Something that I started as a side hustle is now my primary source of income, earning me more than a full-time job could.
It is said that one should have at least seven income streams so that they won’t go broke or financially unstable even if they lose their job or if multiple of their income streams fail. People can do many side hustles along with their full-time jobs or studies and make money.
Blogging is the side hustle that has eventually turned into my full-time career and makes me a 4 to 5-figure income every month.
Below is a screenshot of Mediavine for one of my blogs.
If you are ready to earn money by working one to three hours every day, then this article is for you
1. Blogging
I included blogging first because I have firsthand experience and make a 4 to 5-figure monthly income from blogging alone.
I have been in the blogging industry since 2015, when I was just 14 years old. And yes, you heard that right!
Over the past decade, I made close to a 6-figure income exclusively from blogging. It includes display advertisements, affiliate marketing, brand sponsorship, consulting, and more.
If you have at least a couple of hours to spend every one or two days, blogging can change your life.
The thing that I started as a side hustle to go along with my studies eventually turned into a full-time income-generating machine, and I love it.
Before we dive deep, what exactly is a blog or blogging?
What is blogging?
Simply put, a blog is a website where you will find informational content for people to read. Mostly, a blog revolves around a single main topic or a subset of them. The process of writing a blog is called blogging, and the person who writes a blog is called a blogger.
Now, you should have a basic idea of what a blog is and how it works.
How to start a blog?
Starting a blog is probably the easiest thing of all. Anyone can start a blog, but managing the blog, posting content consistently, ranking high on search engines, and bringing traffic is the main challenge.
Explaining the whole process of starting a blog is out of the scope of this article.
Read our detailed guide on starting your blog today.
Here’s a breakdown of how to start a blog.
- Find your blog niche and a name
- Register the domain
- Purchase hosting
- Point your domain to the hosting
- Install a CMS like WordPress and configure it
- Install necessary plugins and set a theme
- Publish important pages – About, Contact, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, etc
- Publish your first blog post
How to make money blogging?
There are many ways to make money from blogging:
- Display ads: Show ads on your blog from Mediavine, Raptive, or AdSense
- Affiliate marketing: Promote products on your blog and get a commission for each sale
- Email newsletter: Promote products or brands in your email newsletter
- Digital products: Create and sell digital products like printables, templates, software, plugins, etc.
How much can I make from blogging?
Let’s say your blog gets 50,000 monthly visitors from tier-one countries (USA, Canada, UK, Australia). So you can expect an average RPM of at least $25 to $30, depending on the niche.
50 x $50 = $1,500
You can expect to make around $1,500 a month from display advertising alone. Apart from display ads, you can also make money through affiliate marketing and brand sponsorships as well.
2. Content Writing
If you do not want to deal with the technicalities of managing a blog or find the whole blogging thing overwhelming, there’s another way to start making money right now.
If you were about to start a blog, you would have to wait at least a few months to see meaningful results. But if you want to start making money from day 1, content writing is for you.
Every business out there, mainly those with an online presence, relies on written content in one way or another.
Whether it be a
- blog post
- sales ad copy
- technical article
- videos script
- social media content
These businesses need a content writer.
All you need to do is head to Fiverr, Upwork, or any other freelancing platform and register as a content writer or reach out to individual companies and see if they have any requirements.
And before you do so, ensure you have some high-quality samples to show them.
Now, how much can you make from writing content?
Well, it depends, but you can expect to make $.10 to $1 per word, which means if you write a 1000-word piece of content, you could make anywhere from $100 to $1000 or more. As for the hourly rate, it should be upwards of $25/hour.
3. Be A Virtual Assistant (VA)
Being a virtual assistant or VA is an excellent side hustle to make upwards of $30 per hour. But what exactly is a VA?
As the name itself implies, virtual assistant means you need to act as an assistant for someone to help them do some tasks. For example, businesses will have varying needs depending on the work, so they will delegate some tasks to other people while they focus on other essential things.
Let’s take an example of a person running a blog. He has to deal with many things, including content writing, promoting the content, SEO, link building, marketing, and much more. This person does not have enough time to pin 25 pins on Pinterest daily, so he hires a virtual assistant to create and schedule 25 pins on the Pinterest account. This is an example of a VA.
But what does a VA do?
It can be anything like:
- Social Media Virtual Assistant
- Bookkeeping virtual assistant
- Graphics Designing Virtual Assistant
- Customer service Virtual assistant
- etc.
For example, I recently hired a Pinterest VA to help manage my Pinterest accounts for my blog.
All he does is create 25 images in Canva and schedule them every day. As simple as that.
Depending on the specifics of the service you offer and your skill, you can spend 1 to 3 hours daily and make upwards of $30 per hour.
4. Video Editor
In 2024, the need for video editors is skyrocketing. Every brand and business posts tons of multimedia content on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc. All these brands need video editors to edit videos that stand out from the crowd. If you have video editing skills, you can easily convert it into real money.
Going forward, video content consumption will only continue to increase.
If you have some video editing skills or are ready to learn some, being a video editor is an excellent way to make money.
To get started, master any video editing software like Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, or DaVinci Resolve.
If you don’t want to spend money on editing software initially, just go with DaVinci Resolve.
Once you have enough skills, you can be a YouTube video editor, advertisement editor, podcast editor, or short-form content editor and make a handful of money.
And here’s a bonus tip to be even better. Ensure you learn After Effects to incorporate motion graphics into edits to stand out from the competition and make more money.
5. Designer
All thanks to tools like Canva, you don’t need crazy designing skills to become a graphics designer.
Gone are the days when you needed to know Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to be good at designing.
With tools like Canva, you can create YouTube thumbnails, posters and flyers, presentations, advertisements, and even videos.
Creating content with Canva is as simple as dragging and dropping the required elements and making desired changes.
Once you cover the basics and learn Canva, learn Photoshop and Illustrator to make logos, website design, and complete brand identity.
You could charge a minimum of $2000 – $5000 and above for a complete brand identity package.
6. Sell Digital Products
If you’re looking for a lucrative side hustle to make money with a high margin, then selling digital products is something you must consider.
A digital product is anything you can create on your computer and sell infinite times. Examples of digital products include templates, eBooks, Online courses, music, stock footage, plug-ins, Canva templates, Photoshop project files, After Effects plug-ins, images, LUTs packs, etc.
The beauty of digital products is that you can create it once and sell it any number of times. After making it, you can sell it on your website or platforms like Gumroad.
Unlike physical products, creating digital products has little to no distribution or production cost, and this is single-handedly the most significant advantage of creating and selling digital assets.
If you know coding, you can create software plugins, HTML templates, and website add-ons or if you are a digital artist, you can create animations, look up tables (LUTs), and digital artwork, or if you are knowledgeable about something, you can create an online course and sell it.
7. Sell Canva Templates
Did you know you can sell Canva templates on platforms like Etsy and make a living out of it?
Every business and content creator needs digital assets to improve branding and attract customers.
Designing graphics or social media content from scratch can take hours. This is why brands and creators buy and edit templates in less than five minutes.
Using Canva, one can design a template and sell it on any platform to make money. Creating a template on Canva may take some time, but once you have made it, you can sell it an infinite number of times, and money keeps flowing without you having to do anything.
One of the main advantages of selling Canva templates is its flexibility. You can create templates for various purposes, such as social media graphics, resumes, posters, presentations, PDF templates, planners, etc., and sell them on multiple platforms like your blog, Etsy, Gumroad, etc.
How much can you expect to make by selling Canva templates?
If you head to Etsy and search for Canva templates, you can see a listing from anywhere from $1 to upwards of $50.
Let’s take the average selling price as $5. If you manage to make 100 monthly sales, you could easily make $500 from one template pack. Just scale the number of templates, and the earnings will skyrocket.
8. Online Course
Gone are the days when you needed to go to college to acquire specific skills.
Now, people purchase online courses to learn something specific like programming, graphic designing, marketing, or anything of that sort.
If you want to make money by sharing your expertise, skills, or knowledge with a global audience, then selling an online course is the best side hustle.
One option is to create an online course and sell it on platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, or Coursera or self-host the course on your own website or third-party LMS providers like Teachable.
The flexibility of selling online courses is yet another plus point. You can price the course however you like, and once you create the course, you get paid every time someone buys it.
If you possess expertise in JavaScript, you could develop a course on that topic. On the other hand, if gardening is your forte, you could create a course centered around gardening. Alternatively, you might consider offering cooking classes or exploring different areas of expertise.
9. YouTube Channel
The creator economy is growing, and almost everyone has a YouTube channel.
The number one reason many people start a YouTube channel is its earning potential and how easy it is to get started.
If you have a YouTube channel with 1 million views a month, you could easily make a couple thousand dollars every month.
YouTube has over 2 billion monthly active users, and people watch more than 5 billion videos every day. Thousands of creators worldwide make a full-time living off of YouTube.
Creating a YouTube channel is still a profitable side hustle in 2024 that works for everyone if you are ready to put energy and effort into it.
When it comes to making money from a YouTube channel, the first one is obviously by monetizing your video with ads by applying to the YouTube partner program; the second is by doing brand sponsorships; the third is promoting products and making affiliate commissions, and the fourth is selling your products and services to the audience.
10. Social Media Marketing
Social media is now one of the top avenues for businesses to onboard new customers, and almost all brands and businesses are pretty active on leading social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.
Having an account on these social media platforms won’t make any difference. If they need to reach their target audience and drive engagement, proper marketing and optimizations need to be done.
Social media managers are responsible for improving the brand’s visibility across various social media platforms. If you have the skill, you can be a social media manager for any leading brand and improve their brand’s visiblity to make money.
As a social media manager, your responsibility will be to create high-quality and engaging content for the platform, interact with the audience, run ads, and convert potential customers into paying customers.
11. SEO Services
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. I said the name indicates these are optimization techniques to rank webpages high on search engines like Google and Bing.
In this digital era, having an online presence is unavoidable for any brand and business. Through SEO, people rank web pages high on Google and attract organic traffic. SEO consists of keyword research, link building, digital PR, content marketing, Off-page SEO, On-page SEO, technical SEO, and much more.
SEO is crucial in improving a website’s organic visibility on search engines like Google. It is inevitable for any business; therefore, the requirements and demand for skilled professionals with SEO knowledge are growing exponentially.
SEO is a dynamic and evolving field, with search engine algorithms constantly changing and new trends emerging. As an SEO service provider, you have the opportunity to continuously learn and develop your skills to stay ahead of the curve.
You can offer your SEO services on platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, provide consultation or even start an SEO agency from scratch.
12. Voiceover Artist
The increasing popularity of podcasts, audiobooks, online courses, virtual assistants, voice-activated devices, and video content, in general, opens an incredible opportunity for people to make money by becoming a VoiceOver artist.
If you have good skills in reading scripts and recording them, being a voiceover artist is a potential side hustle opportunity for you.
To become a voiceover artist, all you need is a decent microphone and a computer. You could find a ton of opportunities on platforms like Fiverr, where you can post your gig and get paid.
Another interesting benefit of becoming a VoiceOver artist is the flexibility that it offers. You could literally work from anywhere in the world and work for global brands without leaving the comfort of your home
13. Data Entry Jobs
One side hustle that pretty much anyone can start right now without any skill is data entry jobs.
For starters, data entry jobs involve entering, updating, and maintaining data in a database.
You will be presented with information in the form of text, numbers, figures, etc., in digital files or paper documents. You need to store them in the computer or in a database. As simple as that.
Remember that as data entry jobs do not require any skills, the payment is relatively low. But you can expect to make anything upwards of $15 per hour, which is not that bad, to be honest.
But if you ask me, there are much better-paying jobs if you are ready to learn new skills.
14. Proofreading
Proofreading is the process of analyzing and reviewing textual documents to find errors like grammar mistakes, typos, punctuation, syntax, etc., and correct them if required. Proofreading is the final stage before publishing a piece of work.
If you have that knack for finding mistakes in a written document, then proofreading is an excellent side hustle opportunity for you.
On average, people make upwards of $45,000 annually by providing proofreading as a freelance service.
You can find proofreading job opportunities on FlexJobs, UpWork, LinkedIn, Fiverr, etc.
Wrap Up
It is said that every person should have at least seven different forms of income streams. Even if you are a full-time employee or a college goer, doing a side hustle to earn extra money is an excellent opportunity to diversify your income streams and make more money.
Go through all the above side hustle ideas and see which of them you can pull off.
Give your 100% effort and see how it turns out. Do not quit early if you do not see any meaningful outcome fast. And don’t be afraid to fail.
If you didn’t get any of them right, try a different side hustle and see if that comes your way.