Hi everyone, this is Anne with Graphic Design How To, and today I'm going to tell you five
things I wish I knew starting out as a passive income graphic designer.
So first I want to talk about what passive income is.
Usually it means you create something once, you do the work once, and you continue to
get paid for it over time, hopefully forever.
But with graphic design, it's not really this way.
Because you have to keep on putting work into it.
You have to keep uploading new work all the time, so that your old work that's already
on a website doesn't fall in the rankings.
So that's not exactly passive income, but I think it's the best word for it.
I think of a savings account as more a true version of passive income because you just
put your money in there, and then they give you interest, and you don't have to do anything
else as long as you keep your money in there.
So it's a little bit different, but there are definitely some things I wish I knew before
I started.
So let's get into that now.
Number one: The first thing I wish I knew is that consistency is key.
It helps your artwork get seen more, which will help you have more sales.
And every site has a different algorithm that will help some products get ranked higher
or lower based on a lot of different factors.
But consistency, I think, is one of the ones that they focus on a lot.
So what that means for you is, you need to create something very consistently.
So let's say you create a product every day, and you upload every Wednesday.
That is very consistent.
You'll have seven products, and you'll upload on the same day every week.
So let's say you can't upload that many.
You can't create that many.
So you do one product a week or three products a week, but I would choose the same day to
upload them at least.
So maybe a Thursday or whatever.
Just pick something and stick with it.
Number two: SEO is everything.
SEO means Search Engine Optimization.
And for you, that will mean creating titles, keywords and descriptions that will help your
product get found.
So this is how websites are able to bring people in.
People type a search phrase and your item will come up if you have the right SEO.
So it is how you get found.
It is the only way to get found other than just direct marketing.
So make sure your SEO is on point.
Number three: Don't worry too much about what other people, your friends, and other graphic
designers think about what you're making.
A lot of people don't understand why we make what we make, and they might not be the audience
that would buy what you're creating.
Just keep creating what you know your audience wants.
So if they want little pictures of garden gnomes, give them garden gnomes.
Number four: A little money is better than no money at all.
I make stock images.
And I put those stock images on about 10 different websites.
And some of those do really well.
But some of those websites don't make very much money per month for me at all.
In fact, one, I very rarely make a sale on that site.
But I figure why not put it up there?
It takes probably about 10 seconds to upload that same artwork that I'm putting on all
the other sites, and a little bit of money is better than nothing.
You can also think about the fact that it might be in its infancy, that website, and
it might be growing.
So over time, you can see your sales increase there, but you'll never know if you don't
have your products on there.
So just upload to every site that makes sense for you.
Number five: Don't get too discouraged if you're not making a lot of sales right away.
This is something that actually builds over time.
You need to keep putting new work on, and if you have good quality work and good SEO,
you will make sales.
I can almost guarantee it.
This is something that it takes a long time to see a positive return on your investment.
And by return on investment, I mean the number of hours and the amount of time it took to
actually create all the artwork.
It could be years.
And that's okay.
That is what passive income is all about.
It takes time.
You build and build and build.
And finally, after a few years, you have enough work to actually start having a pretty nice
income month over month.
Bonus tip: Don't be afraid to start a new product line, even one that you have no experience
with at all.
Do a lot of research, find out as much as you can about that product, and then just
jump in and create it because your customers will let you know what you're doing wrong.
I have some experience with that.
I create SVG files, and those are files for Cricut or Silhouette, and those are cutting
machines.
So these are die cut files.
And when I started, I didn't even own a cutting machine.
But I knew I wanted to create the files.
I procrastinated for so long because I worried that I was selling something that I didn't
know what I was doing.
But my customers helped me out with that.
They told me anytime I screwed up, and I was able to fix the files and get them good files,
and I just wish I'd started sooner.
So don't be afraid to start something new.
It could end up being something really awesome.
All right, that's my video for this week.
If you liked it, please click on the 'Like' button.
And I also have a bunch of other passive income videos if you like this one, and I'll leave
those in the description below.
All right, I'll see you next week with another graphic design tutorial.
Thank you!!!