Do you need to make money now? Do you need to make extra cash now and don't have any time to waste?
Are you looking for ways to make money online as a beginner with no previous experience? Do you want to find easy side hustle jobs? Or need to learn how to make money online for free?
Lucky for you, there are hundreds of ways to make money online, whether you are a skilled business owner, a beginner, or a teenager looking for extra ways to make cash.
An online business or side hustle, when set up correctly, can be a huge blessing and can change your life completely.
The right side hustle or side gig can 100% bring you financial freedom, location freedom, and time freedom. But, the wrong side hustle can drain your pockets and leave you feeling defeated.
When starting out in the creator economy, it's important to fully and completely embrace your individuality and uniqueness.
You want to embrace what makes you, well, you...
Doing so will make you stand out from the competition and help keep you consistent.
You want to find a way to make money that comes naturally to you. The last thing you want is your new side hustle or side business to cause you even more stress and unnecessary expenses.
In this blog post, you'll discover 21 side hustles and side business ideas to make money online.
Plus, you'll discover how to make money online as a beginner and how to make money on the most popular social media platforms like Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Clubhouse, and Facebook.
How to make money online:
Let's dig in!
How To Make Money Online: 21 Side Gig and Side Hustle Ideas
1. Make Money With Affiliate Marketing
One of the most popular ways people make money online today is with affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is when brands, individuals, and businesses work together in a revenue-sharing relationship. With affiliate marketing, you can earn a living by promoting businesses, products, brands, and services you find interesting.
One of the biggest reasons affiliate marketing is so popular today is that almost anyone can become an affiliate of pretty much anything they want.
There are a ton of ways to make money with affiliate marketing.
One idea to quickly start making money with affiliate marketing is to strategically place affiliate links into blog content. Or create TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube videos and attach relevant affiliate links in the video description or link them in your social media bio.
For example, we make money with affiliate marketing by being affiliate partners with businesses like Sam Cart, Hubspot, Searchie.io, Kartra, and Amazon.
The image below shows a recent email from Kartra confirming one of our latest affiliate commissions:
2. Start A Blog
Related: How to write a blog post outline
Blogging is another super popular way to make money online and is one of my personal favorite ways to make money, but it's not the fastest path to cash.
Starting a blog is a lot of hard work and is typically a more of a long-term path to cash.
In fact, it usually takes the average blogger 20 months to make money or affiliate income from their blog.
If you want to make money from blogging, you'll need to perform extensive keyword research, consistently write high-quality content to attract new website visitors, increase your domain authority, and establish your online blog as a go-to resource in your niche.
When doing blog research, make sure to test a variety of marketing tools like ahrefs and MarketMuse to gain valuable insights that will help you outperform your online competitors. It's also important to find the exact keywords and phrases your ideal audience is using and create content that speaks to them at different touchpoints throughout your sales journey.
Once you have your blog set up and have people visiting your new website, there are several ways to make money blogging.
How to make money blogging:
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Add relevant CTA's (call-to-action) throughout your content
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Use affiliate marketing and strategically place affiliate links in your blog content (this involves promoting products or services on your blog to earn a referral fee when readers click on your affiliate link and purchase)
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Charge for access to premium content or a members-only section of your blog
- Sell advertising space to companies looking to advertise their products or services to your audience
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Offer physical or digital products, such as ebooks, infographics, guides, or courses
- Charge for link contributions or backlinks, or charge other websites a fee to add a referring link back to their website, making them the leading resource for that topic.
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Partner with brands and influencers to create sponsored content to place in your blogs and create sponsored content for promoting your blog to new audiences
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Offer one-on-one consultations or coaching services to your readers
Remember, it can take time to make money with a blog and require a lot of trial and error to find the right content marketing strategy.
But if you decide to become a full-time blogger, blogging is an extremely rewarding process and a great way to make passive income online.
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If you want to make money blogging, it's essential to consistently post at least 1-2 new pieces of content to your website each week. The goal is to have 5-10 blogs or pieces of high-quality content already written and ready to publish at the launch of your website. The purpose of writing so many blog articles ahead of time is to have enough different pieces of content to be able to post fresh blog content to your website every week. Again, to make money blogging, post 1-2 new pieces of content to your website each week. We grew our website to approximately 80,000 monthly visitors (yes, the website you are reading right now) using that exact content marketing strategy. And if you don't believe how important it is to stay consistent, just look at how our organic traffic dropped when we stopped posting blog content consistently. 😱
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💡 Productivity Hack: When doing any type of blog research on Google, like audience research or market research, make sure to use the new Google Chrome productivity feature to save time and compare search results faster without having to click back and forth between articles.
3. Post Reviews Online
Believe it or not, you can make money online by taking surveys.
There are online survey websites where you can take a survey in your spare time to make extra money.
For example, one TikTok creator found a great side hustle for beginners where she only works for a few hours a day and makes almost one thousand dollars.
4. Join Gary.Club
If you are a creator on Twitter, are a member of Gary Club, and have a Social Connector account, you can get paid free money just for being a creator and showing up to build your brand.
All you have to do is engage in our community in Discord and on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, open our emails, show up and work on building your brand every day, set your goals using our system, engage with our community on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram, and submit your daily proof of work (POW) at gary.club/pow.
An example of how you can be rewarded in Gary Club is by submitting your POW (proof of work) every day or by submitting your POG (proof of goals).
Once you submit your proof of work, we'll send you free $GARY coin that will automatically be dropped inside your crypto wallet that you can choose to spend however you like.
You can spend your $GARY inside of our ecosystem, use it to buy another social token like $DRIVE or $FREEDOM, or you can swap your social tokens for $USD.
5. Sell Products On Etsy
Etsy is an online marketplace that allows people to sell handmade, vintage, or unique goods. It's similar to other online marketplaces like eBay or Amazon, but it focuses specifically on the items above.
Etsy sellers create their own "shops" on Etsy and list their products for sale, and Etsy buyers can browse the various shops and purchase items they are interested in.
Etsy handles the payment process and ensures that the transaction is secure.
It's important to have high-quality photos of your products and to communicate with your customers to have a successful Etsy shop.
By offering a variety of products or services and consistently putting in the effort to promote and grow your shop, you can make money on Etsy.
How to make money on Etsy:
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Sign up for Etsy's affiliate program. Etsy's Affiliates can earn commissions (a percentage of revenue, 5%) on qualifying sales that result from featuring links to Etsy products and other Etsy content on their site.
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Become an Etsy seller
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Post Etsy affiliate links on social media
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Share affiliate links with your email subscribers
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Share other Etsy shops, embracing the community as a large
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Add Etsy affiliate links to your website or blog
The secret to making money on Etsy is to keep your shop and products up to date, quickly respond to customer inquiries and reviews, and participate in the Etsy community to build your reputation and attract more customers.
Etsy also has a great blog called the Etsy Journal to help you navigate the Etsy marketplace.
Where you can find a variety of ideas and inspiration for creative living, like the top planner pics to get organized all year long, the best house plants for plant lovers, plus the best Etsy shops to add to your favorites, the softest duvet covers to wake up your space, and bathroom rugs you will want to design your space around.
6. Create An NFT (Non-Fungible Token) Collection
Related: an A to Z list of 98 NFT and crypto keywords you must know
Are you a person with artistic and creative abilities? Interested in making money in web 3.0? Or want to make money in the metaverse?
If so, another way to make money online is to create an non-fungible token (NFT) or pfp collection that you can sell for a profit.
Even though there's been some recent fud (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) around NFTs lately, NFTs aren't going anywhere, and there's a ton of opportunity to make some fast cash.
There are many ways people make money with NFTs.
For example, one person spent more than $400,000 on Bored Ape #9234 from the popular BAYC (Bored Ape Yacht Club) NFT pfp collection. 😱
What's interesting about Bored Ape #9234 is it was purchased two years ago for $3,273.74 and sold for $400,086.19 (260.00 ETH) 11 hours ago.
Which is a $403,812.45 profit.
How to make money with NFTs:
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Buy, flip, and sell NFTs
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Find and hold super rare and valuable NFTs
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Create an NFT collection
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Create different utilities and opportunities to make money within a NFT collection
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Offer services to an NFT community
- Stake NFTs
Overall, NFTs provide a new and exciting way for creators to monetize their work and for collectors to invest in digital assets.
7. Start A YouTube Channel
Related: How to start a YouTube channel
YouTube is a place for all types of creators to thrive and is known as one of the top social media platforms for making money as a creator.
The cool thing about YouTube is anyone can create an account and can create an unlimited amount of YouTube channels--meaning you can monetize multiple accounts and generate multiple streams of income simultaneously.
There are many ways to make money on YouTube as a creator. Over the last three years, YouTube has paid creators using its platform more than $50 billion dollars.
One of the most frequently asked questions when getting started on YouTube is, how many followers do you need on YouTube to make money?
YouTube requires every account to have 1,000 followers and 4,000 watch hours in the last year to monetize your channel. Once you reach that, you can apply to YouTube's Partner Program and monetize your YouTube channel.
How to Make Money on YouTube:
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Earn money with YouTube Shorts: If you are part of the YouTube partner program for creators, you are eligible for revenue sharing on ads viewed between videos in the Shorts Feed.
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Earn money ad revenue sharing: Earn a portion of a subscriber's fee when they watch your content when you sign up for YouTube premium.
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Earn money with Super Chat and Super Stickers: Viewers can purchase Super Chats to highlight your message within a live chat. Viewers can also purchase Super Stickers to see a digital or animated image that pops up in the live chat feed.
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Sell your products on YouTube
Pro tip: Add keywords like "UGC" to your YouTube profile, youtube videos, and other social media profiles to help businesses and brands easily discover your YouTube content or Shorts in the feed and know they can hire you to make user-generated content.
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Create a YouTube channel membership for your biggest fans that will give them exclusive benefits like custom loyalty badges, emojis, and members-only content channel membership when they become a paid member of your YouTube channel.
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Make money by using YouTube BrandConnect to connect with brands that want to partner for branded content campaigns.
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Earn money with Super Thanks: Super Thanks (formerly known as Viewer applause) lets creators earn a different source of revenue and connect with viewers who want to show extra gratitude for their content. You'll receive Super Thanks revenue in the same way that you receive ad revenue with AdSense.
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Sell your YouTube channel: Do you have an old inactive YouTube account you don't use anymore? People will pay major bucks (some paying thousands) for established YouTube Channels with thousands or millions of subscribers.
Right now, the secret to making money on YouTube is with YouTube Shorts!
8. Host Live Audio Spaces
Get paid to host live audio spaces like Twitter spaces and clubhouse rooms.
Where else can you host live audio spaces? You can make money hosting live spaces on Twitter, Clubhouse, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Discord.
For example, find a few book authors that resonate with your business or personal brand and offer to promote their book to your social media audience and online community.
It would be pretty simple to incorporate something about their book into your live audio conversations on Twitter spaces or the Clubhouse app.
If you are already creating daily or frequent rooms on the clubhouse app, this will be super simple and convenient for you to do.
Here’s a super simple idea to start making money the next time you host a live audio space.
As an example, while you're giving a recap of the room, you could quickly say, “Today's Clubhouse room, or Twitter Spaces, is brought to you by, _____< insert book title, or blog title and give a brief description >_____.”
9. Become An Online Translator
Another way to make money online is through translating languages, which should be an easy way to make money online, especially if you're fluent in multiple languages.
There are all kinds of ways to make money with translation services in the digital marketing and content marketing space.
For example, you could charge someone a fee to translate their website or blog copy into another language or provide customer support services in another language, or you could translate court documents, sales pages, online courses, webinars, emails, books, or social media content.
Honestly, you can translate anything someone is willing to pay for.
To find potential customers look on social media or websites like Fiverr, FlexJobs, SolidGigs, and Upwork. You can also use tools like ChatGPT and Google translate to quickly translate text into different languages.
Related: ChatGPT: Transforming content creation with A.I.
Here are a few examples of blog posts we paid to have translated into Spanish by someone on Upwork in an attempt to reach and attract a different type of audience to our website.
- ¿Cuánto Debo Invertir En El Marketing De Influencers?
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¿Cuánto Tiempo Dedica Una Persona Promedio A Las Redes Sociales?
10. Work For Amazon
There are a ton of Amazon career opportunities, Amazon jobs, Amazon remote jobs, and work-from-home jobs available.
You just have to learn how to sign up and get started correctly.
How to make money on Amazon:
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Create and sell eBooks and workbooks
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Deliver for Amazon
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Become an Amazon fulfillment associate
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Apply to work in Amazon customer service
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Work in an Amazon warehouse near you
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Explore opportunities in Amazon software development
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Apply to work in Amazon web services
- Plus, so many more opportunities.
11. Become An Influencer
Related: How to become a social media influencer
Since the rise of social media, Influencer marketing has become one of the most critical forms of marketing for businesses and brands worldwide.
Becoming an online creator or social media influencer with millions of followers is now the pinnacle career that many young children and adults aspire to be, and it's another solid way to make money online as a beginner and for free.
But what exactly is an influencer? An influencer uses their knowledge, personality, or skills to influence the buying habits of others.
Social media influencers often work with businesses and brands in an affiliate partnership to increase brand exposure and sell products to their online communities on social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitch, OnlyFans, and Facebook.
What are the five different types of influencers?
Here are the five different types of social media influencers:
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Nano influencers: 1-10k social media followers
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Micro-influencers: 10k-50k social media followers
- Mid-tier influencers: 50k-500k social media followers
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Macro influencers: 500k to one million social media followers
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Mega or celebrity influencers: +1 million social media followers
Related: 5 types of social media influencers you must know about in 2023
Influencers usually fall under these niche categories and post content related to gamers, sports and fitness, bloggers and bloggers, photographers, travel, beauty, fashion, and parenting.
The key to making money as an online social media influencer is to use emotional storytelling in a language your audience understands, show up consistently and build an active social media following and/or online community of people who are eager to buy your products and services and will follow you across multiple social media channels.
12. Launch A Podcast
Related: How to promote and market a podcast
Creating and starting a podcast is another super popular way to make money online.
There are a ton of business coaches, influencers, and industry experts who have started and host popular podcasts.
Here are some of the top trending podcasts on the charts in 2023 to gain inspiration from:
13. Write And Publish An eBook
Did you know the ebook industry is expected to reach 18.7 billion dollars by 2026?
Selling original eBooks online can be a great way to reach a global audience and generate an income stream.
You can sell audiobooks, hardcovers, paperbacks, or ebooks on online stores like Amazon, iTunes, self-publishing platforms, and in some brick-and-mortar stores.
If you aren't familiar with what an eBook is, an eBook is the digital or electronic version of a book and can be read on various devices such as specific eReaders (e.g. Kindle) as well as on tablets, smartphones, or computers. eBooks include your original ideas and thoughts, fiction, non-fiction, and textbooks/academic literature.
Here's an example of an eBook we created for the Clubhouse app to use as a lead magnet to get email addresses when the Clubhouse app first launched. View the full lead magnet and ebook here: 10 Simple Steps To Get 10k Engaged Followers On Clubhouse
You can also self-publish your eBook on Amazon with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). With KDP, you maintain control of your rights, set your prices, make changes anytime, and earn royalty on sales.
On average, it takes around 6-12 hours to create an eBook from scratch.
Make sure to do your research to find high-demand books and find popular current titles based on demand.
For additional help, you can also visit the Amazon help center to learn more about formatting your eBook and find more specific information, tips, tricks, and recommendations on topics like:
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How to write an effective book title and when to use edition numbers
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Amazon keyword best practices: How to add and update keywords
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How to choose and update your Amazon book's categories
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How to add Amazon book authors and contributors
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Learn how to write an effective book description and what HTML can be used on Amazon
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How amazon pre-orders work (eBook only)
14. Offer A Monthly Membership
Related: How to create a monthly membership
If you want to get an idea of how people structure their monthly memberships and what they offer, there are so many example of monthly memberships out there that you can join and learn from.
For example, a few years ago, we offered a $7,500 monthly package that businesses, creators, and online influencers could purchase if they needed help building their personal brand, an online audience of superfans, and selling their products and services.
We sold that package to major influencers and businesses like Lewis Howes, Suzanne Evans, Dr. Axe, Aromahead, KnivesShipFree, and Easy Webinars.
15. Buy And Sell Domain Names
The domain name industry has grown significantly over the years, and many domain names have sold for large sums of money, sometimes in the millions of dollars.
However, it requires research, patience, and some level of investment to identify and purchase undervalued domain names with resale potential.
How to make money buying and selling domain names:
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Research popular keywords and phrases
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Find available domain names that match them
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Buy the domain at a reasonable price
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List it for sale on domain marketplaces or through your own channels
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Negotiate the price with interested buyers
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Transfer the domain once the sale is completed.
16. Host A Webinar Or Live Training
Related: How to make money with webinars
How to make money with a live webinar or live training:
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Choose a relevant and engaging topic that your target audience is interested in and willing to pay for.
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Promote your webinar or training through social media, email marketing, or paid advertising, highlighting the benefits and value of attending.
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Set a fair and attractive price for attending the live event or accessing the recorded version, taking into account the level of expertise and the amount of time and effort you invested.
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Use high-quality equipment and tools to deliver a professional and seamless experience, including a reliable internet connection, a clear microphone, and a well-designed presentation or slide deck.
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Interact with your audience during the live event, answering questions, offering feedback, and providing actionable tips and insights.
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Follow up with attendees after the event, offering additional resources or opportunities for further learning, and collecting feedback and testimonials to improve future webinars or trainings.
By hosting a live training, Gino made a profit, and people from the training paid him for his services and skills.
17. Build Discord Servers
Many artists, creators, and influencers who create an NFT collection need help building and setting up a Discord server for their community.
To make money building Discord servers, you can offer your services on freelance platforms or through social media, emphasizing your skills in server configuration, customization, and moderation.
You can also create and sell pre-made server templates or offer premium features like custom bots, voice channels, or integrations with other apps and services.
As an example, one of our NFT community members, Gino, has made over six figures building out Discord servers for creatives in the NFT and cryptocurrency space.
18. Use Email Marketing
When you do email marketing right and really make growing your email list a priority, email marketing can make you a ton of cash fast.
Billions of emails are being sent every day, 333.2 billion to be exact, and email is one of the fastest and best ways to keep your customers informed, and to develop relationships with past and current customers or to reach out to potential customers.
You can quickly make money by emailing your email list with quality products and offers.
For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect an average return of $40.
19. Publish A Book
Another way to make money online is to write and publish a book.
For example, I wrote and published the book, The Clubhouse Creator: Build your audience, deepen relationships, and accelerate in the creator economy, that can be bought in Barnes and Noble stores across the U.S., and the book can also be found listed for sale on Amazon.
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Purchase The Clubhouse Creator at Barnes and Noble
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Buy The Clubhouse Creator on Amazon
20. Build An Online Course
Creating an online course is a great way to structure your thoughts and monetize your knowledge.
One way to make money online with an online course is to create a course that teaches a skill or knowledge that people are willing to pay for.
This could be anything from photography to programming to yoga. Once you have created the course, you can sell access to it on your website or through a platform like Udemy or Coursera.
Another way to make money is to offer coaching or consulting services to students who want more personalized guidance.
21. Find Freelance Work
If you aren't familiar with freelance work, freelance work is when you work for yourself and complete projects on a contract basis.
To make money with freelance work, you should first identify your skills and expertise and then create a portfolio of your work to showcase your abilities to potential clients.
You can then start searching for freelance opportunities on job boards and popular freelance websites, networking with people in your industry, or reaching out to companies directly.
It's important to establish clear expectations and rates with clients before starting any work to ensure that you are fairly compensated for your time and effort.
Where to find freelance work online:
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SolidGigs
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FlexJobs
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Freelancer
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Fiverr
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Network with other professionals in your industry
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Search for freelance work on popular social media websites like Twitter and LinkedIn
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Toptal
Final Thoughts + Additional Resources
Learning how to make money online and building a successful side hustle often requires time, hard work, and a certain level of expertise, so it's important to do your research and understand the risks before getting started.
In the creator economy, there is no guaranteed paycheck.
When starting out in the creator economy, it's important to understand that no two people are the same, and what works for someone else might not work for you.
We all have different skills, talents, and things that make us happy.
Try to find a way to make money or a new side job that comes naturally to you. The last thing you want is your new side hustle to cause you even more stress and unnecessary expenses.
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