I’m starting my side hustle blog as a case study for majority of my followers who are looking for the best ways to make money online without breaking the bank. Four years ago, I started teaching digital marketing courses to aspiring entrepreneurs who wanted to learn how to make money online. This online marketing training program was actually a request by some of my fellow domainers in a forum where I’m also a member.
From my modest contributions to the domaining section of the forum, they perceived that I’ve the requisite experience and expertise to teach beginners internet marketing generally. That was how my coaching, training and mentoring program started.
With this singular request, I felt honored and I decided to create an independent thread in the same forum for absolutely free digital marketing training program where I regularly publish high quality content on SEO (search engine optimization), side hustle ideas, blogging for money, affiliate marketing, domain flipping, and so on.
And the responses and contributions to the thread from other forum members, readers, followers and visitors from search engines were indeed overwhelming. In less than 30 days of starting this thread, I started registering students for my paid digital marketing course.
It has been awesome ever since teaching entrepreneurs how to make money on the internet without breaking a sweat or spending small fortunes. From my constant interaction with our students, we discovered that there is a big problem of not having enough cash at the beginning to start an online business with the majority of them especially when creating a blog.
Specifically, in year 2022, I had quite a number of students who wanted to go into blogging but don’t have the startup costs to sign up for paid website hosting services like HostGator.com. This got me thinking and I decided to do a practical case study on how to start a blog and make money using Blogger without spending a dime.
Because I know that you can actually create a free blog with Blogger.com, I decided to follow this route to test the waters. But if you have about $100 to invest at the beginning to start an online business, you can read my comprehensive blogging guide on how to create a blog on your domain name using self-hosted WordPress CMS platform from this link.
Basically, there are two ways to use Blogger blog to start your own business online.
- Create a blog for free using Blogspot.com sub domain name, or
- Register a domain name and map it to Blogger free hosting as a custom domain.
While the first option is absolutely free, the second option will cost you about $10 per year to buy a domain and/or renew it. The downside of the first option is that the free sub domain from Blogger will not be too good for branding and online promotions because it is a long URL.
For example, the Blogger free blog which I created for this passion project is at https://hustlevim.blogspot.com. Now, that URL is rather long for my liking especially when my online business starts growing and expanding. But alternatively, I can simply buy a domain like https://www.hustlevim.com and simply set it up as a custom domain with Blogger free hosting.
So, instead of using the long sub domain name from Blogspot.com, I can begin to use the custom domain (HustleVim.com) to promote my blog and business. And it costs less than $10 to buy a domain name from NameCheap domain registrar. If you cannot invest just $10 per year to start an internet business which you can grow into millions of dollars over time, that will be too bad!
Instead of branding and blogging with the long URL at hustlevim.blogspot.com, I’ll be using a custom domain name for my online promotions and marketing. There are so many benefits that will accrue to me for taking this decision.
- It is more cost effective for any blogger who wants to start a blog and make money without investing in paid web hosting services immediately because this is a partially free route. Just for $10 or less per year, you can get a domain name or renew it to run your blog seamlessly as Blogger takes care of the free website hosting part of your online business.
- With Blogger’s free web hosting, you can create a blog and monetize it to a greater extent successfully. This should give you a head start and go a long way for you to earn money online as early as possible and possibly upgrade to any reliable web host later in the course of growing your online business.
But there is no gainsaying the fact that you’ll be able to do more with your internet business if you sign up with a paid web hosting services at the beginning because of flexibility and added features such as creating custom email addresses, having website builder to customize your blog, plugins for added functionalities and dynamic themes for the look and feel of your blog.
For instance, for less than $100 in your first year, you can get web hosting from HostGator.com and start your online business on the cheap. Besides, they have excellent customer support and are reliable with robust features which include security, free SSL certificate, and so on.
If you create a free blog with Blogger, you can transfer it eventually to a paid hosting service when you feel it’s time to do so. This is exactly what I intend doing with this side hustle blog when it is earning enough money to sign up for some online tools and resources necessary to run a professional blog.
As an aspiring blogger, you don’t have any excuse to not create a blog and make money because you don’t have the wherewithal to purchase web hosting outright. On this side hustle blog, I’ll be teaching you legitimate online business opportunities which you can start on the cheap and make passive income, month in and month out. I promise!
Some of the side hustle ideas which I’ll be teaching you will include affiliate marketing, domain flipping, website flipping, blogging for money, freelance writing business, writing and selling ebooks online, just to mention a few. I’m going to deploy my wealth of practical experience in digital marketing to make this side hustle blog an overwhelming success.
And if you find these tutorials educative and informative enough, you may want to consider enrolling for our complete digital marketing training program from this link.
With that said, let’s dive into the side hustle business basics.
What is a Side Hustle?
Side hustle has become a popular buzz term lately which simply means any side business or part time job you can do at your spare time in order to earn extra cash which is exclusive of your main day job. In other words, it’s quite distinct from your regular job or work which you’re currently being paid for.
Side hustle business will earn you supplemental income in addition to your regular wages or salary which you’re receiving from your 9 to 5 day job. In today’s technological advancements, majority of workers and hobbyists all over the world are taking on online side hustles to start a business while still gainfully employed.
This is because it provides the needed extra cash and income to build wealth from the ground up and from anywhere in the world. This is exactly what I did some years back as an employee of a company. While I was still working, I started reading e-books and watching videos on how to make money online after returning from work at night for about one to two hours per day.
I took special interest in affiliate marketing business and domain investing. Within a space of 52 weeks, I became self-employed with just three online business models, namely, writing and selling ebooks online, buying and selling domain names and promoting affiliate products and services for commissions.
For you to make money online with side hustle business ideas, you’ve to be focused, consistent, persistent, committed and patient with your business goals. This may require you to invest in yourself, online tools and resources to facilitate your business to greater heights and become successful.
In today’s world of web businesses, the best investment you can make is to get a domain name and buy web hosting to start a blog. Through blogging, you’ll be able to learn and master the terrain of side hustles inside out by constantly interacting with your target audience and knowing what they want or need.
You’ll discover through keyword research your target audience’s search intent and the needs and wants of your target niche market. If you’re ambitious, you’ve to learn SEO (search engine optimization) which will help you to write SEO content around these keywords. Also, you’ll be able to use this knowledge to optimize on-page SEO for the keyword phrases and rank them in search engines like Google.com
You’ve to understand that a side hustler is a versatile online entrepreneur who has at least smattering knowledge of every topic related to digital marketing. He has the vim and vigor to satisfy the yearnings of his target audience by providing expert information or content through blog posts, videos, podcasts, free PDF ebooks, etc, as well as recommending high quality products and services to solve their problems.
Beyond that, as a side hustler you don’t have to stay in your comfort zone but you’ll always go out of your way as an expert to provide sufficient information about a topic, product or service that can benefit your readers, followers, subscribers and customers.
In the coming weeks, I’ll be teaching you how to start a blog and make money blogging using the free method and/or the self-hosted WordPress blog option. But if you want to fast track your online business success, it is advisable to get web hosting with a free domain name. It gives you more flexibility and leverage to build your website the way you want and to monetize your blog and customize it using plugins which serve various functions.
How Can You Make Money from Side Hustle Ideas?
Making money online should not be your primary goal of starting a side hustle business. This is where a lot of hustlers, beginners and newbies alike miss the mark!
Your first step is to develop a system of discovering what a group of people are in need of and then create a solution (product, service or information package) to address the problem. For you to complete this task, you may have to build an email list of subscribers in your focus niche and simply ask them what they want through questionnaires and online surveys.
You may also lurk around online communities and niche forums related to your topic so that you can elicit information about people’s needs, problems and pain points. From there, you can evaluate existing products in the marketplace in order to spot any gap you can fill. This will help you to become relevant and possibly stand out from the crowd as a blogger, product creator or business owner.
You should understand from the get go that making money online from your side hustles revolves round solving problems for any target market you’re working on. If you cannot spot any palpable and tangible pain points to solve in the marketplace, it’s a big red flag that the market may not be profitable after all.
Online Tools and Resources to Start a Side Hustle Blog
The tools and resources to start a side hustle business online successfully will depend to a large extent on your own personal budget and capacity and willingness to invest in them. However, registering a domain name, buying web hosting and creating a blog are unavoidable expenses which you’ve to incur if you want to take a long shot at internet business.
Although you can get around these tools without spending money, you’ll be limited and incapacitated when it comes to the best ways to monetize your blog. This is because the companies providing free hosting services and blogging platforms always have restrictive rules on how bloggers can monetize their blogs.
For instance, some free website owners will not allow you to create adult content or make use of adult monetization methods at all. And if your focus is on the adult niche, you cannot do anything about that!
As a blogger and as you grow your side hustle business, you’ve to consider subscribing to reliable ESP (email service provider). An ESP like GetResponse will provide you with email marketing software to build an email list of subscribers who are interested in your blog topics and may want to receive further information through your business newsletter.
As you already know, building relationship, trust and credibility are pivotal pillars to any online business success. It makes it easy for every internet marketer to promote and sell products with little or no objections. This is why one of the best ways to make money online is through list building. Yes, you’ll be able to promote and recommend products and services to your target audience with ease.
If you ask me, these five (5) online business tools are essential for you to invest in right away as you start working on your side gig.
- Register a domain name,
- Get web hosting,
- Install WordPress blog on your domain,
- Subscribe to reliable email marketing software, and
- Create and publish regular but high quality content on your blog.
As I progress with this side hustle blog, you’ll be able to learn the importance and rewards of investing in the above vital tools, apps and software which will speed up your business growth and increase your monthly revenue in the long run. In my next blog post, I’ll cover my top 10 online side hustles to make money while working from home.
