

Money
8 Online Side Hustles that Anyone Can Start (and the skills you’ll need to be successful)
April 5, 2020This article contains affiliate links. I receive a small commission if you buy through a link at no additional cost to you 🙂 Read my disclosure for more information
Listen, guys, having multiple sources of income is the path to financial freedom so start your side hustle asap! No one gets rich working their 9-5 day job.
Entrepreneurship is the way to go! Be your own boss, get to make the decisions and your earnings potential is unlimited. With a lot of hustling and grinding, we can really achieve anything and build something we are proud of.
We are not going to be talking about little things you can do to make money online like surveys. Below are ways that people are making a substantial amount of income online. I have spent hours of my life researching various ways so now I pass on my favorite methods to you.
I also add the skills that you are going to have to learn to be successful. Hopefully, it will help you pick the best side hustle for you!
Write Ebooks
If you are knowledgeable about a subject or enjoy writing, you can make money writing ebooks. You can sell them on your own website or self-publish them with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
Try starting with a non-fiction book in a niche that people are actually searching for. It’s great if you are interested in yak herding but your book won’t sell if no else is! Do some research on Google Trends and on Amazon to see how many search results your niche has.
Write your book and then all you need is a cover. You can design it yourself on sites like Canva or pay someone $5 on Fiverr to do it for you.
It is free to publish your book with KDP and you get a 70% royalty if your book is priced from $2.99-$9.99.
Honestly, if you do not want to write the book yourself, you can even hire a ghostwriter to write it for you. If you go this route, you have to make sure there is high demand for your book! I’ve looked into it and a well-written book can cost up to $1000 so choose your niche carefully.
If you do everything yourself, this is a no-cost side hustle you can start!
Skills You Will Need to Learn:
- Book Cover Design
- Creating engaging content
- Keyword Research
- Marketing
Create Low Content Books for Amazon
Journals, notebooks, and planners are just a few examples of low content books you can create.
All you need is a great cover and an interior design template and you are set to go. Keyword research is important here, folks! Make sure there is an interest in the kind of book you create. Try wedding planners, food diaries or fitness logs.
You can buy interior design templates on Etsy or get a fully created book at sites like Fiverr or bookcreators.co
This is a simple, no to low investment side hustle. So creating some books, get good at it and earning money online!
Skills You Will Need to Learn:
- Book Cover Design
- Book interior Design
- Keyword Research
- Marketing
Merch By Amazon
I am throwing this in here because it is truly a passive income stream if you learn how to do it correctly. Merch By Amazon allows you to upload designs for t-shirts, hoodies etc and sell them directly on Amazon.
Last September, I uploaded this design on a T-shirt and someone actually bought it! I received an email from Amazon a few days ago telling me that I would receive my $5.23 royalty in my account soon!
It is an invite-only program so go ahead and request an invite today if you are even slightly interested in joining. I think it was a couple of months before I got accepted with them.
You can use free sites like Canva to create your designs and you should be doing keyword research to find in-demand niches. To learn more about Amazon MBA check out this article!
Here is another no-cost side hustle. If you can get good at determining what the market wants, you will be successful.
Skills You Will Need to Learn:
- T-shirt Design
- Keyword Research
- SEO for Product Descriptions
- Marketing (Optional)
Start an Online Dropshipping Store
I’m not going to lie to you. Having a successful dropshipping store can be difficult but if done correctly can be very profitable. There are people out there making thousands of dollars with their stores on Shopify.
In case you didn’t know… Dropshipping is buying a product at a lower cost then selling it to customers at a higher cost. Here’s a quick rundown:
- You create your website and upload the photos of your products provided by the supplies
- You charge customers a higher price than what it cost you to buy the product
- When a customer buys a product from your store, the supplier ships the product straight to your customer
Dropshipping takes away the need to store products yourself or purchase items in bulk unsure if they will sell. Less hassle and risk for you! You can use sites like Aliexpress to find your winning products.
Shopify costs $29 a month and has a 14-day free trial so you can test out the platform for a bit. To make the most of your trial, I recommend you decide on your store’s name, products, and marketing plan before you sign up.
I am not cheating on my blogging goals for now but I want to get into dropshipping myself! I tried (and failed) before myself but people will always spend. You just have to find your audience and what they want to spend on.
This method has a higher startup cost than the previous methods especially if you plan on using paid advertising.
Skills You’ll Need To Learn:
- Finding a good niche and winning products
- Building a Shopify site
- Keyword Research
- Writing Good Product Descriptions
- Marketing (FB Ads, Instagram Influencers, etc)
- Customer Service
Run Facebook Ads for Local Businesses
Facebook ad management is in high demand right so it is a great side hustle to start. Local businesses need Facebook marketing help but do not have the knowledge or time to manage their own campaigns.
You can make really good money doing this charging $500-$2000/month per client.
Before you say that you don’t know how to run Facebook ads campaigns either, change that! Setting up Facebook ads is easy and you can easily learn some tips and tricks from Youtube.
The hardest part about this side hustle will probably be finding your first few clients. I would start by cold emailing or direct messaging local businesses on social media. If you don’t have social anxiety like me,???? you could even cold call local businesses explaining your services.
This method is no cost because your clients would be giving you the money to run the Facebook ads. They do expect to see results, though, so make sure you do your research on creating great ads!
Skills You’ll Have to Learn:
- How to write compelling Facebook ads
- Testing your ads to find the most effective ones
- Cold emailing / Cold calling
- Landing clients and keeping them happy
Be a Pinterest Virtual Assistant
If you are already on Pinterest all the time, you might as well get paid for it. There are brands, bloggers and businesses out there who will pay to have their accounts managed or for content creation.
As a Pinterest assistant, you can offer services like pin creation or Tailwind scheduling (Tailwind is a popular Pinterest scheduling tool)
Pinterest VA’s can make up to $500/month per client making it a very lucrative option, especially if you land a couple of clients! To learn more about becoming a Pinterest Virtual Assistant click here.
Another no cost side hustle to start. All you need is your phone and some clients.
Skills You’ll Have to Learn:
- How to design great pins
- Keyword Researching
- Tailwind
- Finding clients and selling your service
Blogging
Join me on my blogging journey and start a blog! There are college students, single mothers and people with full-time jobs making money with their blog! I see so many inspirational stories and I hope to become one myself.
I chose to blog because I wanted to write about topics I am passionate about…Your blog can be about literally anything…Outer space, minimalist traveling or baby fashion. It is still always a good idea to make sure there is some interest in your chosen topic.
No need to create a blog on how to minimally travel to Pluto with your toddler if absolutely no one is going to be searching for that lol! Crazy example but you get the idea.
You can monetize your blog in so many different ways. Some of your options are affiliate marketing, creating your own content like courses or ebooks or sponsored posts. A blog is not a fast or easy way to start making money online but if you stay consistent you will see results and will have something you are proud of.
I recommend getting started with a self-hosted WordPress blog, which means you will need a domain name and hosting. My blog is hosted on Ionos. You can check out plans and pricing here.
Learning WordPress has been a challenge for me but I keep on grinding because I know it is a valuable skill to have. If you become good at it, you can even design websites for others! Think big, people!
I do not recommend you using blog platforms like Wix or Blogger because you will be unable to monetize your blog or have full creative control. Start off the best way from the start and buy a domain name and hosting. A self-hosted blog is still a low cost investment that definitely pays off in the long run.
Skills You Will Need to Learn:
- Keyword Research
- WordPress Design
- How to Drive Traffic to your Blog
- Email Marketing
- SEO to increase Google ranking organically
- Dedication, Patience, and Consistency!
Rank and Rent Websites
So the simple explanation of ranking and renting websites is you take a local business niche such as plumbing and make a general website for it. You get the website ranked on Google through articles with good SEO. When local customers start contacting your website consistently, you rent the whole website out to a client for a fixed price.
*Say it to me in less words!*
- Rank a niche website on Google
- Get leads
- Local business pays you for the incoming leads
You can choose to rent out your entire website to a business or can get paid per lead. So instead of a business paying you $1000/month to rent your website, they will pay you $50 for every lead you send them.
Below is a quick video explaining the difference between rank and rent and pay-per-lead
This is a low cost side hustle because you will need to buy a domain name and hosting to set up your websites. Get a free domain name when you buy hosting with Ionos!
Skill You Will Need to Learn:
- Website Design
- SEO / Keyword Research
- Article Writing
- Finding and Landing Clients
There are so many side hustles and online businesses out there but my advice to you is to pick one and stick to it. Success with any business, online or offline, requires consistent effort and dedication. Give your chosen method the chance to work instead of giving up on it in two weeks!
Learn how you can kick yourself into drive and start your side hustle fast!
Remember! You Can Achieve Anything.
Start working towards those money goals today.
Keep hustlin,
Kay ????