4 Simple Ways to Diversify your Side Hustle Income

I learned the hard way, why diversifying your side hustle income is so important.

After a failed start at becoming an Entrepreneur. My Side Hustle was turned into my only income, thus becoming another job. I was constantly worried of getting sick or even worse… hurt. I’d be out of the game for who knows how long.

No health insurance and minimal savings was just a disaster waiting to happen, but for grace! Thankfully we made it through.

Adding a few passive strategies to the mix to keep from being dependent on any one thing is always a good idea.

Like retirement investments, you want a diversified account so if one stock or fund crashes you don’t lose everything.

Most of the ideas are for those who have built their websites and have a bit of traffic to make sure the benefit matches or exceeds the level of work you have to put into them. However keep these in mind as you grow, especially if you are still in the foundation stage. So you can take advantage of some of these opportunities when you’re ready.

Advertising Space on your Website

This first one is super simple and can be implemented almost immediately. You have complete control over who and what ads go on your site, especially if you don’t go with a google ads template.

You can do this yourself and keep all the profit of your ad blocks. Again you determine what this will look like on your site. The size ad space allocated, type of content allowed and duration of time the ads will be displayed is all determined by you.

I would suggest to have one or two advertising spots max on your website.  After all you have a website to promote your own products and services. But who says you can’t maximize this space for an additional revenue stream.

This is yet another reason you want to have your own self hosted website and not go the cheap route or solely depend on social media platforms for visibility.

Online Store for your Side Hustle

Sell products on your website, you don’t have to get too involved with this if you don’t want. It can be as simple as linking some of your favorite “go to” products on Amazon to a Shop page on your website or sell a product you create. This can be a physical product or a digital information product.

We sometimes forget we have a wealth of knowledge that someone else would pay for if only, to give them a shortcut to their goal.

Don’t let the “curse of knowledge” make you think everyone knows what you do. Remember you had to learn what you know at some point and there’s someone at that stage now.

Nicole Walters of The Monetized life has a great example of how to use your site to sell both types of products I mentioned.

Sponsored Posts

Writing sponsored blog post for products you know and love is another great way to bring in some extra cash with your side hustle. Just be sure to make it clear to your audience that you have been compensated for the article, so they know you are on the up and up, and not trying to bamboozle them for your gain.

You can also use this on a smaller scale, for paid tweets or other Social Media shout-outs. You would approach it the same as a sponsored blog post just on a micro level.

Believe me if you have an audience someone is willing to pay you to get in their sphere of influence.

Affiliates

Doing a joint venture with an affiliate you really believe in can be mutually beneficial when done correctly.

I remember when Marie Forleo was doing her B-School course I was seeing it on several sites that I frequented, as a discount or upsell to their product or course. They were all in similar niches but were complementary to each other at the same time.

Don’t push anything ol’ thing for the sake of a few bucks. Honor your audience first and foremost.  So it is a win, win, WIN, for you, your audience and the affiliate partner.

This is also a good way to build deeper relationship with folks in your industry, especially if you both are still relatively new and are in the building stages. The “affiliate” piece can be more of a barter type situation for equal sharing or project partnerships by co-mingling audiences for promotional purposes.