How to Turn Your Hobby into a profitable business (In 5 Steps)

Mar 30, 2022

Many people are spending ever more of their hours doing what they love. These activities are usually in collaboration with other people. If you've got an area of in your field or a passion for it and are wondering what you can earn out of it.

Chances are, you can. possibility that you could.

A membership site can allow the creation of a an income that is passive from your interests. Additionally, it allows you to create an online community to maintain your interests in your field.

In this guide we'll discuss the reasons you ought to consider turning your pastime into an online business. In the next section, we'll show you how to build your members-only website in five simple steps. Let's get started!

The Reasons to Consider Turning your hobby into a profitable business Online

A membership site has hidden information that's only accessible to paying subscribers or registered customers (or both) due to the paying wall. If you have a hobby website that is only accessible to members that you offer unique material to people who share your niche interests and passions.

For example The orchids made Easy "Green Thumb Club" enables orchid enthusiasts to improve their skills and join an online community:

A hobby-based online business will allow you to earn passive income. It's because after setting up your content and establishing your website, you will continue earning money through registration fees as well as ongoing subscriptions.

The value of the worldwide hobby market is predicted to grow to around $545 billion in 2023, so there's an excellent opportunity for long-term profits.

Affiliate Marketing Opportunities

  • In the role of you are an affiliate marketer as an affiliate marketer, you sign up with other companies to promote their products through special link (affiliate links) on your web pages. Every time one of your site visitors completes a sale or other action by way of your affiliate link, you receive a percentage of the sale.
  • When you manage an affiliate marketing program of your own and you are a part of it, you make income from the other side. The affiliates join the program you have created, and use the affiliate links that you offer to promote your products or services. Once a visitor is successful in completing a sale or other action by way of that affiliate link, you pay your affiliate a percentage.

The Community Building and Niche Support

Finally, a membership site designed for those who enjoy hobbies can bring people to one another. If your interest is very particular, then your website can become a place for sharing that allows users to connect and share their enthusiasm.

Not only are communities great for supporting your passion, they're also proven to improve the engagement of members, improve sales, and decrease member churn.

Definition: Membership churn is the reverse of retention. It refers to the rate of members leaving an online community, website an organization, company or because of subscription cancellations or deferred payments.

Hobby Website Example

With Cake Craft School A multi-talented artist, "Bea", teaches students her passion - learning the technique of fondant (sculptable frosting) modelling. This site offers models, 70 tutorials, and 400 step-by-step videos.

Cake Craft School manages its enrollment with , offering monthly, quarterly, and biannual access for students.

How to turn your hobby into a Business With (In 5 Simple 5 Steps)

The first step is to have the basic WordPress site in place. The good news is that WordPress is extremely simple to set up.

READ WPBeginner's Ultimate Guide: How to Create an effective WordPress Website - Step by Step

We strongly recommend this content management system (CMS) because of its customizable options and connectivity with hundreds of plug-ins (including ! ).

After you've got your base WordPress site set up then you're set to start.

Step 1: Design Your Members-Only Content

Here are some excellent topics for content ideas on hobby websites (and they're all possible by ).

Video

The most popular content type out in the present, which means investing time in the creation of video content will be worthwhile.

Be aware that you do not need a fancy and expensive video equipment to record excellent video content. Check out the article below to start quickly and without a lot of investment.

Online Classes

If you've got videos You've got the tools you require to develop and market online courses. It's the perfect way to make money from your website for hobby purposes. Through the Courses Add-on comes with it which makes it easy for any person to create and sell online classes, including quizzes, and the ability to track progress.

But your lessons don't have to be video-based. It is possible to create written lessons using screenshots too. This is all dependent on what works best for your needs and interests.

Whichever way you choose to format your classes You should consider creating courses for people at different levels of proficiency such as learners who are a complete beginner to master potters who are eager to learn new techniques. By doing this, you can greatly expand the potential of your audience.

Forum for Members Only

It's the reason why having a feeling of belonging is shown to keep people coming back to get further.

New York Times best-selling writer, travel enthusiast, and blogger the Nomadic Matt gives an inspiring case study. There is a VIP section that other travellers can seek help, discuss their experiences, and stay connected with the travel passion.

Online Store

Through his store, site users can shop for all sorts of fun travel-related items like ebooks, books as well as travel guides.

Although Matt's website doesn't offer the item, merchandise like cups and mugs can be excellent products to help boost your profits and create your brand's recognition.

After you've laid out your content strategy laid out then you're ready to set up the plugin up and running.

2. Install and set up the plugin

Head across to your WordPress dashboard and download and activate your plugin. Click on plugins, add plugins and upload the plugin. Select Select File and choose the .zipfolder with the filenames:

After installing the plugin, you can click activate to finish the procedure. Then, head to > Settings > License to input the license number and then activate your subscription.

3. Start Setting Up Your Membership Plans

Now it's time to establish the membership programs. The plan names will depend on the theme of your particular site. In the screenshot below it is the name of the membership that would work for a knitting hobby site.

In this case, for instance, you'll decide the price for the plan, its kind of billing, as well as its time-of-access. All of this information will be available to prospective customers, which is why it is advisable to invest some time into writing persuasive sales letters for the membership.

When you're happy with your plans, click Publish. If you want to offer several membership levels, you can set them up following the same procedure. For example, you might offer lower plans to people who do not have a lot of experience and more costly ones to more engaged users.

Check out the process of creating memberships In (PLUS A SETUP IN OVERVIEW)

4. Establish Your Membership Restriction Rules

Now, you'll establish rules that govern your content (another way to say "set the paywall"). The rules will decide those who have access to specific content and pages as well as who isn't. This is essential when you are looking to differentiate content between different membership levels.

The first step is to go to > Rules > Add New. After that, you'll be able to define access restrictions for your restricted content:

The content you choose to publish can be categorized in accordance with posts, pages, categories, tags, or groups. Then you can set access rules for your memberships and members or roles.

As an example, you could decide that only content in the class "beginner" can be accessed by your cheapest membership plan.

Once you're happy with your conditions for access, click on save the rule. You can create the number of restrictions you require, then edit the rules later on if you want to change.

Your users need a way to register for your membership site. Therefore, you'll have to add a registration button to your website menu.

On the dashboard of your WordPress dashboard, click Appearance > Menus > Manage Live Preview. Scroll down and select menus, then All Pages > Add Items. Select the drop-down menu next to Memberships Select your option to add it to your menu.

Then, the existing members require a means to log in to their accounts. You can enable this by creating the login page of members of your database.

Select Settings > Pages. Choose the drop-down menu below Login Page and choose Auto Create Page. New Page:

If you'd like to alter your login page then click Edit and you will be directed to The WordPress Editor. Once you're happy with it then click Update Options to save the changes.

That's it. You now have a functioning membership site for hobbyists!

Learn >> HOW to customize the LOGIN PAGE

Conclusion

There are many people who are spending greater time to hobbies or specific passions. If you're passionate about a particular activity, you can monetize the passion by creating an online community using an exclusive members-only website.

In summary, you could turn your hobby into an online business taking these actions:

  1. Design your exclusive material for members.
  2. Start your Hobbyist Membership programs.
  3. Establish your membership restriction rules.
  4. Add your members-only site's registration link and login page.

Do you have any questions regarding how you can turn your passion into a profitable business online? Let us know by commenting below in the section for comments!

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