Are you looking for a digital side hustle to make money from home?
In a 2019 survey, nearly 1/3 of side hustlers needed their additional income to stay afloat on their finances. With so many people reliant on a side hustle, it's vital to have a plan for maximizing your income.
On the bright side, with the rapid growth of many online platforms – finding a remote side hustle has never been easier as long as you have a computer and internet connection.
In this post, I'll explore what a digital side hustle is, the best digital side hustles to start, and how much money you can make with some online side hustles. Let's get started!
- Starting an online business
- Working as a freelancer
- Creating passive income streams from podcasting or starting a YouTube channel
What is a Digital Side Hustle or Computer Side Hustle
A digital side hustle is any side hustle that can be done online or from home to earn extra money.
Just like with other side hustles, a digital side hustle is an excellent way to earn money in addition to your full-time job.
Even if it's just a few hours spent each week, working on a digital side hustle can be a great way to make extra cash in your free time.
The benefits of a digital side hustle are virtually endless. Between the ability to work from anywhere with WiFi access, a seemingly infinite income potential, and little expenses – finding a side hustle you can do from home is an excellent way to improve your finances.
Best Digital Side Hustles
Below are some of my favorite digital side hustles to build your income and make money online. If you want to start making extra money online – consider some of these side hustles.
Start a Virtual Assistant Business
Working as a virtual assistant is an excellent way to earn extra money online if you have some skills in different areas.
As a virtual assistant, you can offer a wide range of services based on your skills. For example, Pinterest management, updating website content, or sending marketing emails are all tasks that online business owners need help with.
It'll take some time to build your portfolio and generate large amounts of money but I know some virtual assistants that make over 6-figures without a bachelor's degree! Not bad!
I recommend checking out Carrie's VA course below if you're ready to start making money. You'll learn everything you need to know to make money as a virtual assistant!
Blogging
Blogging is one of my favorite digital side hustles to boost your income online. Some bloggers have made millions and have gone on to retire early from their side hustle income.
Some popular blogging topics are personal finance, entrepreneurship, travel, lifestyle, fashion, beauty, or blogging itself.
However, I wouldn't recommend starting a blog for the sole purpose of making money. Blogging is about expressing yourself and building an audience over time. The income should be considered a bonus.
You can make money blogging with display advertising, affiliate links, or through your own products and courses.
If you've never started a blog before, don't worry. It's effortless to start a blog and get your first post published.
First, you need a few pieces of equipment and software like a computer or laptop with a high-speed internet connection, a domain name, a hosting provider, and a CMS like WordPress.
Once you have all of these tools, you are ready to create your blog to make money online.
Growing a blog takes time, however. For many bloggers, it might take anywhere from 9 months to over a year before they start making money from their side hustle.
It took me a couple of years before I started making decent income from my blog.
It's also essential to have a plan and strategy behind your blogging efforts. Simply publishing new content without goals or reasoning behind it won't get you very far.
Understanding how to market your blog is key to growing your traffic to begin to make serious money from it. There are a few primary sources of traffic for your website to grow including SEO, social media, and email marketing. By understanding how to use these channels, you can publish content that gets views and earns you money.
By using traffic channels like SEO, your efforts will begin to compound over time. Each time a new piece is published, it has the potential to bring in more traffic in addition to all of your other traffic that continues to flow. This is an excellent method to make money with Google.
If you aren't sure how to get started, check out my guide to starting a profitable blog!
Podcasting to Make Money
If you're searching for a side hustle to earn passive income and make money online – podcasting can be a great gig to make money from your laptop or computer.
Podcasts are audio recordings of your voice, which is why this side hustle is ideal for anyone who loves to talk or has an interesting story to share!
Just like blogging, podcasting can be started on the cheap with equipment like a computer or smartphone and some free editing software.
To earn money from your podcast, you can offer show sponsorships and use affiliate marketing to promote products.
The amount of money you can make with a podcast will depend on the number of listeners your show has, but it's possible to earn six or even seven figures from your show.
Some podcasters have transformed their digital side hustle into their full-time job to set their own schedule and work as their own boss.
If you aren't sure how to start a podcast, check out the video below!
Start a YouTube Channel
Starting a YouTube channel can be a great way to make money online and earn some extra cash.
Just like other forms of content creation, you don't need anything fancy like a television production studio or expensive equipment: just you, your smartphone or camera, and a YouTube account.
YouTube is one of the most popular websites globally with billions of views every month – so there's an audience for whatever niche you decide to create videos about. For example, creating YouTube tutorials about how to complete simple car repairs would be a perfect niche to sell things online.
You can use your YouTube channel as a platform to build an audience who will watch and learn from your videos. You can then monetize your following by showing ads, promoting affiliate links, or selling a product.
Some YouTube channels can make a significant amount of money and replace your full-time job if marketed correctly. For example, Kevin's channel, Epic Gardening makes 7 figures each year from their videos!
If you're looking for one of the top digital side hustle ideas to make passive income, give YouTube a try.
Become a Social Media Influencer
YouTube isn't the only social media platform you can make money from. By growing your other social media accounts like Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook, you can start making money online in your spare time.
Between affiliate marketing and selling digital products, there are several methods to make money from your accounts.
It will take some time to grow your accounts and make good money from them but it will be time well spent if you can grow your following.
Build Websites for Local Businesses
Are you tech-savvy and willing to learn? If so, building websites for small businesses can be an awesome digital side hustle to make additional money.
You might need to learn some basic web development skills to succeed with this side hustle, but it is well worth it.
Many website builders begin by offering their services for free after building a small site. If they are happy with your work, they might ask you to build them an entire website or at least make some small changes to their current website.
Once you build a few portfolio items, you can start charging businesses for your services and work. You'll also want to create your own website to promote your offerings.
Since you are working as a freelancer, the amount of money you make with this side hustle will depend on your experience, services offered, and how much you charge.
For small sites, it's common to charge a few thousand dollars, and for larger websites with more functionality, you charge over 5-figures.
Work as a Freelance Writer
Freelance writing is an awesome method to make money working remotely, and there are tons of other benefits outside of the lucrative income.
It can take some time to build your portfolio and make a decent income, but if you're willing to learn – this is an amazing side hustle I'd highly recommend.
The amount of money you can make as a freelance writer will vary depending on your skills and experience, but it's possible to earn over $1 per word written. This means an 800-word article would net you $800.
For beginners and less experienced writers, it's more realistic to make anywhere from$.10 to $.25 per word written. But when you break down your income into hours worked, the earnings you make can be substantial.
Aside from earning a great income, you'll also get to work from home and you won't have a boss breathing down your neck (thank goodness!).
You'll need to be comfortable working with editors and accepting feedback, but if you can do this – you can be successful.
Offer Digital Advertising Services
Digital marketing has exploded over recent years as consumers swarm to the internet searching and finding anything they need – making way for tremendous opportunity for those who understand it.
Digital marketing has a multitude of components like email marketing, digital advertising, SEO, and social media marketing.
Each of these services offers you an avenue to make money with freelance opportunities with local small businesses. Because these businesses probably aren't as tech-savvy, and can't afford a full time marketing employee, you can make good money from your skills.
For example, you could run Facebook ads for small businesses to gain their business clients. You could specialize in email marketing and CRM marketing to help win back previous customers. There are tons of options.
The amount of money you can make will vary depending on the service, but it's certainly possible to make over $100 per hour when offering these services.
Invest Money
Investing isn't technically a side hustle, but it's a great way to earn money online, so I'm adding it to this list.
By using platforms like LEX Markets and Acorns, you can invest in real estate and the stock market without needing a fortune to get started.
Additionally, both platforms are offering new users free money when you create an account so why not give it a shot?
Start an Ecommerce Store
Starting an online store is a fun way to make money and work your own hours if you have a computer and an internet connection.
Opening an online store is a great way to make a significant amount of money while also working a part-time job. Because you sell products online – there's no need to be around customers.
If you aren't sure where to get started, you can consider starting an Etsy shop first to start selling your products and digital downloads to the world. This is a much easier way to get started when compared to creating a website and having to deal with payment processing, inventory management, and other tasks, although you will lose complete control of your business.
There are millions of options when it comes to figuring out what products to sell. For example, candles, crafts, and even t-shirts are all viable options. Choosing the right niche that's not overly crowded can help you succeed.
Starting an online store is one of the best side hustle ideas for aspiring entrepreneurs to start.
Complete Online Surveys
Completing online surveys is an easy way to boost your short term income without needing any specific skills or experience.
You can expect to make anywhere from $1 to over $50 per survey you complete online, depending on the platform you use.
There are many survey sites you can use, but some of my favorites include:
While you won't make a fortune taking online surveys, it's a solid options to make quick money when you need it.
Complete Paid Focus Groups
Focus groups are another digital side hustle to make more money online.
By participating in focus groups, you can make anywhere from $50 to over $150 per hour, depending on the group and topic.
The best part is that you don't need any experience or skills to participate. All you have to do is sign up with the company conducting the focus group and show up for your scheduled time.
My favorite platform is SurveyJunkie. Register below to get started!
Sell Online Courses
Online courses can be a tremendous digital side hustle that is perfect for anyone in the creator economy.
With this side gig, you'll need to create a course that helps other learn a certain skill or subject.
For example, if I were to create a course, it would be about helping others start a side hustle. But if you have an audience around pools and hot tubs, you could create a course on how to clean them or close them each year.
There are tons of different softwares and products that make uploading and selling your course a breeze. Two of the most common are Podia and Teachable. Personally, I like Teachable more, but they're both great options.
The best part about online courses is that once you've completed it, you can sell them over and over again. You might need to make small updates from time to time but that's it.
You can earn fortunes from online courses if you know what you're doing. Check out the video below for more help!
Sell Digital Products to Earn Money Online
Digital products are similar to selling an online course but instead of just selling a single course, you can potentially sell thousands of different digital products.
These are often lower cost and are much easier to create, which makes them one of the best side hustles you can do from home.
Digital products can include many different items including things like:
- Checklists
- Calendars and planners
- Budget trackers
- Journals
For example, check out this digital planner I found for sale on Etsy.
It has over 125,000 sales. Assuming an average sale price of $12, that's an astounding $1.5 MILLION in income.
Tutor Online
Another great way to make money online working from home is tutoring online.
There are tons of different subjects you can teach depending on your skills and the income is quite large. Some tutors can make over $50 per hour for their time, and if you're tutoring an advanced subject you can easily earn over $100 per hour.
As long as you like working with others and have knowledge on a certain subject, this can be a great digital side hustle worth considering.
Publish a Book to Build Wealth
If you're looking for passive income, consider publishing a book to make money online.
There are several different online publishing options you could use to avoid the massive upfront costs that come with traditional publishing methods.
While you're still need to invest some money into your book, it's much less.
Selling books isn't the easiest thing in the world, so you might want to consider how you will market and promote your book before you begin the process.
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Final Thoughts on the Best Computer Side Hustles
Between working as a virtual assistant, selling t-shirts online, or teaching music lessons – there are plenty of options when it comes to side hustles you can do at home from your computer.
If you have a computer, internet access, and some free time – try one of these digital side hustles today!
Looking for more ways to make money? Check out these posts:
- EASY Ways to Make Money Doing Nothing
- How to Make $100 a Day: Proven Methods You Can Try
- Best Free Money Apps that Pay Instantly
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