How to Sell Forms Online

By Louise Balle

There are so many different types of forms that you can sell online to make people's lives easier. If you have a law background, or just a knack for creating standard forms, you can start a nice online business selling them to consumers who you never even have to meet. Many people search on the Internet for standard forms to download like rental and eviction forms, sample contracts that can be customized, vendor forms and application forms that can be integrated into a business.

Create your forms in a standard word processing program like Microsoft Word. The form should be easy to edit as you might need to make changes to forms you will be offering online later on.

Convert your forms to PDF format. If they are fill-in forms, use Adobe Acrobat to create form fields in the document that can easily be filled in online and printed by the user (see Resources for more information about creating fillable forms in Acrobat).

Zip up your files to be delivered to customers online (optional if you are selling just one form per transaction). If you want, add a password to each zip file as an added layer of protection and have the password automatically emailed to the person who orders the form.

Open a PayPal account to accept payments online instantly. You can also contact a credit card merchant services provider to get your own personalized merchant number. Also open a Paypal account since it integrates well with services you may need to complete transactions.

Establish a simple website to display and sell your forms (see Resources for an example site). Purchase a hosting plan that allows you enough bandwidth to accommodate all the forms that will be downloaded from the site. Create a simple homepage that gives information about your small business and a clear listing of all of the forms available for download. Create an informational, descriptive page for each form. Write each page with SEO, or search engine optimization, in mind (see Resources for basic SEO concepts).

Sign up for an account with Payloadz.com. This site offers convenient file delivery services for a fee. When you use Payloadz, a unique activation key will be generated for each customer and the IP address will be logged to ensure that no one except for the purchaser can download the information from the site. This is the best option if you are concerned about your forms being shared. Clickbank.com also offers a similar paid service.

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