Generating an extra $500 to $1000 a month may seem impossible right now. But in this article, I’m going to show you different online side hustle ideas that have the potential to be highly profitable. Let’s begin!
My Top 7 Online Side Hustle Ideas
Here are my top 7 online side hustle ideas, I have tried all of them, and I had success with all of them on different levels, in each side hustle I am going to comment on what is my experience with it and who I recommend.
1. Blogging
Blogging is one of my favorite side hustles, to be honest with you, at this moment I have 12 blogs including this, and each blog is at a different stage of development.
5 of them are fully functional and make money, 3 of them are fully working but not monetized yet and the rest are already designed and installed but have no content yet.
The good thing about blogging is that you can start at a very low cost, even for free ( I do not recommend this option but if you are really broke you can start here).
In order to start a blog, you need to decide what will be the main topic of your blog, buy a domain name and hosting, install WordPress, and start posting content in it.
You can follow along with my process of starting and monetizing a blog here.
After 2 to 6 weeks you will start seeing people visit your blog and from there you can monetize it with affiliate marketing, display ads, sponsored post, etc, the sky is the limit.
I share 10 ways to make money with your blog here.
You may not see an immediate ROI or return on investment in blogging, but the good thing is it’s pretty much passive income when you start getting some traction.
The sky’s pretty much the limit when you think of the income you’ll get when your blog gets a good amount of traffic from search engines and social media.
If you like writing and you have $10 per year for a domain name and at least $10 per month for the hosting then you can go with blogging, but remember it will take time to start making a significant income, so if you are in a hurry to make money, probably you can look for a different side hustle.
2. Affiliate marketing
This is the main source of my online income, for me, this is the easiest way to make money online, basically, you can select a product, get an affiliate link and promote that affiliate link in less than 10 minutes and start making money (disclaimer: if you have an email list and/ big social media following this can be done, if you are a beginner probably it will take you a long time that that).
In order to start making money will affiliate marketing you need to pick a niche, select a product, get affiliate links, and start promoting the product using your blog, Youtube, social network, etc.
You can promote your affiliate links on your blog or your social media accounts. Just make sure you promote something that’s going to actually add value to your followers.
Although affiliate marketing is easy to start, if you do not have a big following online it can take a long time to make a profit, you need to be patient.
I will not recommend it to a new person who is in need of quick cash, but if you can put in the work and be a little bit patient, this is a very lucrative online business.
If you want to learn how to make $100 to $400 online using affiliate marketing click here.
3. Video Marketing
I am just starting my journey in video marketing, actually, you can help me out if you can check out my Youtube channel here.
You do not need to be very technical to start your video marketing journey, if you can read this post, probably you have everything you need to start your video marketing journey.
I use my smartphone to record myself, sometimes I just record the screen and add my voice to the process, edit a little bit, and upload it to Youtube.
For recording you can use any smartphone, the only recommendation I have is to use the back camera, as usually have a better resolution than frontal cameras.
For screen recording, you can use OBS Studio. I use Camtasia for screen recording and edition, you can read my full experience here.
You can promote sponsored products via video marketing. You can do video reviews and tutorials on YouTube and monetize them with ads and affiliate links.
4. Social media influencer
I have built a large following in social media, especially Twitter, the secret to becoming a social media influencer is to find a topic that people are passionate about and create an account around that topic.
What you will do initially is find other influencers in your niche, study what type of things they post, and post similar content.
Another thing that worked for me is that I will go through each thread of big influencers in my niche and responds to the questions their followers have, the issue is that most influencers do not have time to answer everything in their post, so you can take advantage of answering those questions and inquires if you provide good values those people will start following you and this way you will increase your follower count.
When you’ve got a considerable following on social media, and you get pretty good engagement rates on your content, then you’re technically a social media influencer. You can easily command premium rates from brands who want to do business with you.
If you want to learn more about how to make money on social media, click here.
This side hustle will need a lot of effort, if you are starting from scratch it can be very stressful, and I think the return on investment is not as big as other side hustles on this list, but if that is something you enjoy you can give it a go.
5. Social media manager
This works well if you have some experience in managing your own social media account, but your account is not big enough yet to make a full-time income.
The issue is that most businesses do not have a social media strategy, so you can create one for a local business, or a local celebrity and start from there.
This is what I did back then, I created a social media marketing plan for a solar energy company and when I presented it to them, they hired me as their social media manager.
Not all businesses know what to do with their social media accounts. As a social media manager, you have the opportunity to make a significant impact on businesses.
The great thing is you can have many different clients at the same time because it’s relatively easy to automate social media activity.
This is a cool side hustle, it does not need a lot of time, if you have some social media account management or building experience, you can easily land a side hustle as a social media manager.
6. Sell information products
If you have some knowledge or experience in anything, you can create your own digital product and sell them, for example, you can create a video course or an ebook on dieting, cooking, how to meet women/men, fishing, etc
Selling eCourses and eBooks is very popular nowadays. It’s relatively easy to create content like this, and it’s easier to just outsource it to freelancers who can write faster and better than you.
My first digital product was an ebook on how to start a blog, I was selling it at $7, I remember waking up each and every morning being very excited reading messages from JVZOO.COM, telling me that someone has bought my ebook, this can be addicting.
Selling a digital product is a lucrative business, but you will either need money to hire someone to create the materials for you, the content, sales pages, etc, and/or time to create all those things by yourself.
7. Freelance work
If you are broke, this is where you should start, as long as you have a skill that someone is willing to pay money for, you can start making money immediately.
What I did back then is I had a friend who had a computer repair center. I put some banners and flyers that I was offering a free WordPress and blog setup, the customer would have to buy a domain name and hosting, using my affiliate link.
I live in Mexico, and when I finished University my first salary was $12 dollars per day, Siteground was paying me $70 per signup, so for me, it was not difficult just to make 2 sales per week and make more money in my side hustle than my actual job.
I would take between 1 to 2 hours to set up a new blog ( depending on what the customer wanted), this is one of the best side hustles I ever had.
You can do this online too, just offer people free installation service as long as they buy the hosting through your affiliate link, most people have no idea how to configure a blog, so this can be a very helpful service.
If you’re interested in freelancing online – like writing, designing, building apps, websites, etc. – then you should check out sites like Upwork (https://www.upwork.com) and Freelancer (https://www.freelancer.com). Note, however, that these are global marketplaces.
So, you’ll have people from all over the world competing on price and skill. If you want to set yourself apart from the competition and you’re extremely confident in your skills, then don’t be afraid to bid rates you know you deserve.
That is it, those are my top 7 online side hustle ideas that can help you to generate extra cash. I tried all of them and they worked for me, you can try them too.
My recommendation here would be to start with just one, and when you learn your trade you can add another one, for example, you can start your own blog, then you can add affiliate marketing to your blog, then can start helping people to set up their own blogs and charge them or ask them to buy hosting through your affiliate link.
