Are you wondering to yourself “can I sell digital downloads on my website”? If so, I have some good news for you. Not only can you sell digital downloads, but you can also sell a whole range of digital products which can make you some cold, hard cash!
Many people are discovering how they can sell downloads and other information from a website they already own too. So if you already have a website, and traffic, why not turn that traffic into money? Whatever your website topic, you can do this in a couple of main ways:
- Create a digital downloadable file/product you can sell automatically
- Join an affiliate program and sell other people’s products from a banner/link
By far the quickest and easiest route is to sell other people’s products with a business model called affiliate marketing. You can even sell physical products too, without having to personally own, handle or ship them yourself using this method.
Have you heard of Amazon.com? You have probably bought things from Amazon? Well, Amazon have one of the most popular affiliate programs. Anyone can join Amazon’s partner/affiliate program and link to items from the site. Join here in the UK or here in the US. Once someone purchases an item from your banner or link, you receive a commission based on the sale.
Sell Digital Downloads On My Website
Digital products are popular too with affiliate marketers. (See also the most profitable digital products you can sell). With a digital downloadable product, you can earn considerably more as an affiliate than you can with physical products. That’s because downloadable products, or digital products which can be accessed online carry no delivery, handling or manufacturing costs. Those savings can be passed to affiliates instead; since they are doing the bulk of advertising for many digital product owners.
To find digital products in your particular topic, you can look on sites such as Clickbank.com. Clickbank has thousands of products you can use. Simply join a program and put a banner on your website. When your visitors make a purchase of something, you earn a commission.
To sell products from your website, you will need to choose carefully. You don’t want to choose a product which has nothing to do with the topic of your website. Think about who is already visiting your site and why. If you carefully align a product which your visitors will find useful, you’re much more likely to make sales than if you put just any old product on there!
Clickbank has thousands of products you can sell in many subject areas. To browse through the marketplace, you’ll need to create a Clickbank account. The main categories on Clickbank include: health and fitness, E-business & E-marketing, Spirituality, New Age & Alternative Beliefs, self help, Home & Garden, Cooking Food and wine, Green products, business and investing.
Browse through the catalogue of products and find one which you think is suitable for your website. Then click on the “Promote” tab and collect your unique identifying affiliate link.
Many programs will already have a bunch of marketing materials too, so you can use them to promote the product directly on your site.
Sell Digital Downloads On My Website: Selling Your Own Downloads
If you have something you own which you want to sell, you can do that too quite easily. Firstly, you need to create your digital product, which can be something like an ebook or pdf file. This can easily be done on a laptop, using only free software. If you don’t already have a pdf creator, there’s plenty of free pdf creators available online. Just do a web search for “free pdf creator” and you should be able to upload a Word document (or similar) file and create your pdf.
To sell your product from your website, you can use a simple Paypal button. You’ll need a Paypal account to do this. Log in, click on pay and get paid, and then click on Paypal Buttons. Or Google “paypal buttons” while signed in to your Paypal account. Choose “Buy It Now”.
You’ll then be taken through a process to set up your payment button. Click on “customise advanced features” and add your pdf document page where your visitors can download your document from your website. You’ll also want to create a page for “abandoned cart” to take people to if they decide to abandon their purchase mid way through.
Once you have created your button, you can put it on your website. Ideally, make it visible on every page so more of your visitors will see it. It’s also a good idea to make this a “sales page” where you showcase your product in a favourable light.
Getting More Traffic To Your Website
Unless you already have a lot of website traffic, you might struggle selling digital downloads from it. To get more traffic to a website you can either build a lot of content, or pay for advertising, or both. For more on this topic see my recent article how to sell digital products online.
If you’re going after traffic for free, you’re going to need to create (and promote) a lot of content on your website. This takes time and is labour intensive. But once you have a lot of content, that content will start generating traffic (if you do it right). This means you can earn income passively from the work you’ve already done! If you don’t have the patience for this (or the time), you can use paid advertising to send targeted visitors to your website.
This can be tricky (and expensive) if you don’t know what you’re doing. For more info and access to training and support in building an income online, checkout this free video series.
