Earn Extra Cash With These 5 Easy Work From Home Side Hustles

Because of the recession, a lot of people are having trouble making ends meet. But there are many of low-investment online side gigs you can start with little more than a laptop, webcam, internet, and a little bit of hustle.

Join us as we delve into six practical strategies for making money online—from creating sales funnel websites to monetizing social media followings—that you can do from the comfort of your own home.

Every idea for an internet business comes with a set of instructions, potential stumbling blocks, and advice on how to overcome them.

1. Build Sales Funnel Websites

Websites for sales funnels and landing pages that collect visitor data are often missing for small and medium-sized organizations. Lead magnets, such as coupons, discount codes, or free eBooks, are a common kind of incentive that sales funnels use to get users to submit their data.

How to start:

• Study sales funnel and landing page best practices
• Reach out to local businesses lacking these assets
• Offer to build full sales funnel websites with lead capture forms
• Capture visitor data to add to email lists for future campaigns

Challenges:

• Takes effort to prospect potential clients
• Must demonstrate value to earn business

Keys to success:

• Create one excellent sales funnel site as a template to replicate
• Highlight lead generation value to clients

2. Monetize Social Media Followings

Popular content creators get paid by YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok through their integrated partnership programs. If your viral content fills a niche, you can earn big revenue, albeit acceptance criteria changes per site.

How to start:

• Identify an engaging niche that lacks saturation
• Create share-worthy content around that niche
• Apply for partnership programs once viewership benchmarks are met

Challenges:

• Growing an actively-engaged following is challenging
• Income relies on consistently producing captivating content

Keys to success:

• Commit to a very specific, underserved niche
• Post new videos several times per week to keep audience interested

3. Launch A Podcast

Podcasting continues its meteoric rise, with over three million active shows as of late 2023. But an oft-missed monetization route involves repurposing recorded podcasts into Snackable social media video clips.

How to start:

• Identify a podcast topic that would intrigue both listeners and viewers
• Interview noteworthy guests to attract larger built-in audiences
• Edit recordings into Reels, Shorts and TikToks

Challenges:

• Recording quality episodes on a consistent schedule
• More promotional effort required to drive viewership of clips

Keys to success:

• Locate podcast guests with immense, existing followings
• Promote each episode and clip through guests’ social channels

4. Try Amazon FBA or eBay Dropshipping

By sourcing trending products selling on Amazon and eBay then fulfilling orders directly via dropshipping, it’s possible to run an online retail arbitrage business with almost no upfront inventory costs. Profit relies on sustaining sufficient margins even after marketplace fees.

How to start:

• Research software for identifying profitable dropship products
• List trending items on Amazon FBA or eBay stores
• Work with suppliers to ship customer orders automatically

Challenges:

• Markets saturated with competing dropshippers
• Narrow profit margins on each sale

Keys to success:

• Use software to efficiently pinpoint products with high resale value
• Forge relationships with suppliers offering good margins

5. Create A Local News Instagram Page

With so many seeking alternatives to biased TV programming, Instagram represents a promising platform for community-focused local news. Once you build a sizable local following, small businesses will pay for exposure.

How to start:

• Identify your metro area’s most popular hashtags and local voices
• Curate and repost unbiased area headlines, events and other shareworthy updates
• Gradually shift to publishing more original neighborhood coverage

Challenges:

• Gaining an initial local audience can take time
• Must keep content compelling yet neutral

Keys to success:

• Post frequently to become viewers’ go-to local news source
• Refrain from pushing overly-promotional paid posts too often

The Bottom Line

The possibilities for launching simple yet profitable online side hustles from home are nearly endless, restricted only by your interests, skills and determination.

Weigh both the opportunities and challenges across these six models as you consider which one aligns best with your strengths.

With a strategic game plan in place informed by the keys to success outlined above, even difficult economic periods present accessible avenues for determined individuals to secure side income streams.

So rather than being discouraged by the turbulent times, use them as motivation to finally spin up that online business concept you’ve been contemplating, and start pocketing rewards.