This article is all about the simplest and best digital products to sell in 2021!
Before we start, check out my new course: The 4-Hour Agency – How to start, grow, and scale a 6-figure agency!
Selling digital products is often highly profitable. It’s one of my favorite ways to make money. I sell a variety of digital products that make me thousands of dollars in almost passive income every month!
Whether you’re a blogger or a web business owner, digital products are some of the best products to sell online to make money. In this article, I’m going to share the most profitable, best digital products to sell online in 2021.
Digital product definition
A digital product is any product you sell online that doesn’t have physical form or substance. To deliver a digital product requires no shipping.
Why should you sell digital products
There are a few reasons why you should consider selling digital products.
Just to name a few:
- None of the effort of producing/storing/shipping physical products
- Passive income (just create it once then sell it forever)
- No start-up costs or risks (at most you lose the time you take to create it)
- Can easily create products for any niche or interest (read also: niche marketing advantages and disadvantages)
- Allows you to earn money from home without any investment
- Selling things online is one of the best industries to start a business
- Helps you build an online platform from which you can even sell other people’s products through affiliate marketing
I truly believe that each blogger and online business owner should be creating digital products because it’s such an excellent opportunity. Simply put, digital products are the best products to sell online in 2021!
Read also: How to make money blogging as a complete beginner
How to sell your digital products
First, you’ll need either a website, a landing page, or social media account from which to sell your digital product.
Read: How to Create a Blog on Facebook and Earn Money
Next, you’ll need an e-commerce platform to collect payments and deliver your product. Use easy tools like SendOwl, GumRoad or ClickFunnels because their platforms are designed specifically for selling digital products.
The best digital products to sell
Here are my top 10 picks for the simplest digital products to sell in 2021! Most of those ideas are often applied to bloggers or business owners of any niche. I even have also included real-life digital product examples for every sort of product.
1. Productized services
This is my top favorite because you can get started quickly and make an excellent income immediately.
E-commerce has blurred the lines between product and service but fortunately for us, clients typically don’t care as long as we solve their problems.
Traditionally, services like digital marketing, design, and writing are customized for every client.
However, with “productized” services, you standardize your service offerings and make them into packaged solutions. You can then sell them directly using a sales page. No sales calls, no face-to-face meetings.
If you’re wondering what you can sell online, here are some examples of productized services:
- Online advertising
- Social media marketing
- Online lead generation
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Audio/video editing
- Public relations
- Graphic design
- Writing
- and many more…
To learn the way to create and sell your own profitable productized services, you’ll enroll in my new course The 4-Hour Agency – How to start, grow, and scale a 6-figure agency!
If you prefer to start with services instead of productized services, learn more here:
- How to start freelancing work
- How to start a digital marketing agency
- List of freelance job websites for beginners
2. Ebooks
Ebooks are among the best digital products to sell online. Because you create it once and it generates passive income forever. If you’re a blogger or business owner in any niche, you’ll do well to write an ebook. The ebooks that sell best are usually written like a how-to guide and provide valuable information to your readers.
If you’re just starting, an ebook is a good option for your first digital product. They’re easy to create and sell.
You can even resell digital products – some ebooks are bought with private label rights (PLR) which allow digital product resellers to resell these ebooks at their own prices.
3. Swipe files
A swipe file is simply a brief PDF document or template that contains a proven, effective formula for a common problem. If you’ve got some experience in a particular topic, you can sell a swipe file containing your best-kept secrets.
Great at email marketing? You can sell a swipe file of pre-written sales funnels. Have a knack for getting traffic to your website? Create a swipe file containing your exact strategy and sell it to others.
An example of this is often Rosemarie Groner from The Busy Budgeter, who sells her Core Affiliate Strategy Guide for $64! She has affiliate marketing expertise that other people are trying to master. So she creates a swipe file and sells her knowledge and methods.
The great thing about producing a swipe file is it’s very easy. You could probably make it in a few hours.
4. Online courses
Another great knowledge-based digital product to sell is online courses.
Many people believe that successful online courses are about blogging, marketing, or making money online. While it’s true that there are many courses out there on those topics, you can achieve success with an online course in any niche!
You can sell an online course on almost any topic as long as you’re providing value and teaching something useful to your target audience.
Your online course can include written lessons, video lessons, worksheets, cheat sheets or a mixture of all these.
5. Online coaching/mentoring
If you’re very knowledgeable about a certain topic, there will be people who want to tap on your expertise.
You can customize the coaching by hosting one-on-one lessons or group mentoring.
Some topics that you could leverage your knowledge on and coach for include:
- Health and wellness
- Finance and accounting
- Digital marketing
- Programming
- Presentations
- Time management
- Leadership and management
- Writing
- Etc.
Once you start getting clients, they will help you grow by giving good reviews and testimonials.
So start getting those first clients quickly – even if you have to do it for minimal compensation or even for free. Just make sure you let them know you would like a testimonial (text or ideally, video) after you’re done with your first session.
Websites like Clarity.fm or GrowthMentor are ideal to create a profile as a mentor/coach.
Pro Tip: To get a sense of what niches are hot, visit Udemy and look for popular courses. People want to learn about those things.
Check out: Starting a consulting business
6. Stock photos
Have an eye for photography? Selling stock photos might be suitable for you. All you need is a good camera and photo editing software.
There’s an enormous market for stock photography. Everyone from bloggers to business owners to social media managers is trying to find the right photos to post on social media or use on their website.
When starting, you’ll probably want to leverage platforms like Shutterstock to sell your photographs.
Do a bit of research on what kind of photographs sells best and see if this is something you could do. Look at what’s available out there already and see how you can differentiate yourself or fill a gap.
7. Audio
Audio is a powerful medium of communication that informs, entertains, or shares information.
Modern and easily accessible audio tools and software make 2021 an excellent time to start selling your audio products.
Audio digital product ideas include the following:
- Songs
- Beats
- Covers
- Podcasts
- Recorded Lectures
- Audiobook
Look at different ways you can utilize sound to make valuable downloads for your customers. You can offer free short sample downloads in exchange for users’ emails, building your email list.
You can use sites like Soundcloud to allow users to upload songs or podcasts, and users around the world can stream that content.
Or sites like Bandcamp, where you can sell your music to your fans.
8. Printables
Printables are a very fun digital product to sell! Printables are digital files you create for people to print out and use.
Here are just a few printable ideas:
- Workbooks
- Planners
- Gift tags
- Art prints
- Lesson plans
- etc.
You can use software like Adobe Illustrator or even simple apps like PicMonkey to style your printables.
9. Templates
You can create and sell templates for a variety of uses: resumes, media kits, logos, social media posts, etc.
A great example of templates is social media templates from Bluchic. They are designed to be used with the graphic design program Canva, but you can also create templates to be used with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
10. WordPress themes
If you’re good with coding, consider selling WordPress themes! Most premium WordPress themes sell for $50 to $100 each. You can design themes for a specific audience, for instance, travel bloggers or wedding photographers.
Check out Bluchic for inspiration. They specifically target female bloggers and entrepreneurs who want their website to possess a feminine, chic look.
One thing to keep in mind about WordPress themes is that you may need to make updates to your themes or provide troubleshooting for your customers. This will mean some extra work compared to selling other types of digital products.
11. Graphic design elements
Are you creative and do you enjoy working with programs like Photoshop or Illustrator? If so, selling graphic design elements could be the digital product gig for you. Graphic design elements are any design elements you create including fonts, textures, illustrations, icons, and more!
For example, AngieMakes sells a spread of graphic design elements like floral patterns, clipart, and pretty fonts. These elements are often used by bloggers or graphic designers for creating their blogs or social media graphics.
12. Membership sites
Out of all the digital products on this list, membership sites might require the most time and energy, but it’s an excellent way to earn recurring income.
What exactly is a membership site? It’s a membership area of an online site, forum or Facebook group where members pay a subscription fee to gain access. You can start a membership site for any niche: fitness, parenting, business, digital marketing, etc.
The reason why this is often a time-intensive option is that you need to build a community and produce new content regularly for your members. However, it’s a great income source because you’ll earn a recurring revenue versus a one-off payment.
You can even create a paid Facebook group if you don’t want to worry about the technical aspects of a membership site. Which is what I recommend, especially if you are just starting.
Just remember that the key to a successful membership group is providing valuable content or training that can’t be found for free of charge anywhere else!
13. Plugins & applications
The internet is consistently evolving and people are always coming up with new ways to make things easier or more efficient.
Capitalize on finding solutions to common problems. For example, Grammarly helps people check spelling and grammar, by using a Chrome extension on their browsers.
Take this concept and let your creative mind turn it into a hot product.
You can create a plugin or application for e-Commerce, entertainment, tool integration, language support, and lots of other types that will provide a solution to people’s problems.
Market your new plugin or application on social media and other established platforms where your target audience already hangs out.
If you are a new programmer, you might want to pick up experience via freelance programming jobs first, before tinkering with new ideas for your apps.
14. Software-as-a-service (SAAS)
Even though Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products have been around for several years, Gartner is predicting robust growth for SaaS through 2021. SaaS is poised to grow to $113.1 billion in 2021.
If you’ve got a software idea to cater to a consumer need, now’s the time to enter the industry of digital products.
Ahrefs is one of many SaaS companies within the market. They offer tools to grow your search traffic, research your competitors and outrank them. Software like this helps you gather and analyze data to use it to realize a goal.
Final thoughts
Diving into selling digital products helps you learn how to make money online for beginners.
If you are unsure who you want to target, you may want to check out my list of micro marketing examples (1,000+ of them!).
I recommend starting with productized services as you’ll build an excellent online income quickly (but I’m probably biased because that’s what I did!). If you would like to find out the precise steps you would like to require to make and sell your first productized service, be sure to enroll in my online course The 4-Hour Agency.
Creating digital products doesn’t need to be hard, and when done correctly it is often extremely profitable. For the long term, you want to consider starting an online store from scratch to sell your digital products. Good luck and happy selling!