This week I’m sharing a guest post by Morgan, a video production business owner and content creator within the digital marketing niche!
When she is not producing videos for clients, Morgan focuses on her blog, morgankg.com, and social media outlets to teach the most effective methods in digital marketing.
Morgan knows a thing or two about making money online, so today she’s sharing her top 5 side hustles for 2020.
So if you’re like most people, you are probably looking for a couple of ways to make some extra money this year! The good news is that there are many ways to create an additional source of income for yourself. There is so much information out there which can make it difficult to know which side hustles are truly worth your time. This article will dive into five of the best side hustles to explore this year and also provide you with ideas to get started.
Blogging
The first side hustle is all about blogging. You might be rolling your eyes because blogging seems boring or dead but I can assure you that this is not the case!
Many people choose to build their business based completely on social media and sell to their following. This is pretty dangerous from a business perspective because a social media platform could switch up their algorithm at any notice and reduce how many people will see your content. Your account could also get hacked or the platform could go away altogether, making it important to have another place where you could sell to your audience.
One of the best things about blogging is that the website is 100% yours. You control the content and you are not at the mercy of some social media platform. With that being said, there are a variety of ways in which you could make money using a blog!
The first method to making money blogging is affiliate marketing. I will discuss this in more detail in the last section below, but you could essentially set up affiliate links in relevant articles on your website. Whenever someone either clicks on the link or purchases something from the link (it depends on the program), you make a commission.
Another way to make money blogging is with digital products. You could sell anything ranging from a course to an ebook to a digital planner to Pinterest image templates. The opportunities here are endless. Check out this article to learn how to create a digital course.
If you are an expert in an area like business, you could also sell coaching services through your website.
Another way to make money with your blog is through advertisements on a platform like Mediavine.
Podcasting
The next side hustle is podcasting. You might think that podcasting is pretty saturated, but I believe that there are still opportunities depending on your topic and niche. I’d recommend starting a podcast on a topic that is pretty difficult to find in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Niching down is going to be important here. One way to promote your podcast and build an audience before you launch is to create a landing page and email list and promote it on all of your social media pages. As soon as you launch your first episode, you will already have a list of people to email and promote!
Another way to promote your podcast and increase visibility is to interview guests and ask them to share the episode with their audience. By doing this, you are organically increasing the reach of your podcast.
When it comes to making money with podcasts, one way to do this is through affiliate marketing. You could promote products by creating various ad spots or breaks on your podcast, and whenever someone purchases, you receive a commission.
The next way to make money with this side hustle is to grow the podcast and work with sponsors. This usually takes a while but is definitely worth it.
Services
Another great side hustle for this year is services. Do you edit videos? Do you provide social media management services? Maybe you write articles? Think about what you do well and how you can provide this as a service. If you are skilled in an area and can save someone else the time needed to complete the task, then you can likely make money selling that particular task as a service.
Instead of selling on Upwork or Fiverr, I’d recommend prospecting and doing some outreach. Many freelancing websites create an environment where freelancers end up competing on price, which is never good for business.
Coaching
Are you an expert in a certain area? Do you enjoy working with people? If so, you may want to consider coaching! You could add a section to your website where people could work with you or even promote your services on social media.
Coaching is great because you have the opportunity to really help someone solve a particular challenge. This is definitely an area to explore if you are interested in giving back and helping others. You could also offer add on products and services, such as selling an ebook or even freelancing.
I’d only recommend providing coaching services if you are good at what you do and have experience and proof to back it up. The last thing you want to do is provide false information or theory to clients when you have not actually proven that your methods work.
Affiliate marketing
I touched on affiliate marketing in the blogging section of this article, but one reason why it is a recommended side hustle for this year is because there are so many ways to implement this method. For example, you could absolutely add affiliate links into your blog posts as mentioned earlier, but there are other places where you could organically promote links as well.
One popular method is to promote affiliate links via your email list. The key is to build trust and add a lot of value before you start promoting different products. Another method is to promote products on social media. You could create a post about the product and add a link to a landing page in your bio. If you have over 10k followers on Instagram you could utilize the swipe up function and drive your audience to a landing page.
When promoting affiliate links it is important to avoid being spammy and to promote products that are of high quality. The last thing that you want to do is take advantage of your audience and sell them a poor product. If you are interested in learning more about affiliate marketing, check out this article to get started.
Conclusion
To recap, the five top side hustles of this year include blogging, podcasting, services, coaching, and affiliate marketing! Whether you are searching for a side hustle or have been running a business for a while and are looking for new ideas, I hope that this article helps you to meet your goals. If you decide to pick up one of these side hustles, my best advice is to stick with it for a while and be as consistent as possible for the best results.
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