This quick start guide will teach you how to start a side hustle in an hour or less. Just in time for the weekend, right?
Congratulations on making the decision to start a side hustle! It’s an exciting time to be building a side hustle because of all the new ways that people can make money online. Once you learn how to start a side hustle, you can repeat the process as many times as you need in order to reach your financial goals. The sky is the limit!
If you want to know how to start a side hustle FAST and with LITTLE OR NO MONEY, the best way to do that is with your own website and blog. It’s not hard. Everything you need to know is found in this post.
You don’t even need any technical skills these days to create your own website or blog. I have spent years learning the best blogging strategies and I have a method that will get it up and running in less than an hour, even if you’re not a “techie.” It’s easy! Just follow the steps and you’ll be making money online in no time.
Step 1: (Required) Get a domain name and a hosting provider.
A domain name is what people will type into Google or their browser bar to find you. It’s your .com name. For example, this website’s domain name is jonsterling.com.
A hosting provider is where you store the digital files (photos, text, videos, logo, etc.) that are displayed on your website. They have to live somewhere, ya know?
The best way to think about a hosting provider is “someone else’s computer that stores the elements of my website.” Hosting companies specialize in managing websites, updates and traffic you send there, among other things. You only need a basic hosting provider to start.
The best hosting provider I have used is this one. The plans start at $4 a month (which is super cheap) AND they include a domain name with your hosting plan. You’re killing two birds with one stone, as they say. They have support people available 24/7 and they are very helpful and patient, even if you have a basic question.
There’s no need to buy any of their “upsells” right now (believe me…they’ll try to sell you all kinds of things you don’t need as you sign up). FOCUS. Just get the domain name and the hosting plan. That’s all you need.
The best domain name you can get is yourname.com or yourbusinessname.com. There’s no need to overthink it or be too clever. Also, .coms are preferable to .net, .info and all the rest for a bunch of reasons we won’t fuss about on this post. Just get a .com.
Step 2: (Required) Install WordPress and get a WordPress theme.
When I was getting started with online businesses and trying to figure out how to start a side hustle, I didn’t have all the fancy tools available today. The very best tool is WordPress.
WordPress is a platform that powers about one third of all the websites in the world, mostly because it’s easy to use and takes care of all the hard parts of building a website.
In the early days of the internet, there was distinct difference between a website and a blog. Those lines have been blurred and many websites/blogs are essentially the same thing today. Users can’t really tell if they’re looking at a blog or a website. WordPress keeps making improvements to make it easy for normal (read: non-techie) people to build and maintain websites and blogs. I love WordPress.
The best part…Wordpress is free!
You’ll see the “Install WordPress” button in your hosting dashboard and it should only take a few clicks and a few minutes to install it. The support people are there to help if you need it (but you probably won’t need help).
Themes
Think of themes as shortcuts to building a blog and making it look pretty. Themes do all the heavy lifting for you when it comes to design, layout and functionality. What used to require the assistance of a graphic designer (and $$$ paid to the designer) is now easy to manage without the extra expense. Hooray!
Themes provide the basic structure of a blog and they make it easy to customize your web properties to your liking. There are hundreds of themes here. Search through them and take your pick. Try to find one that has LOTS of positive reviews. It shouldn’t cost you too much and you’ll look much more professional than someone who is using one of the free themes provided by WordPress.
Step 3: (Required) Install a tool to grow your list of customers.
Now you have a pretty blog. Congratulations! It’s not enough to have a pretty blog in this day and age. You need to capture names, email addresses and phone numbers of the visitors to your website.
Why do you need to do that?
The people who visit your website are potential clients of yours. You should make it easy for them to contact you! When people register on your blog they are raising their hand and saying, “Hey! I like you and I like your content. I’d like to hear from you in the future.”
The biggest mistake that you’ll hear over and over from the top bloggers is that they didn’t start building their email list soon enough.
With a gazillion apps and phone notifications screaming for our attention every day, it’s easy to get lost in the noise. Building an email list is the best way to start a blog that is profitable. You don’t have to have the profit part figured out from day one, but you should definitely start collecting email addresses from day one. We will teach you the rest later.
Step 4: (Optional) Crank up the volume on your blog traffic.
You can stop at Step 3 if you’d like, but you should probably consider continuing here. This product has made a DRAMATIC difference in my website traffic and conversions.
This link will get you 20% off your first month. Go get it!
(Fair warning: This one takes a little more technical work than the other three steps, but you won’t find a better support team than theirs. They are GREAT and always available on Live Chat for even the smallest questions.)
That’s it! You should be good to go. Now you know how to start a side hustle. As always, please let me know how I can help you from here.
Now you know how to start a side hustle!