Find Your Side Hustle
Sometimes you just need to make a little extra cash. You’ve got extra bills to pay. Maybe a kid is going to college and you need tuition money. Maybe you want to take your family on a special vacation.
The internet has fundamentally changed how we make money. There are dozens of ways to make extra cash through a variety of online techniques. We’re no longer forced to take traditional jobs in order to make money.
It can be intimidating to think about trying to make money online, especially if you’ve never done it before. The internet is huge and trying to sort through all the options can feel terrifying.
In this eBook, you’ll discover 12 effective ways to make money online. Some of these methods will be more lucrative than others. Some will require more work than others. Some of these money-making methods can even turn into full-time jobs.
None of the methods that follow are get-rich-quick schemes. These are real, sustainable ways to make money. All of them require actual effort and investment of time.
METHOD #1: Affiliate Marketing
Essentially, affiliate marketing works like this: You promote an online product or service created by someone else. If someone purchases a product or service through your promotion, you get a commission, or portion of the sale.
Typically, you promote the online product through a special link that is connected to you. That way the company knows that the sale came through your promotion.
Amazon Affiliates is a simple example of affiliate marketing. Once you sign up for their affiliate program, you can promote any product on Amazon. If someone clicks on your affiliate link and then purchases the product, you get a small portion of that sale.
There are numerous ways to promote the products. You’re only limited by your imagination.
You can…
Write reviews of products on your blog and include affiliate links
Have banner ads on your website promoting the products
Post affiliate links on social media
Promote products to your email list
Really, if you have any sort of audience, whether that be on social media or a website, you have the opportunity to make money through affiliate marketing.
METHOD #2: Sell Products Online
Before you can sell products online, you’ll need a website on which to sell them. If you don’t want to set up your own ecommerce store, you can easily sell products on:
eBay
Amazon
Etsy
Poshmark
Craigslist
And many others
If you want to sell products on your own website, you’ll need to go one step further and create an ecommerce website on which you can list your products and accept payments.
First, you can sell home-made products you make yourself on sites like Etsy. If you’re the crafty type and are able to make a product that others would purchase, Etsy can be a great option.
You can also sell products you’ve already purchased on sites like eBay, Amazon, and Poshmark. For example, let’s say you like to go to thrift stores. You can find great products to sell on eBay at thrift stores if you’re willing to do a little hunting.
You also have the option of dropshipping products. Dropshipping works a little different than the standard way of selling products online. With dropshipping, you find a product that is available online for a relatively inexpensive amount.
You list that product on your own ecommerce store for a higher amount. When you make a sale, you keep the markup amount. The maker of the product then sends the product directly to the buyer without you ever touching it.
If you’re trying to find good products for dropshipping, AliExpress is a great place to start. With Shopify, you can create a store that connects directly to AliExpress to make it easy to sell products.
Out of all these options, selling products on sites like eBay and Etsy is probably the simplest way to get started making money online. If you can find products to sell, such as at thrift stores or garage sales, you can start making money relatively quickly.
METHOD #3: Sell Your Services on a Freelance Basis
Are you a…
Designer
Writer
Translator
Assistant
Bookkeeper
SEO Expert
Voiceover Artist
Audio Engineer
Or many more
If so, then you can sell your services online. There are literally hundreds of thousands of businesses that need these services and you can make good money working for them. In order to get started freelancing, you’ll need to do a few things:
Create a portfolio that shows off your work. Most businesses will want to see an example of your work if they’re going to hire you. They want to be confident that they’re hiring the right person.
Set your prices. There are numerous ways to set prices, including by the hour, by the project, or as a retainer fee. Set your prices at what you consider to be a fair amount and be confident in that amount as you talk to potential clients.
Reach out to potential clients. There are numerous ways to connect with potential clients. You can:
Call them
Email them
Reach out to them on social platforms like LinkedIn
List your services on platforms like Fiverr
Getting a freelance career started isn’t necessarily the easiest way to make money, but if you’re diligent about finding and applying for jobs, you can turn it into a profitable gig relatively quickly.
METHOD #4: Become an Online Coach
If you have significant knowledge in a particular industry or topic, you can package your knowledge and sell it. In other words, you’re selling your expertise as opposed to a product or service.
In order to be a coach, you simply need to be able to add a high amount of value to your clients. You need to be able to help them become consistently better at what they do.
There are also a number of ways to package coaching services. You can offer:
1-on-1 coaching
Group coaching
A course with accompanying coaching support
You don’t have to be an expert to be a coach. You simply have to be able to add significant value to your clients. Maybe you have a lot of experience in the health field. Or maybe you’re a longtime fitness lover and have accumulated a large amount of fitness knowledge.
There are a number of platforms that make it easy to do coaching:
METHOD #5: Create Online Courses
Online courses are a fantastic way to monetize your knowledge. And unlike coaching, which requires regular meetings with a small number of clients, you can sell your course to hundreds, if not thousands of people.
You can create a course around almost any subject and find people to purchase it. In order to create a course, you need a platform to distribute it.
There are many ways to create and distribute a course. Consider these:
Email course. You can build a course that’s primarily text-based.
Video course. Film yourself teaching.
Hybrid text/video course. Feature a variety of resources.
There are a number of platforms which make it very easy to create courses, enroll students, and accept payments:
One way to get a great feel for what a course should look like is to take a few courses yourself. Udemy offers thousands of courses for relatively low prices. Consider taking a few courses in your niche for ideas on what to include in your own course.
METHOD #6: Create YouTube Videos
How do you make money through YouTube videos? The simplest way is by implementing their advertising program.
If you have over 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of view time over the past 12 months, you can have YouTube show ads before your videos. For every 1,000 views a video gets, you’ll make on average somewhere between $2-$4.
Let’s say that you have 100 videos and each video gets 5,000 views per month. That works out to somewhere between $1,000 - $2,000 per month. Imagine if your videos started going viral and getting millions of views!
When creating YouTube videos, your content will probably fall into one of two categories:
Educational. These videos educate viewers in some way. Maybe you offer a tutorial on how to solve a commonly-encountered problem.
Entertainment. These videos are much more lighthearted and are intended to bring a smile to the face of your viewers.
Some simple, yet effective ways to grow your channel include:
Sharing your videos on social media
Posting your videos to your website
Sending your videos to your email list
Asking people to subscribe to your channel
If you post once or twice a week and consistently promote those videos, you’ll slowly but surely build your channel. The more subscribers you get, the more views you’ll rack up and the more money you’ll make.
METHOD #7: Write and Sell a Book
In addition to making money with each sale, writing a book has a number of other benefits:
It establishes you as a thought leader in your industry.
It provides you with a resource to give to clients.
It allows you to attract new clients who wouldn’t have heard of you otherwise.
If the thought of writing an entire book intimidates you, outsource the writing. Use resources from the huge PLR.me library. Simply download the resources, edit them as you please, and then sell them as a book. Create an outline and then hire a ghostwriter on Upwork or Fiverr to write the book for you.
Once you’ve written your book, you’ll need to get a cover design and have the book printed. You can get it printed on demand with each sale through Amazon CreateSpace, and you can easily get a cover designed through Upwork or Fiverr.
Some simple ways to promote your book include:
Post about it on your website.
Send an announcement to your email list.
Create shareable graphics with quotes from the book.
Share insights from the book on social media.
Create a video promoting the book and share it on YouTube and other platforms.
METHOD #8: Start a Blog
There are numerous ways to monetize a blog. How can you make money with a blog? Here are some of the most effective ways:
Affiliate marketing. By regularly promoting affiliate products on your blog, as well as writing reviews of affiliate products, you can make a significant number of commissions.
Promote your services. For example, let’s say you’re a health coach. By regularly writing posts about health, you establish yourself as a health expert. This will attract new clients, resulting in an influx of cash.
Advertisements. Like YouTube, you can put advertisements throughout your blog. Platforms like Google AdSense make it incredibly easy to put ads on your blog. Get paid for views, clicks, or charge a monthly fee to show the ad.
Sponsored posts. Sponsored posts are when you partner with a brand to create original content for your website. The content is typically somehow related to the brand and promotes the brand in a unique way.
If you don’t have an audience right away, don’t fret. By blogging consistently and then sharing those posts online through social media, you can slowly but steadily build your audience.
With blogging, consistency is the key. If you want to build an audience, it’s critical that you create outstanding material on a consistent basis.
METHOD #9: Become a Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant is someone who performs a large variety of tasks for a person. Unlike a normal assistant, who works in close physical proximity to the person, you don’t need to be anywhere near the person you’re assisting. All the tasks are given to you online.
If you’re organized, can effectively get tasks done, and are able to communicate efficiently online, then you might make an outstanding virtual assistant.
What sorts of tasks might you perform as an assistant? They run the gamut, including:
Responding to emails on behalf of your employer
Purchasing items online
Performing personal tasks
Making phone calls
Inputting, sorting, and arranging data
Managing a social media profile
Responding to inquiries
And more
Where should you look for virtual assistant gigs? You can find these in many of the same places that you look for other freelance jobs:
Upwork
Fiverr
Remote.co
Indeed
LinkedIn
METHOD #10: Tutor People in English
This is different from teaching English as a Second Language (ESL), which typically requires some form of certification. Rather, this is simply acting as a tutor to those who are trying to strengthen their English-speaking skills.
There are numerous countries in which people are willing to pay for an English tutor, sometimes as much as $25/hour.
How can you know if teaching English would be a good fit for you? Having these skills will help:
Have a solid grasp of English grammar
Understand the nuances of speaking English
Have a bachelor’s degree (typically required)
Can communicate clearly
Have the ability to teach
Enjoy talking with others
Are patient (this is critical)
Are comfortable using technology like Skype
There are a number of places where you can find online English tutoring jobs:
One benefit of tutoring people in English is that it exposes you to a variety of cultures and places you would never experience otherwise.
METHOD #11: Sell Stock Photos
Stock photos are photos that are licensed to the customer. Once someone licenses a photo, they can use it in a variety of ways, online or in print.
Stock photo sites, such as iStock and Shutterstock, allow you to submit your photos to their site. Each time someone licenses one of your photos, you get a small royalty (typically a few dollars).
Like YouTube, making money on stock photo sites is a numbers game. If you only have a few photos available for download, you probably won’t make much money (unless they’re incredibly popular photos).
However, if you have thousands of photos available for download, and you achieve several thousand downloads per month, you can begin making a substantial amount of income.
Your photos should be of the highest quality. If you want people to buy your photos, they need to be compelling, interesting, and outstanding.
One other thing to note. To avoid copyright infringement, avoid showing any specific brands in your photos unless you have explicit permission to do so.
METHOD #12: Do Odd Jobs on TaskRabbit
TaskRabbit is a website that allows you to do all sorts of odd jobs. Want to help someone pack up and move their house? You can do that through TaskRabbit. Do you know how to assemble a table? You could earn anywhere between $50 - $150 doing so.
The beauty of TaskRabbit is the sheer number of jobs available through the site. And all jobs can be easily managed through their app. Time Magazine reported that some people earn as much as $2,000 per week through TaskRabbit.
TaskRabbit is a particularly good option if you’re skilled in a variety of things and want to put all those skills to work. For example, if you’re a skilled handyman but don’t want to start your own business, TaskRabbit can supply the jobs for you.