If you run a physical products business and you’re wondering how you could add new income streams, I’ve got 3 digital product ideas that will work perfectly for store owners selling physical products.

You may not realize it, however you have opportunities that don’t involve:

The best part is these three digital products types can be created with content you likely already have for your business.

A few reasons to create digital products

Selling digital products from your website is a great way to build a passive income stream – you create the product once, and when it sells the work is already done. Any further work is taken up by clever systems, and making sure the content provided remains up to date, and relevant.

Typically, digital products are:

For physical product shop owners, a big advantage to offering digital products is to improve the customer experience as well. Digital products can complement your physical collection, adding a further opportunity for your customers to engage with your brand in a new way, keeping your brand top of mind.

3 Digital Product Ideas You Can Create Today

You’re in a great place to do this

You’ve built a following and brand already for your physical products and you have an audience ready to hear from you. This is highly valuable and although you’ve gotten used to selling physical products, adding in digital products will help you protect your business by creating a new income stream.

Idea No. 1: A digital workshop

Your audience will love learning a new skill from their favourite maker! Offer them a chance to get immersed in your world, designing and creating your products.

You may already have been doing live workshops – this is an easy one to convert into an online format. You record it once, have a professional edit it (trust me editing takes skill and will eat up your time), and sell it as a digital product.

You can sell this workshop directly from your website with a little tech-savvy (check the resources list for ideas), or go the easy way using Thinkific* to create it as an online course. Their starting plan is free to use as it works on commissions for each sale.

Show yourself behind the scenes, and make the experience beginner-friendly. Create your workshop as a follow-along behind the scenes opportunity – satisfying your customers’ curiosity and thrilling them with the adventure of experiencing a completely different world to their own.

For example, how cute is this?!

You’re aiming to sell this to your fans looking for an experience, not someone who is seriously learning how to make the same products. Making it specifically for your customers, as a way to enhance their experience of your products and brand rather than as a tutorial will also protect your business.

Best tip: Pre sell it! Don’t create the video recordings until you have a waitlist for the workshop and taken a good look at your customer feedback. They’ll leave comments on your posts telling you exactly what they’d love to see which will help you create the content, and use the right words to sell it once it’s live.

Idea No. 2: An e-book

It’s highly likely you’ve already got content for this and you don’t realise it!

If your brand is highly visual, create a highly visual e-book with photos of your best work, behind the scenes and create an experience with visual storytelling. Aim for the content to be inspirational or aspirational, inviting your reader into your brand world.

Or perhaps your customers are making a lifestyle change when they purchase your products? Switching to natural products, becoming more eco-conscious, changing their diet, skincare etc? You are an expert in your field and you’ve build trust already, so you are perfectly placed to create an e-book to help them in their transition and lifestyle change.

Bet tip: It’s ok to re-use some of the content you’ve already written on your blog or emails! The objective here is to provide high value in one packaged item of content, beautifully presented. Your customer is looking for your expertise and you are saving them time by condensing it into an easy to read & flick through format.

Extra tip – you could even offer a printed-on-demand option of the book. Not technically fully digital, but pretty passive still as all you need is to connect it to a print-on-demand service.

Idea No. 3: Printables & Digital Files

If yours is an art shop or you use unique graphic designs to create your physical products, could you be selling your art or graphics digitally?

For example:

You already know how to create the art and graphics (if not try Canva* it’s perfect for this), and printables won’t require your customer to print in ultra-high resolution with their home printer.

Organisational printables are especially popular. We all love to get organised – with our family, our businesses, or our personal projects. Offer your customers a means to do it in a stylish way with unique art or graphics from their favourite artist.

Don’t believe me? do a search for digital planner templates or digital planning. I promise you it’s a big niche and there are tons of tutorials to show you how to use your iPad to create such graphics to manage your digital planner. Check out Etsy & Creative Market* for an idea of just how popular printables are.

TL;DR

It’s time to have the talk – the one website owners like to ignore. I have to talk to you about performance & security for your website.

See, usually, when you build your website you pick a host and they sort out the delivery of its content to your visitors so you can just get on with setting it up / running your business. You never really have to think about how it’s done, right?

Website speed is relative

Did you know? the speed your site reaches for you isn’t going to be the same as for many of your visitors.

What that really means is your website is slower to the majority of your ever-expanding user base than it is for you.

When you setup your web hosting, your host assign a server to your account (shared, dedicated, cloud etc). If your site is on a shared or dedicated server based in your region, that means that it loads that much faster for you and your local visitors than it does for someone on the other side of the planet.

Although this is all digital, there’s a physical infrastructure behind delivering your content, and that has an effect on its delivery time.

Big companies & those making a lot of $$$ from their websites (working on it, right?) can afford a cloud hosting solution. But what if you can’t?

In this case, a free CDN like Cloudflare* is the perfect option for your website. This is the solution to relative website speed for most websites.

How Cloudflare CDN works

A CDN (Content Delivery Network) helps your website load faster for your visitors, wherever they are, not just where you are because the content is served to them from a server that is closer to their region.

With Cloudflare* this service is included in their free plan so it is very accessible. If you were to go for a paid plan however, your site content would be served from whichever is Cloudflare’s fastest network path, in real-time.

How Cloudflare helps with security

Cloudflare encrypts traffic going through your website and monitors against trends they are seeing globally so your site is always protected against any new threats they encounter throughout the network.

Check out this video from TechCrunch that shows you how Cloudflare encrypt internet traffic (it’s pretty cool):

How to use Cloudflare CDN

Setting up is very simple – first go to their website here. Once there, click on the Sign Up link at the top next to a big orange button like this:

Follow the steps to create your account. When you’ve done this Cloudflare will ask you to change your domain nameservers to point to them instead of directly to your website host.

This is how they are able to deliver the content for you so go ahead with their instructions.

You won’t have to worry about a downtime while this change is processing – the way this works is even after you make the change, right up until it is active the previous settings continue to apply.

Once you have made the change, however, you will want to go to your WordPress admin > plugins > add new > search for Cloudflare > install & activate

Using this plugin will make compatibility between your site and the Cloudflare SSL a breeze, however, if you need further support, this will be web host-dependent, so you will want to contact your hosting provider.

TL;DR

Ever thought your website was a tad…slow?

Have you run it through a page speed test and felt horror at the results despite your best efforts?

Uh-huh… I get you!

So this week I’m talking about the 3 things I always look at first when optimising a website for speed. 

Truth: Your website host really matters

The cheapest website hosts give you an easy way to publish your site when you get started and funds are low, but their services are cheap for a reason. What you buy from them is the ability to get started, but the resources they allocate to your needs are shared, and they won’t be of the highest quality.

There is nothing wrong with that so long as you use them for the right reason.

If your website is informational or you use if to publish content (blog posts, podcasts, videos) then getting started that way until you can monetize your work is a good idea. I’m all for the sensible approach, but as soon as you get traction you should take a look at your analytics data and decide: is your page speed harming your conversion rate? Or put simply, would reducing the wait time make your site more enjoyable (and easier to get back to) for your visitors?  Are you ready to 

If your business is e-commerce, the reality is you can’t afford to go for a cheap hosting service even to get started. E-commerce is very competitive and people lose interest quickly if the page does not load fast enough. On top of that, you need high quality images and videos for your products to get noticed. You want these to display fast.

A good website host may still offer shared resources, but these will be of higher quality. Speed is a result of the higher quality of resources.

The host I usually recommend is Siteground because they offer an excellent service and when you first sign up you get their introductory rates. The introductory rates mean you can get started for cheap, while receiving high quality services.

Gaining speed from the website itself

The best websites are designed for usability first. Speed means a better user experience.

Be careful about selecting plugins – the way they are coded can impact both security and speed. Some of them will only be used on one page but will be injecting code on every page of the site taking up resources for no reason. Others will overwrite styling with templates (good or bad) taking up further resources. There are many ways in which plugins can slow your site so next time you hover over the install button, do a double take on wether you do need this plugin, and test speed before and after installation so you know the impact.

Your theme & design, in the same way as plugins, will have a big impact. When you select a theme, take alook at what it offers so it’s as close as possible to what you need for your specific business. If you pick a bloated theme you need to override all the time, or if it has too little and you need to add a lod of plugins to compensate then your speed is likely to suffer.

The images you upload should always be optimised. Before you upload images in your site, change the pixel size so it is appropriate (for example there is no reason an image inside a page / blog post should be more than 600-800px usually, or for a full width header image, try it at 1600px – 2000px wide absolute max). To change the size without hassle, use Canva – create a new image in Canva in the size you need and upload your orginal image to fit it into the frame. It’s as simple as doing this then downloading the image from Canva. It’ll be exported to you in a web-ready format, in the correct size. After this, when you have them in the right size, run them through ShortPixel here – try lossless and check if the quality of still good enough. If not re-run them through but on Glossy. Then – and only then- upload the images to your media library. You will see a huge difference from this.

A great onsite caching setup is essential. Caching a site means a local static copy of scripts is loaded to visitors so they don’t have to reload all the code dynamically. Because the code is minimised or campacted it is faster to load. There’s more to it than that and most caching plugins come with options to optimise, but a good caching plugin will have good default settings to get you started.

Free plugins will only get you so far however if you do use one, go for the unbloated, easy to use WP Fastest Cache (in my experience, W3 Total Cache = regular fixing required so I stay away from that plugin, but to each his or her own).

If you want the best, for only $39 you can get WP Rocket and see a huge difference immediately. This is the plugin I use.

Oh and if you’re with Siteground, you get their optimizer plugin for free!

You can take things even further with caching.

Have you heard of using a CDN?

Websites are hosted in a physical location, on a server maintained by your website host or their service providers. When you sign up from where you live with a website host, they assign hosting space from a server in your region (unless you were given the choice and picked somewhere else). 

Your site loads fastest for your region, but your visitors could come from anywhere. 

Sure we’re talking seconds, but it all adds up.

A CDN = your site content is served from the region closest to where your individual visitors are, making it so so much faster for them.

My favourite is Cloudflare, who offer free and paid options with easy setup. If you were to go for a paid plan, your site content would be served from whichever is Cloudflare‘s fastest network path, in real-time. You only really need the free plan to see a big difference unless your site uses alot of resources.

Oh, and you’re probably expecting it by now, but good news with Siteground, Cloudflare can be setup automatically through them… so even less effort for you.

There you have it – 3 tips to speed up your site today even without redesigning your entire website, and without much tech knowledge at all.  

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Have you ever been told that creating a no-distraction, one-click to purchase landing page for your services & products was the answer to increasing conversions… only to find yourself frustrated at how to integrate your landing page & WooCommerce?

If that’s not a one-click checkout, then what is the point of all your hard work optimizing your landing page?

I had an Ah Ha! moment looking for this answer last time I set a product landing page for a client, and found this easy solution which requires no plugin, no extra cost and no code!

WooCommerce doesn’t make it obvious how to “integrate” it with third party landing page solutions (even if it’s just another page on your website where you want to have an add to cart button). But that’s overcomplicating things, which is never good for user experience (or your sanity).

All you actually need is to create a URL that directs your user to your checkout page and tells WooCommerce what product should be on that checkout page for this user.

No extra clicks, no multiple choice questions, a one-click answer for your user who doesn’t have to re-think their decision between the time they first make it on your fab landing page and the time they enter their credit card details on your checkout page.

So here goes – follow these easy steps to create your landing page checkout link:

Step 1. Gather this easy to find information

Your Product ID: Go to your WordPress Dashboard, and on the left-hand side click on the Products tab. Find the product you want to sell. Then, like in the image below, when you hover over the listing of the product you want, the ID will show just under the name

If you are selling a simple product this is all the information you need!

If you are selling a variable product you will also need the following:

Your Product Variation ID: On the products list page in your Admin, click to edit the product you want to sell. In the product data section under your product main description field, click on Variations. Here your product variations are listed and you will only need to select the correct Variation ID, like so (the number that follows a hashtag #):

Your Product’s Attribute + Variation: Hang in there it’s the last step and it’s very easy & quick! I promise Go to your shop page and then to your product page where you will select the variation of your product you want to sell. Add it to your cart and go to your cart page. There, click right on the product name which should be showing as a link back to your product.

Click to copy the the link address and paste this address (url) somewhere else so you can see it. It should look something like this:

https://yourwebsite.com/your-product?attribute_pa_format=digital

The part highlighted in pink above after the ‘/?’, which will be completely different for your product depending on how you have set them up, is what you need to keep here as your last piece of information to create your checkout link. You don’t need any part of the link before that.

Quick tip: If your attribute and attribute names have spaces, the ‘+’ sign is needed instead of a space so the url can work. Don’t remove them!

Step 2. Create your url

So now, if you have a simple product your URL should be this (change the parts in red to your information):

https://yourwebsiteurl.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=Your Product ID

If your product is variable, your url should be this (change the parts in red to your information):

https://yourwebsiteurl.com/checkout/?add-to-cart=Your Product ID&variation_id=Your Product Variation ID&Your Product’s Attribute + Variation

There you have it! This is your link / URL for your landing page. Test it out and use it to your heart’s content.

You’re a landing page ninja now.

One of the biggest mindset changes that comes with working for yourself if how you use your time. You make your own hours, and those hours are not valued by a salary.

When taking on a project, it’s easy to underestimate how easily we drown ourselves under every task. Procrastination, disorganization, overwhelm… you name it. Every diversion from the actions that drive results (inevitably when you run your own business the result has to be $$ money.)

We start full of good intentions. We pick an activity off our never-ending list of tasks and we get going. Soon enough, one thing leads to another and we’re no farther than we were 3 hours ago (or a week ago).

The search for increased focus and productivity

I’m constantly on the hunt for new ways to curb procrastination and disorganization. The truth is that however motivated you are, if your environment is not conducive to focus & productivity, you’ll find yourself distracted.

So here are 5 tools which are part of my go-to setup to deliver results faster, and consistently.

Disclaimer – I use Apple products! A few of the recommendations below are geared towards Apple users. Also, these are genuine recommendations of tools I use myself and I’m not sponsored to recommend them.

Chrome Web Browser

Free – google.com/chrome

First of all, I use Chrome as my main browser – the reason is speed and also the fact that with this browser I can connect my settings to my Google account and sync these settings, including all my preferences, across devices.

I use Firefox & Safari as well, and regularly test websites on Internet Explorer. Out of all of these, Chrome has proven the most reliable & most practical. Another perk, with Chrome I never have any issues with high traffic websites where you need to be quick to get tickets for example.

All in all, the less time spent on browser issues, the better.

Toby – Tab Management Extension for Chrome

Free (with premium features available) – gettoby.com

Do you ever build up a ridiculous list of tabs on your window?

That is one sure-fire way to lose your focus, and become unproductive. Sure, there are ways to self-manage this but when you are busy, tabs tend to creep up on you. Instead, I use the Toby Chrome extension to save lists of tabs as sessions or as actual lists I create manually. All I then need to do is to save my current tabs as a list and open only the ones I need to focus on right now.

I sincerely, highly recommend this if you struggle with too many tabs. This way you won’t need to find that page again among an infinite list, or have to have multiple windows crowding your space.

Gmail for business

Starts from $3.99 – gmail.com

Gmail is my preferred email client, again because of functionality. First, it has this great viewing feature which enables me to show only a minimised, very clean view and to seperate my inbox from promotional emails or priority emails.

I love using Gmail also because I can set rules easily, and combine it with Streak (streak.com) to track progress on enquiries. For someone like me who looks after multiple inboxes, this enables me to quickly and efficiently get an idea of my inbox with a simple glance.

I can also schedule emails to send so I can batch write them when I’m ready and have them send at a respectable hour.

There are many other features within Gmail: one of my favourites is to set VIP contacts (my clients obviously!) and identify their emails quicker.

The best part, however, is the integrations and how easy the account is to manage. When I had to adjust some custom settings and didn’t know how to, I was able to ask the huge community of users who use Gmail for business, and received a response in under 2 hours.

Grammarly

Free (with premium features available) – grammarly.com

This one applies to everything you could write, ever, anywhere. I cannot recommend it enough to increase focus and productivity as it will free your mind up. The free version of this app & browser plugin (comes in various ways) will not allow you to make regrettable typos or grammatical mistakes. This enables you to focus on what you are actually doing and do it faster.

Hemingway

Costs $19.99 – hemingwayapp.com

The single best writing tool I’ve ever found to help with style (not just grammar). This tool gives you a clean & focused writing space while guiding you to improve the quality of your writing style. I use it to write better, easier to read blog posts, and long text form content.

Some of the functionalities within this app are incredibly useful. For example:

• Hemingway is able to publish directly into a WordPress site
• Same for Medium! You can publish directly from the app
• You can send your text from Hemingway to Word or to a PDF format
• You can save your text as a PDF with your highlights, so colleagues can see which parts need further work / have been revised.

These are my 5 basic tools, saving me time every single day and I cannot recommend them enough. Of course, there are flashier, infinite numbers of other tools & extensions and if you know me you’ll know that I try them all, but if you’re just looking to clean up your workspace then this is it.

What are your favourites? What do you use? I love recommendations!

We each run our businesses differently. As a business owner you find yourself needing a broad range of skills just to keep up and that, I’m afraid, is never going to change. It’s part of the fun. One thing you learn fast is that actually, you can’t do it all but it can be hard to let go of control.

I run this business as well as MYTHYN.com, a small maker-run business borne out of my passion for luxurious and natural beauty. I prefer to have the pick of any expertise with flexibility which makes outsourcing the best solution for me.

You know this better than anyone: running your own business(es) is amazing but it can get overwhelming.

Here comes the crunch point:

You have been running your business on your own from the beginning. As time goes on you find yourself with less and less time to innovate, invest in your business growth, do the “fun stuff” or even take a break.

You are doing everything and that’s too much.

I know how you feel – no one else knows how to do this for you. Too true. No one knows your vision like you do. No one can deliver it for you. However, to be able to make this vision happen you are going to need to focus on your strengths and learn to delegate the parts you’re not so good at. Others can’t grow your business for you, but the right system and the right support will make it possible for you to do your thing.

What I outsource and why:

Lucky for me, marketing, technology, and branding are some of my key business strengths. I’m able to learn more about these topics and grow these skills faster than the average. I enjoy it so it’s never a chore.

Unluckily for me, the legal and accounting side of things really are not my strengths. I know that so I’ve learned what I needed to and I outsource the rest of this work.

I’m commercially driven so these are very important aspects to me and my businesses. With that in mind, I make sure I know enough to be able to outsource this effectively to the right service, and that I get the best service, but that is it. This way I do not waste my time and I can focus on my strengths and on my vision.

What about you and your business?

Imagine if you were able to trust someone with those tasks that, while necessary, require a lot of short-burst input daily, weekly or monthly, and distract you from those big projects you’ve been dying to complete.

Imagine if, for those big projects, you could just get out of your own head & have that supportive & knowledgeable help you need to turn a DIY business into pro in half the time.

Imagine that producing this work was not filled with technological stumbling blocks.

Imagine that your work was easier to find, access, and enjoy by your ideal clients.

What could you achieve?

I’m willing to bet that if you set up your business by yourself, then productivity is pretty high on your list of priorities. I’ll wager that you are productive when you are tapping into your strengths.

I’m certain you could achieve greater business growth, fulfillment, and enjoyment of your work.

So… what is stopping you?

Common objections

I feel that I can do most of this myself already, so why outsource?

You can do anything you set your mind to and prioritize. I genuinely believe that. But ask yourself:

• How long will it take you to do it to a level where you feel satisfied?
• Will you deliver to a professional level or to an amateur level?
• What else could you have achieved in that time? Compare your ROI (return on investment) on the two options.

My business isn’t successful enough yet to outsource work.

Building on the first objection, this one is tricky. I get you on this point and the only way to make a decision on this is to decide whether continuing as you are will give you the success you need. Reaching the next step is always going to feel uncomfortable. It should feel uncomfortable otherwise you are not heading for growth. It should feel like the right investment, and it should be measurable.

If you don’t know for sure then start small to minimize your risk. A virtual assistant can help you for a specific amount of time or a specific project you need now only. If you try it out and the investment proves too much of a strain your risk is tiny and you’ll know for sure what your ROI needs to look like to do this again. If it works, you will be able to focus on what you do best going forward and grow your business faster.

Why hire a virtual assistant when I can hire an employee?

There are a few reasons to outsource instead and it all depends on your priorities. A virtual assistant is a great choice if:

• You want to work flexibly with experts who can help you specifically with your current objectives.
• You want to reduce your costs. Hiring an employee means covering tax, national insurance, sick leave, holidays, pension,  software licenses, insurance, data protection, equipment, etc.
• You and your employees are wearing multiple hats. You want to give them the help they need to help them perform in their core role.

You may, or may not be ready to make the investment. If you are considering it, there are some things to take into account when looking for the right help.

How to hire a virtual assistant

When you choose to go from doing it all on your own to working with someone, you’ll find out that it makes you more accountable. You will need to be able to communicate your vision, how you are working towards it, your strengths and weaknesses. You’ll need to explain what it is that you wish to achieve.

And once you know and are able to articulate these points, hiring the right help will be much easier.

You need to know enough that you can tell whether you are making the right decision. The right decision when outsourcing is one which matches your goals and working style.

On a practical note, the right decision when hiring a VA also includes signing a contract which protects both parties. Your VA should be clear on what they can deliver for you, how they do it and what they will need from you to deliver their services.