Hey! This is a video post from a YouTube video I created covering 6 of the best side hustle ideas to make money online (UK edition). So check out the video just above this, and for those of you that prefer to read, the script is below. Let me know in the comments if you have any other side hustles I should include on the next video?
What Is A Side Hustle
Side hustles are a way of learning new skills, challenging yourself, and ultimately making some more money alongside your other responsibilities like your family, day job, studies.
Now it’s up to you what you spend that money on – nice cars, shiny technology, jelly beans, or just to put you in a little more financial comfort.
Personally over the last few years I’ve been able to make some money, start some additional businesses, and also go on some amazing holidays and show my kids a little of the world. Plus it’s a nice feeling to have when things start breaking in your home that you can replace them!
For me, that’s what a side hustle is.
Its something I do outside of my normal day job that gives me a chance to make money but also achieves something outside of my comfort zone.
This post is about 6 of the Best Side Hustle Ideas To Make Money Online, especially if you’re in the UK.
I will tell you my own personal experience – the good and bad parts. Because it’s important to keep this video honest and tell you what they are really like rather than the overexaggerated guru nonsense out there.
And I will include my absolute favourite of these which has become a great way for me to earn additional income every month….. and genuinely earns me money while I sleep
Are Side Hustles Easy?
First up, a few pointers.
Despite what you are often told, not all side hustles are easy. They may require you to work early mornings and late nights, you will make mistakes, and push your limits. But anything is possible you just have to put the work in and also remember that anything worth having takes time.
But when you compare it to a job or an education where you have to put years of time and effort in to start making any progress then it’s fast in comparison.
All of these side hustles work, but its finding the right one for you that fits your lifestyle and needs.
Side Hustle #1 Merch Design
This is a nice simple one to kick us off.
Merch design is where you create graphics and logos and sell them on Tshirts, mugs, cushions and anything else that can be printed too.
Now don’t worry, you don’t need fancy equipment to print with, or a store room full of white merchandise in stock. Someone else does all that for you.
We use merch on-demand companies such as redbubble, Society6, Merch by amazon, there are loads of sites like this.
And all we have to do is create some designs of our own, now this is great if your artistic but that doesn’t mean you have to be. If like me your not creative then focus on phrases, sayings and quotes. You can use specialist software like paintshop or inkscape, or even easier just get a free account on canva.com.
What I would recommend is choosing a subject or niche to create your content about and then just get to work making loads of different designs.
Look at what works for others and see if you can improve on them. Uploading your creations is simple, and you usually just have to add a few details such as a product description and a price. Very easy, free to setup and get started.
You are reliant on people finding your designs by browsing these merch sites, so if you want to boost sales then you need to get creative about how you promote your work – like using social media.
Its a nice little side hustle that can be easily setup and you grow it as you learn more.
Perhaps the downside is that its tough to make much money doing this and you are playing a numbers game, so maybe use the money from this to invest in other opportunities which we will cover now
Side Hustle #2 – Amazon Arbitrage
This is where you hold hands with Jeff Bezos and help him build his empire, whilst making a little money yourself.
Yes, you are about to become an Amazon seller. Now don’t panic, some of you will have heard of amazon private label selling where you use overseas manufacturers to design your own products and branding and then import them in their thousands to sell on amazon nope this is different and it’s much simpler so anyone can get started,
It’s a pretty easy process, firstly all you do is register as an amazon seller.
Ssecondly you need to build up some stock by finding products from other stores or wholesalers, either online or in person, and then you check amazon for the following criteria:
- Do they sell at a significantly higher price on Amazon?
- Are they in demand or are there more sellers than buyers
- Are you allowed to sell them yourself?
You buy those products and then box them all up and send them to amazon. As a business partner and close friend of Mr Bezos, Amazon will now help sell your stock as long as you choose to use their fulfilment services.
In other words, you pay them for storage, selling fees, and just about anything they assist with.
This is in part why Amazon makes so much money – they arent just a retailer – they are a marketplace for thousands of other sellers who all pay for the privilege of selling on Amazon.
After all, Amazon is the go-to site and sell just about everything. They have trust and authority and you don’t, so you are using their systems and reputation to run your own business.
I sold through Amazon for just over a year and I won’t lie, you get a real buzz when a lego set you paid £30 for sells for £150. It gets kind of addictive.
It suits anyone who can stump up enough capital to buy stock and enjoys hands-on work. I know some really successful amazon sellers and once you’ve learnt the processes and can start to scale up then there’s huge potential.
Key to this is using software that helps you through. Such as SellerAmp which is an excellent tool that can be used to analyse any products you find.
SellerAmp will look at the buy price, current sell price, and how frequent it is selling, to help you decide if its worthwhile buying and help you make a fast and informed decision.
In my opinion software like this is essential in order to be successful with amazon arbitrage.
Side Hustle #3 – Blogging
Creating a blog is probably the absolute opposite of amazon arbitrage. There’s no hustle and bustle and house overflowing with boxes ready to ship to Amazon. It’s just you, a laptop, and your thoughts.
Blogging is where you have your own easy to set up website and you write about anything you like.
Some people have quite general blogs with varied topics which could cover their business or lifestyle and others have very specific blogs which are super focused on one subject like car roof racks, keto diets, or alsatian dogs. It depends on whether your writing for fun or profits.
Let’s look at this from a money-making perspective as that’s what you’re here for. We want to write blog posts that have a chance of google ranking them on the first few pages. Now that sounds easy but there’s a lot to it, and often as a beginner your best writing about trending, new and more obscure subjects that are less competitive.
If I write an article called “how to make money online” there’s zero chance of getting page 1 of google because the number of searches for that term will be obscene.
This is why people have the phrase the riches are in the niches…..
If you want fast money then walk away now, nothing about blogging is fast, but where it really pays off is in the long term. If you can consistently create posts that are well optimised and help people then in the long run it can be a huge asset that makes passive income.
How?
Well, there’s loads of ways bloggers make money:
Display Ads:
Once you have traffic you can apply to an ad network and allow them to place adverts on your site, then you get paid for people either just browsing your site or even when they click on the adverts.
Sponsorship Deals
You can look for sponsorship deals where people pay you for direct advertising and a prominent spot on your blog – you work direct with the product owners or an agency.
Digital Products
Many bloggers start to create their own digital courses and products once they establish an audience which is an amazing way of making money where you only have to create that product once and then it can be sold all over the world and at any time of the day.
Affiliate Marketing
But by far my favourite way of making money with blogging is affiliate marketing. This is a basic referral strategy that has made me a nice side income over the last year, and I expect it to double next year.
How it works is that you find a product you wish to promote and you apply to be an affiliate. So this could be Amazon, eBay or some of the major retailers but I will be honest they pay really poor commissions, so I tend to focus on software and training that pays well and is used by many different businesses.
In your blog posts, you link to these recommended products using your special affiliate link, and if anyone buys through your link then you make a commission. It’s an amazing model that work son so many platforms.
So if you want a quiet, yet flexible side hustle and enjoy writing then maybe blogging is the one for you.
So we are halfway through our 6 Side Hustles Ideas To Make Money Online (UK Edition). Let me know in the comments what side hustles have you tried so far and what did you like or hate about them?
Side Hustle #4 – Online Tutoring
Tutoring is popular amongst students, it’s a way to make money to help get you through uni, and its online tutoring using site slike mytutor and superprof.
Online platforms that give you an opportunity to learn some tutoring skills, boost your CV but more importantly make some more money. And it’s not a bad payer at all, at around £20 per hour upwards.
Now I’m a firm believer that teaching is one of the best ways of learning too, that’s pretty much what my youtube channel is about, sharing what I learn and teaching other, and that’s a definite reward you get from private tutoring.
So why not use these platforms as a way of sharing your passion and interest with others and get paid at the same time.
Again, there’s no startup costs and you are going to get paid f0r the hours that you work so it has flexibility around your current commitments.
Once upon a time, you would probably have to do this in person but let’s face it, these days we are used to zoom and skype meetings and have all the technology we could ask for in order to tutor online.
Side Hustle #5 – Online Freelancing
Online freelancing could probably be a video in itself as it covers hundreds of different opportunities, but as you’ve watched this far, and you’ve got your life to life, the kids need feeding and your late for work, let’s just cover it at a high level.
If you weren’t aware already, there are a number of websites that you can use to hire people with specialist skills from all over the world. People that can assist you with your business without having to commit to paying them a salary – freelancers for hire.
I hire people to help with my youtube channel and have hired writers for my blog in the past but there are people out there offering services in anything you can imagine…
- testimonials for businesses
- voiceovers
- writing
- consultancy
- virtual assistants
- development
- design
- customer services
- accounting, literally almost anything.
And that could be you. You could utilise some of your existing skills, so if you enjoy graphic design then you can advertise your service for a range of jobs such as designing social media graphics, business logos, illustrations, T-shirt designs, you name it.
Now you may think you don’t have any expertise and that’s fine, it will take you a little longer to get started but it’s still absolutely possible for you to make money online as a freelancer.
Luckily for you, there are millions of videos on YouTube that will teach you almost anything you need to know, all you have to do is bring the persistence and hard work to study and learn and put that into practice, it’s surprising how fast you can learn new skills when you know there’s money to be made.
Over time you grow your reputation on some of the leading freelance websites such as Upwork, people per hour, freelancer and fiverr.
Whilst you do, make sure you build relationships with your clients and grow your own brand, eventually looking to cut out the middle man and work direct with people at a higher rate.
Tell me in the comments whats one service you could freelance doing?
Side Hustle #6 – YouTube Channel
Youtube is by far my favourite side hustle. I absolutely love it. Its honestly given me so much value over the last year whilst I’ve been creating content on YouTube.
First of all, it’s very similar to blogging but instead of silently writing your content you are speaking to a camera, but where most people including myself get stuck, is that we assume youtube is only for super confident outgoing people, and that’s rubbish. Some of the best creators I know are quiet and introverted, but they push their comfort zone because they know how rewarding it can be.
Its another one that is a long term game, and you need to build an audience before making money.
Youtube makes you qualify before you can run adverts on your channel and its quite a steep benchmark as you have to get a 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watched video, but that’s absolutely possible and took me around a year. Some people qualify much faster than that and some much slower. but now YouTube pays me when people watch my videos
The amounts you can earn from ads varies on what subject your video and channel are about and who is likely to watch it, for example, my videos are in the make money online and digital marketing niche which pays well, and an audience from America, UK, Australia pays more than audience from Asian and African contents purely down to the advertiser’s willingness to pay YouTube.
But the main earner for me is again affiliate marketing – recommending products and getting a referral commission.
There are products and services for almost anything you can imagine, I can show you digital products that are about dog training, learning to speak spanish, woodworking that would pay you 30 to 50 pounds for each sale.
Or some really lucrative software products that pay extremely high commissions each time someone buys
Affiliate marketing is by far the best monetization strategy out there for me and earns me a nice little commission every month, and if you want some free training from a 7 figure affiliate, and the guy that taught me so much personally, then check out the link below.
CLICK HERE: Free Training From A 7 Figure Super Affiliate – How To Monetize Social Media
I hope you enjoyed this post and you have a clearer idea of some of the best side hustle ideas to make money online.