If you’ve been dreaming about becoming self-employed, but aren’t sure what the best side hustle business idea is for you, we’ve got you covered.
Being self-employed can offer so many benefits, like the freedom to create your own schedule, work on projects you love, and earn a great income. One of the best ways to become self-employed and enjoy all that freedom is by starting a side hustle as a freelancer.
Freelancers have flexibility in their schedule, can live where ever they want, or even becoming a digital nomad (like The Freelance Hustle’s Amna – seriously follow her travels on Insta). And the best part about freelancing as a side hustle is that you can start earning money from it right away. It’s one of the fastest businesses to start!
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So what kind of freelance side hustle business should you start? Well that depends on your interests and skills. But to give you some ideas, we’ve rounded up the most popular and in-demand freelance businesses you can start, plus the best courses and resources to get you started in the field.
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The Best Freelance Side Hustle Business Ideas (Plus the best courses to get you started)
Freelance Writing And Blogging
As a freelance blogger, you can get paid to write articles online. You can even build up your own blog and start earning passive income from affiliate links and sponsored posts.
Plus, having your own blog opens you up to being able to write for other blogs and websites – and get paid for it.
If you want to get hired as a freelance writer, you typically need a portfolio to show off your writing skills. The best way to make a portfolio if you don’t already have writing clients is to start a blog! You can create your own blog and write about the niche you want to get hired in. You’ll start to build an audience and have a portfolio to share with potential clients.
We’ve written an in-depth post about how to get your own website set up so you can start blogging and booking freelance blog writing clients.
Where to learn
The best courses out there for blogging are from Create & Go and Making Sense of Cents. Both of these bloggers make well over $100,000 a month from their blogs, and they’ve got plenty of resources to help you get set up to start earning money from your blog.
Graphic Design
Graphic designers are highly sought after by businesses of all kinds. Everyone needs visual content these days for their marketing.
Graphic designers can create logos and branding, social media graphics, presentations, templates, stationary, t-shirts, and more.
Where to learn
To get started, brush up on your design skills if you aren’t already a designer. Learn in these courses:
Skillcrush Visual Designer blueprint covers all the basics of graphic design and some web design. You’ll also learn all of the design programs from Adobe.
Skillshare has great courses to learn the basics of design or learn specific programs designers use like Adobe Illustrator.
Web Design
Every business needs a website! Which is why web designers are in high demand. There are plenty of career options for freelance web designers too. You can work one-on-one with clients, you can get subcontracts from design agencies, or you can work with large organizations.
Where to learn
If you want to learn how to be a SquareSpace web designer, there’s no better teacher than Paige Brunton in her Square Secrets courses.
If you’re interested in learning the theory about creating a great user experience with web design, check out the Interaction Design Foundation.
Web Development
Have you always wanted to learn code so you can build websites and apps? This career path is in high demand, and can be a very lucrative choice for freelancers.
Where to learn
We love Skillcrush for all things tech! Their courses are designed to help you learn all the skills you need to break into a new career in tech, plus they have training on how to find jobs, remote jobs, and freelance clients.
Social Media Manager
Spend all your time on Instagram and Facebook? Put your knowledge to good use by helping companies understand how to reach their audience on social media.
You’ll spend your days creating and scheduling content (writing posts, designing graphics, even making videos), looking at engagement analytics, and actively growing a community. You can be a generalist, or focus on a specific platform like Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest.
If you love building an audience on social media, consider doing it for other people!
Where to learn
Skillshare has tons of classes on social media marketing, and on starting your own social media marketing agency. Start with this course on becoming a pro at social media marketing.
Virtual Assistant
Virtual Assistant’s (or VA’s) are in huge demand! If you’re super organized this might be the career path for you.
VAs help their clients with everything from project management to organizing their schedule to their online marketing. You can help other entrepreneurs, bloggers, influencers, or small business owners to organize and grow their business.
Where to learn
Gina Horkey has been a VA and freelance writer for years, and she has tons of resources to help you build a successful business as a VA too. In her course you can learn 3 in-demand skills for VA’s including email, social media, and content management so you can build a successful virtual assistant business in 30 days.
Copywriter
Blogging isn’t the only possible career path for great writers. You can also be a freelance copywriter. Copywriters typically write anything related to sales and marketing.
You can write sales pages, website copy, ads for Facebook, email marketing newsletters… the list goes on. And the more you specialize, the more you’ll earn.
Where to learn
There are plenty of great resources out there to get started in copywriting. We love Courtney from The Rule Breakers Club, and Ashlyn from Ashlyn Writes. They both have loads of blog posts, YouTube videos and resources about copywriting for creatives.
Another great source for all things copywriting is Copyhackers. Get started with Copyhackers free introductory course to conversion copywriting.
Which freelance side hustle business idea sounds the best to you? Let us know which business you want to start!
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