Letโs talk about passive income
Something that everyone can get excited about!
In this article, we are going to look at the following:
- Whether passive income is a realistic goal for your business model
- Advertising income and how much traffic you need for it
- Affiliate Income and why fitness coaching is a perfect platform for It
- eBooks โ how to write your way to a side income
- Turn your coaching experience into a useful course
We will show you how to earn yourself a second income.
Are you ready to start?
I will rely on my 10+ years of experience in the business to help guide you on this journey.
Check out your website’s most lucrative passive income sources today!
A genuine passive income will help you to take more risks in other aspects of your career.
This will help you not to rely solely on your Personal trainer’s salary.
Make sure to take the quiz to get a good idea of which personal trainer certification is right for you.
But does passive income exist?
And if so, what are the best ways to earn from it?
Passive Income: Fact & Fiction
Truly passive income does not exist.
Unless you are inheriting money from your family, all income streams require varying levels of effort, usually front-loaded.
What do we mean by that?
If you are creating a course or selling a book, you must use quite some effort initially.
But once you have made your product available, you can generate income with minimal effort.
At least, that is how it works in theory.
However, you still need to promote the product and some form of maintenance to ensure that the quality is still there, and after a while, the product may stop selling.
Which means you would need to update the product.
The idea that you can sell something without effort is wrong and quite harmful.
Please do not take that to mean we donโt think that passive income is impossible, nor do we believe you should avoid it.
Do not expect to crank out one product or service and immediately retire!
Now that we have got that out of the way let us look at how to generate passive income.
How to Make Passive Income
The rest of this article will be dedicated to finding passive income streams that work and the best way to generate passive income within the fitness and nutrition niche.
Advertising
One of the best ways to make passive income is once your website has sufficient traffic.
Placing adverts on your site is one of the easiest ways to generate income.
However, there are several caveats to this.
Unless your website attracts many unique visitors every month (30-40,000), you will get unlikely profit from advertising.
This means you must create plenty of interesting and SEO-friendly content.
So, going down this route is not passive.
It requires a lot of work!
If you have very few visitors, you might be tempted to start advertising anyway; sure, you might only earn a couple of dollars per month, but every little helps, right?
Well โฆ not exactly
Adverts can slow down your site, and they can also diminish the user experience.
You must have tried to access an article online, only to encounter too many adverts till you abandon the mission.
You do not want this on your site!
Our advice would be, unless you have a minimum of 5,000 visitors per month to your site, steer clear of adverts for now.
It could be putting off actual clients, and you will not earn much.
However, advertising makes a lot of sense if you aim to build a successful blog and a personal trainer.
There are several different companies that you can use; each one suits certain visitor numbers.
Google AdSense
One of the easiest advertising platforms to start with.
AdSense by Google is a great choice for newer blog owners as it has no minimum visitor numbers criterion.
You could get approved even if you only got 5-10 people per day.
Of course, your income will be tiny, and as we pointed out earlier, it is a question of whether it is worth doing.
AdSense is probably best done if you have decent visitor numbers, but they are not high enough for the bigger advertising companies.
Exclusive PTP CPT Offers |
||
---|---|---|
Gold Standard Cert | Most Popular Cert | Best Study Materials |
A Good Option | A Good Option | Best CPT for you? |
Ezoic (which we will look at next) requires 10,000 unique monthly visitors before you can sign up.
If you are stuck on 8,000 per month, then AdSense may be worth using.
We would probably advise doubling down on your content and promotion so that you can hit that 10,000 visitor mark, though.
Ezoic
The ideal advertising platform for websites that are starting to gain an audience.
As we mentioned, Ezoic requires a minimum of 10,000 unique visitors per month to your site.
This is a seriously large number of people. You will not get that organically without putting in a LOT of work.
But if you have done the hard work, signing up for Ezoic could help you earn a decent passive income.
You can earn around $6-8 per thousand visitors to get up to $80 monthly.
You wonโt be able to retire off this, but thatโs almost $1k extra yearly income with little work.
Increase your visitor numbers further, and you could make $200-500 monthly!
MediaVine
The biggest and best advertising platform out there, provided you have enough traffic.
If your website manages 50,000 unique visitors per month, you will make a decent income using Ezoic.
About $400 per month.
But once you hit 50k, you can sign up for MediaVine.
Not only do they offer a better user experience, but they also create more value per visitor.
They average around $15 per thousand, meaning you would make $750 monthly with MediaVine.
This is a real income; at this point, you should consider spending more time building your website than other parts of your business.
See, this is the thing with passive income.
You donโt want it to be passive if it is successful.
Because it becomes more lucrative the more time you spend on it.
Affiliate Income
This next income idea is the first thing that most people consider when looking at how to make passive income online.
Earning affiliate income is another trusted method of making money from your website.
Again though, it requires a lot of effort, promotion, and serious writing skills!
You also need a large audience.
If you have a big enough audience for advertising (see above), you have a big enough audience for affiliates.
You can either create articles for affiliate products, usually review articles, or casually drop affiliate links into your normal articles (though you MUST mention that the link is an affiliate).
A mix of both works well. Just ensure that most of your content does NOT contain affiliate links, as this can affect SEO and ranking.
Affiliate income is one of the best ways to make passive income on your site.
Once you have put in the work, there is little that you have to do.
Just make sure that people are reading your content.
In this section, we will look at some of the best affiliate companies.
CJ Affiliate
They are one of the biggest and oldest affiliate companies, but are they right for you? CJ Affiliate was founded in 1998.
It has offices all around the world and has ties with some of the biggest companies out there.
The downside?
CJ Affiliate does not have a well-made website, and its user reviews are pretty poor.
It is also most suited to North American businesses, so it may not be worth your time if you are from anywhere else in the world.
Does that mean that CJ Affiliate is not worth signing up for?
No.
They are a huge company with many excellent businesses that you can work with.
Rakuten Affiliate
Payment may be slow, but Rakuten Affiliate is still the most well-known affiliate company in town.
Another golden oldie in the affiliate game, Rakuten affiliate, has been around since 1996 (when it was called LinkShare).
In many ways, Rakuten Affiliate is an improvement on CJ Affiliate.
It has better software and a better reputation online, and it can compete with the number of businesses that work with it.
However, one massive issue with Rakuten is payment.
Some users report waiting 10 weeks between payment and receiving the money in their accounts.
10 weeks!
That is on top of the (up to) 60 days it can take for the company to make payment.
Exclusive PTP CPT Offers |
||
---|---|---|
Gold Standard Cert | Most Popular Cert | Best Study Materials |
A Good Option | A Good Option | Best CPT for you? |
This is fairly standard for affiliate income but definitely on the slow end.
If you are making consistent profits, then you wonโt even notice.
But at first, it can be very frustrating.
Amazon Associates
Whether you like them or not, it would be crazy not to work with Amazon.
The most well-known affiliate program in the world and one that everyone should try.
The reason?
Amazon has massive customer trust.
Almost everyone already has an Amazon account, and knowing, liking, and trusting are so important.
This means that there is a better conversion rate.
Also, because Amazon sells everything, people clicking your link are more likely to purchase many other items, increasing your income.
Amazon affiliate is simple to set up, the company is reliable, and you will get a lot of clicks/conversions on your affiliate links.
Are there any downsides?
If you had asked us pre-2020, we would have said no.
But recently, Amazon completely battered its affiliate program, cutting profits in half.
They now have one of the worst affiliate rates in the online marketplace.
They are clearly trying to distance themselves from affiliates (who built their business in the first place), and things will probably worsen.
Should you get an Amazon affiliate account?
Yes, but this should fill the gaps left by other, more profitable affiliates.
Viglink
Not as well known as the others, but an excellent choice for personal trainers and fitness websites.
It also offers a great solution for Personal trainers looking to make money from sports equipment.
Why?
Well, Viglink boasts Dickโs Sporting Goods as a company with a very generous affiliate program.
They promise 5% on each sale. Think about that the next time someone is searching for a brand-new treadmill!
There are many other affiliate networks out there. We recommend searching for companies that suit your website and then finding which affiliate network they are a part of rather than the other way around.
Then you will want to write articles that review โBest treadmill for lower back painโ or โTop ten treadmills for sprinting.โ Even one treadmill sale at 5% could make you a decent income.
Are you wondering how to make residual income through writing? Here is one way โฆ
eBooks
If you enjoy writing, then eBooks are a surprisingly effective way to make passive income while establishing yourself as an authority.
After a year or so of writing blog posts, your ability to write will have improved massively.
Ensure your articles are well-researched, contain excellent stock images, and use correct grammar (within reason).
Once you do that, your blog posts’ readability will increase dramatically.
You can then turn your hand to writing eBooks.
Most personal trainers write eBooks as lead magnets to capture emails.
But it is possible to make a decent passive income from this.
Chase Andrews details this subject in his book โHow to Make $100,000 in Passive Income and Travel the Worldโ.
The idea is to find subjects people search for on Amazon and write eBooks.
Luckily, fitness/nutrition is an extremely popular subject.
You then title your book to suit this search and write it out.
Get someone on Fiverr or Upwork to design a kickass front cover, then sell it on Amazon.
You can make even more money by publishing it as an actual book.
This works well with a big email list and social media following.
You can promote your book in that or offer it at a discounted rate to people who sign up for your courses/training.
Get everyone who buys it to write a glowing review on Amazon, and soon your book will sell itself.
Most people would stop there, but you can repeatedly repeat this process, bringing out a book every few months.
Once you have ten or so, you should make a decent passive income.
Also, having multiple books gives you authority.
People will respect you more, and you can convert more people into clients.
Courses
Courses are similar to eBooks in a lot of ways.
You are repackaging your knowledge and selling it.
Think of a course as an interactive book.
You will need to use more videos, and there will be more interaction with clients, but also โฆ you can sell it for a lot more.
There are lots of cool course-making software programs out there.
Here are a few of them:
Teachable
This is one of the nicest course software companies, with beautifully designed courses available.
It is simple to use, too, though the software plan is pretty expensive.
Only use teachable if you know your course has a lot of interest.
Abode Captivate
What is great about Abode is that it is well known and liked, has excellent customer support, and is almost always high quality.
The downside?
Usually, the price…Surprisingly, Abode Captivate is relatively inexpensive, particularly compared to Teachable.
Podia
In all honesty, this is the first course on this list that suits your needs.
Sure, teachable delivers an amazing experience, and Abode Captivate is inexpensive, but Podia is both inexpensive and easy to use.
Thinkific
One thing that irritates us immediately about Thinkific is that they hide their pricing!
Such an irritating practice; they mention a free trial and expect you to sign up without knowing.
Luckily, we did the extra research, and it just costs $39 per month, roughly the same as Podia and Abode.
Thinkific delivers a gorgeous user experience and is an excellent choice for course software.
Kajabi
The final course software on this list is from Kajabi.
It is a fantastic service, but the pricing is insane.
If you have many people interested in your course, it may be worth it.
But you would probably be better off with Thinkific or Podia.
They deliver comparable quality for a fraction of the price.
What is great about the courses on this list is that they can easily integrate with your website.
Making them appear as if they are part of your website, even though the software company is hosting them.
We have one more passive income idea to look at, and it is one of the most overlooked ways to make passive income.
Check it out below.
Private Label Supplements
Also known as a white label.
Private-label supplements are one of the most interesting and exciting forms of passive income on this list.
Imagine being able to sell your personalized supplement range. Pretty cool, huh?
That is what a lot of companies are offering. Just Google โPrivate label supplementsโ and check it out for yourself.
The company will create supplements based on what you want, ensuring that the supplement is safe, effective, and well-made.
The company will manufacture, label, and ship your supplement to people.
All you have to do is promote the supplement and make your commission.
Depending on the company, the amount of say you will have on how the supplement is made will vary.
Most will make a plain supplement such as creatine, and then you stick your label on it.
But some companies will make the supplements you ask for (provided what you are asking for is legal, safe, and effective).
What is so cool about this form of passive income is that you get all the prestige and benefits of launching your supplement range without any headaches.
If you sell ZERO supplements, then you are not out of pocket.
If you sell thousands of products, you will make a load of money without actually having to do anything.
Perfect!
Final Thoughts on Passive Income Sources
Hopefully, you have found inspiration for following through with some residual income ideas.
Remember, passive income should start as a โside hustleโ but can become the main income stream over time.
There is no best way to make passive income; different ideas will suit different people and business plans.
Find a system that you are inspired by, and dedicate your โfreeโ time to building this.
Focus most of your efforts on your main business, and treat your passive income as bonus work (or overtime).
This will ensure that you are progressing alongside your main income source rather than at the cost of it.
Tyler Read
PTPioneer Editorial Integrity
All content published on PTPioneer is checked and reviewed extensively by our staff of experienced personal trainers, nutrition coaches, and other Fitness Experts. This is to make sure that the content you are reading is fact-checked for accuracy, contains up-to-date information, and is relevant. We only add trustworthy citations that you can find at the bottom of each article. You can read more about our editorial integrity here.