Technically, a side hustle is a way of making money in addition to your regular nine-to-five job, or in the event of sudden unemployment (as was the case with the COVID pandemic). A side hustle is meant to be something that you can do that doesn’t take much time to bring in a little extra money each week. However, many side hustles can evolve into full-fledged, bonafide businesses, and I know many people who started out looking to make an extra few bucks and ended up running six, or even seven-figure, empires.

Start up an eComm shop

eComm is not dead. It just suffers from a lack of creativity and direction. If you try the same old things, you generally get the same old results. Yes, the market is saturated, but this just gives you the opportunity to do something new and different. In 2021, the global integration of e-commerce is greater than it’s ever been — you essentially have access to more potential customers at the tips of your fingers than at any other time in history — but our thinking in regards to eComm needs to be overhauled.

One entrepreneur who did this well was Taylor Alexandria, one of my clients. Her eComm shop, Bands by TA, was floundering throughout its first couple of years — maybe making one sale a day and converting 1% of its website visitors. But since joining the Scope Blackhawk System, she rebuilt her brand from the ground up, generating new ideas and everything she needed to run a successful business — in the middle of a pandemic, no less.

One thing that makes Taylor’s business stand out from all the others is that she is very much in tune with the most recent trends in the consumer market that she targets. In our age of mass production, wearing the same old clothing that every mall in the country sells is no longer in vogue. Unique, bespoke products are in, and Alexandria’s scarves are all one of a kind products.

“No two people on earth are alike, so why would we make each headpiece alike?,” she says on her Facebook page. She also cues in on the consumer push towards sustainable modes of production, and each of her scarves are crafted in the U.S. with 100% organic fibers and plant based dyes. To top it off, Alexandria is also very aware of the modern consumer’s desire to donate to charity and give back, so for each scarf she sells she donates one to a child in need.

Starting up an eComm shop isn’t technically difficult — just get a page on a site like Shopify, Woocommerce or Wiz — but getting the word out about it is. As with the case of Taylor Alexandria, she said that her previous advertising endeavors were like “throwing a dart in the dark,” but now that she’s partnered with us at Scope, she’s seeing ripple effects of engagement and sales through her social channels are now receiving 400% returns.

Start your own SEO Agency

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of making web pages more visible in search results. While the wild west days of simply stuffing a few choice keywords on a page, writing a headline featuring those keywords, getting some targeted backlinks and expecting to rank well in Google have long been a thing of the past, search engine optimization is still a viable side hustle that can bring in a good amount of additional income.

In point, even in the era of social media, search is still king. 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, and each and every day Google facilitates 5.8 million searches. Search is still relevant when it comes to getting your message out and targeting potential customers. However, upwards of 75% of internet users never look past the first page of search results. Therefore, knowing how to get pages to rank well in search is a highly valuable skill in today’s hyper digital marketplace. This is where you come in.

According to James Bonadies, a coach who guides prospective SEO service-providers on their path, anyone who knows how to use a computer can learn search engine optimization. He encourages those who are just starting out to first offer their services to family and friends and then branch out to more professional clients from there.

With a little research and training — and an SEO course like one from Local Marketing Vault — you can start your own SEO side hustle and begin selling your services to local businesses who need your help.

How much money can you make from this side hustle? A good SEO makes upwards of $75 an hour. That would put just about anyone on the path toward making ends meet.

Develop a Facebook Ads Agency

Facebook is where the people are. If you want to have maximum online visibility for your business, you need to have a strong presence on this social network. While everyone knows how to post videos and like photos, few small business owners really know the ins and outs of leveraging Facebook to procure an ever-growing stream of clients or navigating the social network’s ad environment. This creates a prime opportunity for a very profitable side hustle.

Starting a Facebook ad agency is simple and doesn’t require any previous experience: all you need is a computer, an internet connection, a willingness to learn and the guts to go out to and get clients. There are many online courses and coaching agencies, such as Scope's Blackhawk system, that will show you the ropes of Facebook marketing. Take a few of them, learn some copywriting and start practicing.

The bread and butter of your Facebook ads side hustle are local businesses. Start local and stay local. The big companies already have their own departments or have hired big firms to do their FB marketing. Your niche is going to be the little guys who can really use your help — especially during the pandemic.

When focusing on local businesses, don’t just go for any business out there, but refine your niche. For example, focus on gyms or restaurants or salons. It’s best to go with something that you know. If you’ve been working in cafes for years, then try to sign up all the locally owned cafes in your neighborhood. Out of the businesses that you’ve identified in your niche, aim for ones that have been in business for a number of years, have their own website and have experience paying for online advertising.

As far as how much money you can expect to make from a Facebook ads side hustle, aim for $800 to $1,500 per month, per client, and invest around a third of this back into the ad spend. How much you can make is directly tied into how much time you want to put in and what your goals are. You can earn anywhere from a thousand or two per month to millions per year, literally.

Eventually, the COVID-19 pandemic will end and the world will open up again. By starting a new side hustle now, you can not only make ends meet in the short term but maybe even set the groundwork for an entirely new business for the future. There is no limit to how far you can take a good side hustle.

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Jared Curry is a 19-year-old business owner and CEO of Scope As CEO of Scope Marketing, he oversees a team of completely remote digital marketing geniuses.