they add value to your readers and help you build a loyal following.
If you are not already making and selling digital downloads on your blog, then what are you waiting for?
More Tips For Selling Printables
Start Your Own Etsy Printables Business
How To Create Digital Downloads To Sell
