Do Something Once and Keep Getting Paid
Build Online Assets That Pay You
Over and Over Again (I’ve done it)

Ever wonder how people are making money while they sleep? This guide will show you exactly how to turn a simple website into a passive income machine. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to expand what you already have, you’ll learn the step-by-step strategies for earning online—from choosing the right niche to using AI tools lto create high-ranking, money-making content faster than ever.

Ready to unlock your earning potential? Let’s dive in.

NOTE: This is a book I wrote a little while ago. I’ve now updated it, gave it a great new twist, and it’s now available for free, so enjoy.

What is Passive Income Using Websites?

Making passive/autopilot income sounds really fun. You’ve seen the offers out there, right? They say that it’s “push button” and just “3 easy steps” and things like that.

Is it true?

It MAY be true in some cases but that’s usually not the case… sorry.

There is, however, something pretty close.

In my experience, to get passive income going, you need to do some work but it’s really just a bit of upfront work. Once that work is done, it takes very little work to maintain it. During that time, you’re getting a passive income.

So, it’s 2 main steps:

• Set up your system
• Earn and maintain

With maintenance, you’re talking about 2-3 hours per month (maybe less), which is very reasonable.

Even when earning passive income with other things like rental property, there is maintenance work that has to be done to keep it going. So, doing maintenance is expected, and as long as that can be kept to a minimum, you’re good. Be careful with any systems that claim they are “set and forget” because that’s just not how it typically works in the real world.

This guide will explain to you how true passive income websites work, so let’s get down to facts and keep it as simple as possible.

With any passive income website you build, you ideally need:

• Website setup (including a domain name and hosting)
• Content
• Traffic
• Ways to monetize that traffic
• Maintenance

People will come to your website, and one, main reason people go online is to find answers to things. That’s why informational websites are one, good type of passive income website to create. We’ll get into the types later.

Next, let’s talk about my favorite part of passive income websites…

Stop Trading Time for Money

I love this concept!

Think about a job where you clock in, do your work, clock out, then get paid or just receive a paycheck every 2 weeks for the work you’ve done.

You did the work once and you got paid once for that work.

Pretty standard, right?

You work for someone else and you’re helping them run their business. Most people have these kinds of jobs.

What happens here is:

Time = Money

For the time you put in, you got paid for it.

Let’s change that around…

What if you did something just once, and then kept getting paid for it – over and over?

When that happens, you stop trading time for money. It’s not an equal trade anymore.

Instead of what everyone’s used to, it looks like more like this:

Time < Money

The time was just done once but now, money is greater since you get paid for it more than once. The two are no longer equal.

It’s not an even trade. Money becomes worth more than your time.

Think about this… everyone has the same amount of time in a day. We all get 24 hours. If you’re rich or poor, it doesn’t matter. Time is the great equalizer because it’s the same for everyone.

During that 24 hours, you can:

• Work 8 hours and get paid for it
• Do work during that 8 hours and get paid for it every day going forward

It’s better to keep getting paid, of course.

There’s something important to understand that’s not taught too well in schools today and it’s something everyone should know…

The difference between an asset and a liability.

• Assets pay you
• Liabilities are things you have to pay

Sometimes things can be both an asset and a liability (often called “depreciating assets”) but let’s leave that aside for the moment to keep things simple.

An asset would be like owning a vending machine. Sure, you have to put in time and money buying products and loading them in but when you pay $0.50 for a candy bar and sell it for $1.50, you’re making money. It pays you. That’s an asset.

Other kinds of assets are:

• Rental properties
• Stocks
• Bonds
• Certificates of Deposit (CDs)
• Savings account
• Mutual funds
• Retirement accounts

With these, you get paid in the form of rent or interest.

Having your own business is an asset, too.

On the other hand…

Liabilities are things you pay for. You might get some use out of them but they’re bills you have to pay.

Some examples of liabilities:

• Your cell phone bill
• Cable/Internet TV bill
• Eating at a restaurant
• Loans
• Credit card interest
• Taxes
• Your electric bill
• Paying rent

The goal is to have more assets than liabilities. To be financially successful, you need to have more things paying you than things you pay.

If you spend your time on things that pay you over and over, you’re building assets.

Here’s another example…

Let’s say you have some space in front of a building you own where there’s lots of traffic going by every day.

You then do the work once of building a billboard.

Going forward, people (advertisers) pay you over and over to put their ads on your billboard.

Your billboard is an asset because it keeps paying you.

If you set up 20 billboards in different places, you’d be making lots of money.

This is how people get rich… with the time they have (24 hours in a day), they build assets. Instead of just getting paid for their time once, like everyone else, they build things they keep getting paid for.

Instead of rental properties or billboards, there’s a cheaper way…

Websites!

Types of Passive Income Websites

There are a number of ways to build websites that are an asset – ones that pay you income passively.

I’m sure you’ve seen a number of them out there:

• Membership websites
• Websites with advertising on them
• Website directories
• Websites with affiliate links
• Shopping websites with physical products (maybe)
• Shopping websites with digital products
• Cost per Action (CPA) ads
• Collecting leads and selling them
• Webinars (auto-play)
• Long-form written sales letters for products
• Forums

Is taking surveys passive income?

No. You’re doing work.

I just saw a website claiming taking surveys is passive income. No, no, no. They’re not. You can make money but it’s not passive.

Have you joined websites where, if you refer others, you get paid? That’s affiliate marketing and it’s a good form of passive income.

In that list, I listed selling physical products as passive income and it mostly is. You would have to be drop shipping items so you don’t keep things in stock (where you have to do the work of shipping them).

Even then, there’s some customer support you need to do, so unless you find some sweet deal where you don’t have to do customer service, selling physical products is really not passive (but can still make you money).

With membership websites and other websites with ads, you’re going to need content.

Coming up with content… is not easy or very fun for most people.

I’m just being honest. It’s terrible.

Even with a forum, you need some starter content to get people there.

You may need to hire writers or write the content yourself.

So content is an issue that we’ll get to.

Two chapters ago, I mentioned…

With any passive income website you build, you ideally need:

• Website setup (including a domain name and hosting)
• Content
• Traffic
• Ways to monetize that traffic
• Maintenance

With items 1 (setup) and 4 (monetization), that’ll be set up once or changed once in a while only.

We already talked about item 2 (content) and we’ll get back to that.

The remaining items are traffic and maintenance.

Maintenance is just updating the website software (in most cases, you need to do this) and adding some content to help make sure the website content does not get stagnant/old.

So that just leaves traffic. We’ll get to that later, too.

For right now, let’s get into how to build it…

How to Build Passive Income Websites

To build a passive income website, you’ll need a certain kind of website that’s easy to add content to. The best choice is usually WordPress.

WordPress powers about 25% of the Internet. You’ve been to WordPress websites before. They can look and be just about any kind of website. WordPress is a tool. It’s software.

With setting up WordPress, you’ll need a theme (the design) and plugins (extra software) along with a domain name and hosting.

Here are your startup costs:

• Domain Name $9/year
• Hosting $9/month
• WordPress FREE
• Themes $0-47/year
• Plugins FREE

TOTAL COST: $18-65 (1st month) $9/month

Compared to other kinds of passive income like property, websites are dirt cheap.

Getting them set up just takes a few hours – compared to months with property.

What About Content?

Yes, I mentioned content before.

For any of these kinds of passive income websites, you’ll need content:

• Membership websites
• Websites with advertising on them
• Website directories
• Websites with affiliate links
• Shopping websites with digital products
• Cost per Action (CPA) ads
• Collecting leads and selling them
• Webinars (auto-play)
• Long-form written sales letters for products
• Forums

It is possible to buy pre-made websites with content already done for you. The problem with that is, Google knows when website content is original/unique or not. Buying a pre-made website with content that’s done for you means Google won’t have a good reason to rank that website high since the content isn’t original.

So, if you go with a pre-made website with content, you’ll need to buy all or most of your traffic. If you don’t have that kind of budget, then it’ll really just take too long to get traffic organically/naturally.

But, there is an option where you don’t have to write much and you still get traffic. That’s coming up.

What About Traffic?

With traffic, you can either:

• Buy it (like I said)
• Wait for Google to rank your website

With ranking, you could be waiting a long time.

If it’s a new domain name, you’ll need to wait 4-6 months or more to start doing SEO too heavily or it won’t look natural to Google.

So, you’re kind of stuck with paid traffic…

Or are you?

We’re getting to that solution in a minute…

Making the Money

This is the fun chapter!

With affiliate marketing, you can expect to make from $50 to $500 per month or more.

That’s the kind of monetization I like.

I also like to build an email list. This is a list of people I can blast an email out to anytime I want. When you do that, you’re helping take Google out of the equation so that all your traffic and income doesn’t completely depend on Google.

With an email list, you can expect to make about $1 per subscriber per month – that’s the generally accepted amount. A list with 150 subscribers is an extra $150/month in your pocket.

Running ads on your website might be in the $40 to $150 per month income range. I like this method, too.

Let’s add it up:

• Affiliate marketing $50 to $500/month
• Email list $1 per subscriber
• Advertising $40 to $150/month
• TOTAL: $90 to $650/month
• +$1/subscriber

If you have a list of 150 people: $240 to $800/month

That’s for one website you set up once and then do some light maintenance for.

I have to say this isn’t typical but it entirely depends on how you set up your website and the effort you put in. Results may (and will) vary.

For passive income websites I have, I am earning within this range.

Is There Any Ongoing Work?

With WordPress, it’s software running on your hosting, which is a web server (a big computer), so you need to maintain it.

There are core updates that come out 4 times a year or so along with theme updates (not too often usually) and then plugin updates (out weekly).

Doing these upgrades/updates has gotten easier and easier over the years. They usually just take a few minutes each week as long as you have good hosting that takes backups for you.

If you skip doing updates, your website WILL eventually get hacked into. Notice I didn’t say “if” – I said it will eventually happen. I’ve been hosting websites for years and years and the websites that are behind on updates get hacked while the sites that are up to date hardly ever do.

And, like I said, adding 1-2 articles a month will help keep your website and content up to date. If you skip doing this, your content will eventually get old and you’ll lose any traction you have with traffic.

All in all, you’re probably looking at 2-3 hours of work per website once it’s up – maybe less.

Maybe a LOT less…

Conclusion

Wait! Conclusion?

Oh, I promised you some answers… didn’t I?

Let’s jump back again…

With any passive website you build, you ideally need:

• Website setup (including a domain name and hosting)
• Content
• Traffic
• Ways to monetize that traffic
• Maintenance

The question is… how do you QUICKLY and EASILY come up with content that gets you traffic almost immediately?

If that was solved, then setting up 5, 10, 20, or more sites would really make sense, right?

Just use A.I.

Using AI to Write SEO-Friendly Content

One of the most powerful tools for building passive income online today is AI content generation. When used strategically, AI can help you create valuable, SEO-friendly articles that attract traffic and generate revenue with minimal ongoing effort.

Start by choosing a topic you’re genuinely interested in—ideally something that falls within the evergreen categories of health, wealth, or relationships. These are broad categories with long-term traffic potential. But don’t stop there. You’ll need to niche down and solve a specific problem within that topic. Ask yourself: what’s a problem you’ve solved recently? What did you search for online? If it’s something others are likely searching for too, that’s a great starting point.

Let’s say you recently figured out how to stop your smart TV from tracking your activity. That could become an article titled: “How to Turn Off Tracking on a Smart TV (and Keep Your Data Private).” You’re providing a solution to a real-world problem, and that’s exactly the kind of content search engines love.

Once you have your topic, here’s how to direct AI to write high-quality content:

1. Write a clear prompt. Be specific with what you want. For example: “Write a blog post about how to turn off tracking on a Samsung smart TV. Include step-by-step instructions, reasons why people might want to do this, and tips for increasing privacy.”
   
2. Structure it like a winning article. Include an engaging introduction, scannable subheadings (like H2s and H3s), bullet points, and a clear conclusion. Ask AI to do this for you or use an existing structure that works.
   
3. Use keywords naturally. Provide AI with the main keyword you want to rank for, and any “People Also Ask” questions that appear when you Google that phrase. Ask the AI to include answers to those questions.
   
4. Aim for completeness. The best SEO content fully answers the reader’s question and adds extra value—like tips, examples, or even a downloadable checklist.
   
5. Edit like a pro. Read through the content and tweak it. Add a personal anecdote or recommendation to make it unique. AI gives you a great draft, but your final polish is what will set it apart.

AI won’t do everything, but it will get you 80% of the way there—fast. Combine it with your own insight and you’ll have content that works for you day and night.

Done right, AI-powered content creation lets you build a traffic-generating site that brings in passive income over time. You don’t need to be a pro writer—you just need to start solving real problems for real people.

Want the Cheat Sheet?

Go to SEO Writing and use their Super Page tool. It’ll write the best blog posts you’ve ever seen.

Use AI to Build SEO-Optimized Pages with SEOWriting.ai’s Super Page Tool

If you’re ready to take your passive income site to the next level, SEOWriting.ai’s Super Page tool is one of the most powerful AI tools available. It’s not just a content generator—it’s a competitive analysis engine that helps you build pages strategically based on what’s already ranking in Google.

What is Super Page?

The Super Page tool lets you create long-form, SEO-optimized pages designed to rank. Here’s what it does in a nutshell:

• Analyzes top-ranking competitors for your target keyword so you can see what content performs well.
• Builds an outline based on what Google already loves—so your page is structured for success.
• Lets you input instructions, location targeting, and even brand voice to tailor the content to your goals.
• Includes built-in call-to-actions (CTAs) like affiliate links, buttons, and phone numbers to drive action.
• Supports local SEO features like maps and address information to boost conversions for service businesses.

Ways to Use Super Page

Here are just a few real-world examples of what you can create using the Super Page tool:

• Affiliate Product Comparison Pages – Compare top Amazon products with “Buy Now” buttons and strategic keyword targeting.
• Local Service Pages – Showcase a business with accurate contact info, maps, and phone CTAs that help generate real leads.
• Transform Old Content – Paste in any URL and Super Page will rewrite it into a fresh, unique, SEO-friendly article.
• Listicle Posts with Embedded Videos – Automatically pull in YouTube videos that support each point in your list.
• Travel Guides with Affiliate Monetization – Highlight destinations while embedding travel gear links, hotel bookings, and more.

Instant Optimization and Publishing

Super Page doesn’t stop at writing. It also:

• Checks your content score against live Google competitors.
• Shows you what to add or tweak for better rankings.
• Publishes directly to your WordPress site with one click—no copy/paste needed.

Start Using Super Page to Build Revenue

If you’re looking to grow your SEO traffic and passive income with smarter, faster content, give SEOWriting.ai’s Super Page a try. It’s ideal for affiliate marketers, local business owners, and anyone creating SEO content that needs to rank and convert.