Is Blogging The Best Side Hustle? 7 Reasons Why You Should Blog

If you’re looking for a proven, reliable side hustle that will stimulate you intellectually and monetarily, look no further than starting a blog.

I’m a bit old fashioned in that I like to work on things that are proven and have a demonstrated ability to be successful.

If it takes a bit of hard work, that’s fine. That’s something I can get my arms around. 

Trying to build a side hustle that has a completely unproven business model is not something I would usually venture to undertake.

Blogging is the former. You can achieve success with some hard work, determination, learning and a bit of luck.

Blogging is a blank canvas through which you can share your views, ideas and experiences, and make a little money while you’re at it. It’s also a great way to ensure that you’re always learning and keeping yourself accountable to your goals.

Before we get into why I love blogging as a side hustle. I’d like to dissect what a side hustle really is. 

My Definition Of A Side Hustle

A side hustle is something that you can do in your free time without hurting your current career. Your side hustle should be able to be performed in a variety of locations and shouldn’t be time-constraining. You should be able to work on your side hustle at your own discretion. 

If you are truly motivated to do something, you will do it no matter the time of day or day of the week. 

“Good things come to those who hustle.”

A side hustle should reinforce your current day job rather than deter you from it. I’m not saying that you have to do something related to your day job. In fact, if you have a strong passion for pets and work in accounting, developing a side hustle around pets could give you a break from the everyday routine of accounting.

But imagine if you did something complementary to accounting? A side hustle should be something that you both have experience in and a passion for. A blog is a great example of something that can be tailored to any subject in the world.

Thus, blogging is ideal for anyone looking build a side hustle business. Always view your side hustle as a business. You simply never know where it will take you or what doors it will unlock. 

There are plenty of reasons why blogging makes a great side hustle and I will highlight a few of my favorites below. 

Why You Should Consider Blogging As A Side Hustle

Blogging makes a great side hustle. I’ll show you exactly why.

Here are some of my favorite reasons to consider starting a blog. 

1. Blogging Is Flexible

When you start your blog, you don’t need to be stuck on a topic. You can certainly take your time as you build your brand and create your goals over time. I do suggest, however, that you target a particular niche first if you can. Then, you can build authority in that niche and then move laterally to complimentary or similar topics. 

For example, let’s say you are very passionate about vegan dog diets. You can gain authority in how to help your dogs eat a vegan diet and slowly move to sustainable living for pets or something similar. 

Use this list of untapped niche markets to start your brainstorming on what areas suit you best.

Not only is there flexibility in topics, you can gain flexibility for when you want to work and how you want to do it. Since you’re the boss, you make the rules. What could be better?

2. Almost Non-Existent Startup Costs

To start a blog takes little to no cost at all. That’s great for anyone looking to build a side hustle. Gone are the ages of starting a blog by hiring a web designer or paying for expensive web hosting. Today, you can acquire an all-inclusive theme and hosting package to start your blog in a matter of hours.

You shouldn’t worry about how your site looks when you are getting your bearings straight. Start small and focus on creating excellent content that solves a problem. The rest will fall into place. 

With only a few hundred dollars, you can start blogging with a premium website and hosting package. Your side hustle journey will be underway with limited ongoing capital outlays. 

3. Blogging Can Help You To Reach Your Goals

There’s more to blogging than the monetary benefits. I’ve used it to consistently improve myself and my outcomes. 

You can take the traditional blogging approach and use your blog to document your personal journey. Talk about your success and failures on any given topic.

A great example of this is how financial independence bloggers use their site to monitor and track their net worth. This can help you set realistic goals while pushing your boundaries to continually improve. 

Blogging can be a blank canvas for whatever topic you want others to learn and grow from.

4. Inspire Others Through Your Writing

Name another platform that you can use to inspire people right away? I’ll wait…

Yes, you could go outside and start preaching to people in a park about how you are super passionate about financial independence. That might not go over so well, you might get arrested. It might work out if you’re extremely charismatic or seem trustworthy. 

I’m not one of those people. I have a face for radio, and even if I were on the radio, I speak broken English.

With a blog, I can use images, video, graphs and words to get my point across. 

“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.”

—Denis Waitley

Blogging can be a megaphone to inspire others into action around the world. 

5. Use Your Blog As A Notebook

We are all learning something new every single day. If you are learning things in your professional life, why not use a blog to simply create some content on some basic topics, definitions, examples, case studies, etc. If you’re learning it, someone else will probably need to learn it in the future. You can help them to learn as you go about your day job. 

Let’s look at an example.

Let’s say you work in accounting. You could use a blog as a side hustle to teach others the ropes of accounting or teach ways for other accounting professionals to be more efficient with Microsoft Excel by using shortcuts.

Teaching others will help reinforce your own ability to do good work in your accounting job, while providing resources to others in your area of expertise.

 “If you don’t program yourself, life will program you!”

—Les Brown

By providing resources to people in your field, you never know who you might connect with, and it could improve your career down the line.

6.  A Blog Is A Networking Tool

Content marketing can have a high return on investment monetarily. There is an added layer of ROI with blogging, however, which is how it enables you to connect with others around the world.

By growing and maintaining a blog, you will naturally find new friends all over the globe. 

There are a lot of side hustles that enable you to connect with others. Freelancing, for example, requires you to work with people around the world. It’s a natural part of doing business. But a blog can help you develop actual friendships with other bloggers, social media experts and those in your niche. With freelancing, my relationships were usually strictly professional.

No matter what, blogging has no borders and brings people together. 

7. Multiple Revenue Possibilities

Blogging makes a great business because you can easily diversify your revenue streams. There are plenty of different ways (and strategies) to make money blogging. 

Here are a few that come to mind (in order of upside potential):

• Digital products, including courses and guides
• Affiliate marketing
• eBooks or book publishing
• Sponsored posts 
• Email list monetization
• eCommerce (if you have a loyal following, you can sell branded, tangible products)
• Display advertising

Display advertising is a great way to make money with blogging. As long as your pageviews and traffic remain steady, you will have a constant recurring revenue stream.

Digital products have some great upside potential for higher earnings. If you offer a digital product for $300, you only need to sell it to 5 people to make $1,500. With affiliate marketing, even at $100 on a cost per conversion event, you’d need 15 sign ups just to meet that revenue amount. 

If you are considering blogging as a side hustle, I suggest that you work very hard at creating at least 3-4 different revenue streams and focus on those. As you grow, you can consider moving to other revenue streams.

The Benefits Of Blogging

Blogging is a great way to make extra income while helping you to constantly learn and grow as a person. You can build an audience and hopefully inspire others around the world.

It’s not easy, however. You have to view blogging as a business in order to succeed.

Blogging might not be for everyone as it can take a lot of hard work and determination to be successful, but I believe anyone who is looking for a good side hustle should at least think about giving blogging a try.

Are you ready to start your blogging journey? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you.