4 ms·

Ask HN: How can one make money with Wordpress and the like

5 points by quietthrow 13y ago

I see a lot of people in this community indicating Wordpress as one of the sources of making some amount of passive side income (1K+). My question is word press is a relatively mature platform what are the gaps that people can make plugins for to make money. Can you identify some specific items/tasks that one can do to generate some passive income. If your answer is tied to a different 'ecosystem' besides wordpress please indicate that too.

thomasreggi 13y ago
I see it as a divide between either having a client / designer relationship and making a custom theme or website, alternatively you could make a theme and sell it on something like Theme Forest(http://themeforest.net/ http://themeforest.net/).
t0 13y ago
There's huge demand for packaged themes and code. You can go with Envato or one of the smaller stores like CreativeMarket or Binpress.
zachlatta 13y ago
I've had a lot of luck setting up a Wordpress installation for clients and putting a modified relatively inexpensive theme on it. I make it very clear to clients that they're getting a (slightly) modified theme and not a custom design.
- quietthrow 13y ago
  How do you find these clients ? Also do you do this on the side or is this kind of work your full time job ?
  - zachlatta 13y ago
    I do this on the side. I currently work full-time at Run Games, a small indie game studio. I started out doing freelance web development for people I knew personally. I'd set a price, usually ~$300 because I'd feel guilty if I took any more, and spend the time to make a custom website for them. They'd recommend me to a friend and I'd do the same thing over again. I quickly realized this wasn't sustainable, so I experimented with raising my rate substantially and doing Wordpress sites with a theme for people. As it turns out, my clients didn't notice a different in the quality of my work and liked having a CMS they could use (over a Jekyll-esque thing I had set up for myself). So, to sum it up, I recommend starting small with doing themed Wordpress sites for local businesses and offering low rates. You're going for recommendations at this stage. Once you have clients approaching you, you can start to raise your rate.
SamadKhan 13y ago
its really simple, you can make your own wordpress theme like others, if you know photoshop and basic about HTML/PHP, you can re-edit others theme, and make it yours, em webdesigner and sometimes my clients request for cheap website, i make der website in BLOGGER, and patch 10$ domain to blogger and made it static pages... ;)

5 points by quietthrow 13y ago

thomasreggi 13y ago

I see it as a divide between either having a client / designer relationship and making a custom theme or website, alternatively you could make a theme and sell it on something like Theme Forest(http://themeforest.net/ http://themeforest.net/).

t0 13y ago

There's huge demand for packaged themes and code. You can go with Envato or one of the smaller stores like CreativeMarket or Binpress.

zachlatta 13y ago

I've had a lot of luck setting up a Wordpress installation for clients and putting a modified relatively inexpensive theme on it. I make it very clear to clients that they're getting a (slightly) modified theme and not a custom design.

quietthrow 13y ago
How do you find these clients ? Also do you do this on the side or is this kind of work your full time job ?
- zachlatta 13y ago
  I do this on the side. I currently work full-time at Run Games, a small indie game studio. I started out doing freelance web development for people I knew personally. I'd set a price, usually ~$300 because I'd feel guilty if I took any more, and spend the time to make a custom website for them. They'd recommend me to a friend and I'd do the same thing over again. I quickly realized this wasn't sustainable, so I experimented with raising my rate substantially and doing Wordpress sites with a theme for people. As it turns out, my clients didn't notice a different in the quality of my work and liked having a CMS they could use (over a Jekyll-esque thing I had set up for myself). So, to sum it up, I recommend starting small with doing themed Wordpress sites for local businesses and offering low rates. You're going for recommendations at this stage. Once you have clients approaching you, you can start to raise your rate.

SamadKhan 13y ago

its really simple, you can make your own wordpress theme like others, if you know photoshop and basic about HTML/PHP, you can re-edit others theme, and make it yours, em webdesigner and sometimes my clients request for cheap website, i make der website in BLOGGER, and patch 10$ domain to blogger and made it static pages... ;)