6 Part-Time Business Ideas to Make More Money (3 Hours a Day)

Do you want to start your own business and become your own boss without ditching your full-time job?

A part-time business could be just the ticket to set you on a steady extra income without taking a huge risk. More entrepreneurial people are using their spare time to earn extra income, test out great business ideas, and get their small businesses up and running without fully transitioning into it.

However, despite these refreshing benefits, a part-time business is quite tasking and would require a lot of determination. You’ll be giving up your spare time and most of your weekends.

So, if you devote extra energy to running a part-time business alongside your day job, you must ensure that it’s making you money and not wasting your time.

In this article, we’ll explore six great part-time business ideas to help you make more money and the simple steps to help you start running the business.

Ready for some inspiration? Let’s get started.

Best Part-Time Business Ideas in 2023

1. Start an Affiliate Blog

Affiliate blogging is one of the numerous part-time business ideas available with low startup costs to add to your day job and earn passive income. About 65% of affiliate marketers generate traffic through blogging, which is possible because the concept of affiliate blogging is easy.

As an affiliate blogger, you get to promote a company's products or services using a unique link (an affiliate link) that identifies your blog as the traffic source. Once your readers click on the link or purchase the product you're promoting, you earn a commission.

Here's how to join the affiliate marketing train and become your own boss.

1. Choose a Specific Blogging Niche

Before starting a thriving affiliate marketing business, you need to identify a niche in high demand. A quick search on the internet for trending keywords and topics can give you numerous niche ideas.

However, avoid topics that are already oversaturated or may seem complicated to get into. The less complicated your niche is, the faster you can create content and start earning some bucks.

Here are some of the most profitable niches for affiliate blogging.

• Food: If you love talking about food, this is your perfect niche. Although the food niche is quite popular, there are numerous sub-niches you can focus on. Vegan recipes, budget-friendly meals, and eco-friendly kitchen utensils are great sub-niches to consider.
• Travel: Half of all American travelers spend weeks researching before embarking on a trip. So, sharing helpful travel information can make your blog a go-to stop for travelers. You can choose to share information about different places or recount your experience from your local and international trips.
• Parenting: Wonder why “mummy blogs” are so popular? New and old parents are always searching for expert information on what to do right. If you have some parenting experience, you can find a comfortable niche, such as pregnancy and baby, and create helpful content for your audience.
• Personal Finance: If you have a strong interest in money and managing it, there's a large audience waiting to put your advice to good use. You can create content on topics like tax, debts, credit cards, understanding the stock market, cryptocurrency, and loans.
• Pet care services: By 2030, the pet care market will be worth over 368 billion USD. If you love cats, dogs, and other pets, your blog could bring in many fellow pet owners willing to spend money caring for their pets.
• Health and Fitness: The health and fitness niche is quite popular, and Google algorithms will only favor content with appropriate expertise. So, you should only consider this niche if you have the right expertise and credentials, such as a nurse, doctor, personal trainer, and nutritionist.

2. Select the Products/Services You Want to Promote

As an affiliate marketer, it's critically important that your affiliate offerings include products or services related to your blogging niche. Once you've decided on a product, check if the companies you prefer have affiliate marketing programs. Not all companies will, but you'll find that it's more common than you might have assumed.

3. Choose a Platform to Host Your Blog

There are several website builders best for affiliate marketing that you could grow with. However, as a small business owner, you should save money by starting small. You can begin with their lower-level plans that offer you some degree of functionality and then work your way up from there.

4. Find Your Perfect Affiliate Program

Getting into an affiliate program ensures you have a unique, trackable affiliate link to include in your content.

You can find the best affiliate programs by searching “[niche] affiliate programs” on Google. For example, typing “furniture business affiliate programs” in Google's search bar brings up several helpful listicles.

Before making final decisions, ensure you take extra time to read through all the information the affiliate program provides. Pay keen attention to the following factors.

• Payment amounts
• Payment schedule
• Restrictions
• Legal obligations

5. Promote the Product

With everything in place, you are good to go. However, you must ensure that you strategically use these affiliate links to increase your click-through rates. The quality of your content is a major player here.

When creating your content, the most common types of affiliate marketing blog posts include:

• Listicles
• How-to articles
• Product reviews and comparisons
• Guides and tutorials

For affiliate marketing, long-form content is your best bet because it lets you go in-depth on a product, offering you plenty of opportunities to drop in your affiliate link.

To get more content out, you can patronize the freelance writing business. Most of these freelancers have expert writing skills and can be a fantastic addition to your content outcome.

2. Become a Freelancer

Becoming a freelancer is a popular option among job seekers with a full-time job because of its flexibility. Freelance statistics indicate that, in 2020, there were about 59 million freelancers in the United States, and it is estimated to increase to over 86 million by 2030.

As a freelancer, you have the opportunity to choose your work rate based on your own schedule. You can also take orders from multiple companies simultaneously while charging a reasonable amount for your service.

Here’s how you can start a successful business being a part-time freelancer.

1. Choose a Specific Job in High Demand

There are numerous jobs you can choose to freelance — writing, social media management, graphic design, web development, virtual assistant work, and digital marketing. However, when choosing a freelance job, you should consider those in high demand.

Once you have chosen a freelance job, it's more advisable to niche down to a specific industry. Marketing your freelance services is usually much simpler and more effective if you get specific about what you want to do and who your ideal client is. For example, rather than being just a generic writer, you can choose to be a UX writer, SEO writer, copywriter, or fiction writer.

2. Build Your Job Skill and Portfolio

If you are not an expert in the job you have chosen to do or don't have a reputation, don't get discouraged just yet. You probably may not even have a solid portfolio to guarantee you can build up many regular clients.

You can begin building your skills for the job by taking an online course to help familiarize yourself with your industry needs and requirements. You can also reach out to industry experts for coaching and mentorship opportunities.

As you build your skills, you can start building your portfolio. A strong freelance portfolio shows prospective clients that you can do what you claim to do. As a beginner, you may not find paying clients just yet. You can offer to work for free for family and friends or voluntarily offer to work for organizations for a short while.

3. Choose a Freelance Job Website

Once you have built your confidence and a strong portfolio to go against other experienced freelancers in your industry, you can start focusing on client outreach to get your first paid freelance gig.

Freelance job websites like Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer allow you to showcase your freelancing skills and find clients easily.

Clients post specific projects that you can apply for, and if your bid is accepted and you do a good job, you could have a new freelance client for your business. Some freelance platforms like Upwork even have a job scoring system that can increase your chances of reaching out to more clients and applying for more bids.

4. Promote Your Freelance Business

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are great places to promote your freelance business. You can share examples of your successful jobs as well as information on the type of jobs you are willing to do.

You can also build your own website using free personal website builders. As you build your customer base, you can use the connections you've made to gain more clients.

3. Print-on-Demand

Print-on-demand is simply the process where a vendor works with a third-party supplier of white-label products, such as t-shirts or mugs, to customize items and sell them on a per-order basis. A few years ago, print-on-demand was only achievable by businesses with robust budgets, but now you can run this business with just your phone and from the comfort of your home.

Print-on-demand products are created when a customer has ordered an item, and you don’t need to have a budget set aside to buy large amounts of stock. This process also removes the need for storage and inventory management. Instead, you’ll only purchase items when you already have a customer for them.

The print-on-demand business model resembles a dropshipping model, but the processes are quite distinct. Once a customer orders an item, a dropshipper can contact their supplier, who will fulfill the order quickly. However, with a print-on-demand model, products ordered need to be printed first, which may slow the overall process.

Here are the simple steps that can help you start your own print-on-demand business and earn extra money.

1. Choose Your Products

The first step to consider is determining the type of product you want to sell. There are several best-selling print-on-demand products that you can choose from. Apparels, homewares, and tech accessories are great niches to venture into.

2. Setup Your Ecommerce Store

Help your customers find your part-time business and place their orders by setting up an ecommerce store. There are numerous affordable ecommerce website builders, such as Shopify, that you can use to open your own ecommerce store.

3. Secure a Supplier with Fast-Shipping

Having a print-on-demand supplier with fast shipping means that products ordered via your online store can reach customers as quickly as possible. This is something important to consider because ecommerce statistics show that 38% of shoppers will abandon their purchase if shipping takes longer than a week.

4. Create Unique Print Designs

Your designs are a great success factor for your print-on-demand business. Even if you don’t have any prior creative skills, you don’t need to hire a designer just yet. Pinterest is an excellent start for visual inspiration.

You can also read books, watch YouTube videos, and start conversations with your target audience to get a picture of what they may be interested in. You’ll definitely find something to inspire you.

5. Track Your Print-on-Demand Business

To track your print-on-demand business progress, you can share your designs, fulfilled orders, and even potential design ideas with your online audience to receive feedback. You should also check out customer reviews on your ecommerce store to find ways to improve your part-time business.

4. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a popular example of a zero-investment business idea. Usually, when a customer places an order through a shop (dropshipper), the dropshipper then forwards the order details to a third-party supplier, who then fulfills the order and ships it directly to the customer.

You can start your own part-time dropshipping business and make extra cash with these few simple steps.

1. Pick a Dropshipping Business Niche

To begin this process, compile your dropshipping business ideas and find a niche for your brand. This will help you stand out among your existing competitors. You can also use free tools like Google Trends to find products that will be in demand for the long term.

In addition to picking a business idea, there are several types of dropshipping businesses, such as reselling and custom products. To find the best fit for your own business, you can determine your strengths and weaknesses, as well as your interests and passions.

2. Choose a Reliable Dropshipping Supplier

Finding reliable suppliers contributes largely to the success of your dropshipping business. Without suppliers, a dropshipping business wouldn't have any products to ship to customers. Look out for third-party reviews and consider the supplier's wholesale prices (you can aim for 15-20% in profit margins).

3. Build Your Online Store

A dropshipping business without an online store is like building a house without roofs. It just won't work! Your online store will serve as the powerhouse of your small business, where you'll send traffic to, sell products, and process payments.

Ecommerce platforms like Squarespace, Shopify, Big Commerce, and WooCommerce can help you build and launch your ecommerce website in a few hours. From searching for a domain name and adding sales and marketing plugins to selling and accepting payments in multiple currencies, you can easily navigate the platform with little technical knowledge.

4. Market Your Dropshipping Store

Once you have developed a strategy for your dropshipping business, you can consider marketing your new online store. You will have to put in extra effort to stand out amongst other businesses that have been in the game long enough. An excellent place to start is via paid ads on Google and other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter.

You can leverage internet influencers via influencer marketing to spread the word about your business. You can also start conversations with interested people and build communities with potential customers on Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn groups, Twitter groups, or Medium.

5. Monitor Your Dropshipping Business Performance

Even though you have decided to run your dropshipping idea as a side business, you must track and analyze your work's progress. You should be able to answer important questions like, “What are my best-performing channels,” What are my best-performing products,” and “What are my sales and profits looking like monthly?”

You should also remain consistent with your analysis over time and measure your online store's performance against clear KPIs. Website analytics tools like Google Analytics and Search Console can help measure search traffic and improve your SEO efforts.

5. Create and Sell An Online Course

As many people become more comfortable learning in their homes and at their own pace, the online learning market continues to blossom. In fact, the global e-learning market is expected to be worth almost 400 billion U.S. dollars by 2026.

So, if creating online courses is a convenient option for you, here's how to make extra income from it.

1. Choose a Subject that Sells

Do you know that 35% of entrepreneurs fail because there is no need for their products? This doesn't have to be your case. Once you have decided to create and sell online courses as your part-time business, you can research some of the most profitable online course subjects.

Technology, arts, health, business, agriculture, and entertainment are great examples of online courses with high-profit expectations. You should also find a more niche topic within your preferred subject. For instance, in agriculture, you can teach a beginner's course on owning a home garden.

2. Develop Your Course Content

Once you have figured out the topic to teach and created engaging, informative, and well-structured course content, it will give you good reviews. You can begin by researching your topic content from both online and offline sources. You can outline your course topics into subtopics and arrange them in a logical order.

You can also include video lessons, PDFs, quizzes, polls, and other material to make your online course more engaging.

3. Select a Platform to Host Your Online Course

The platform you use to sell your online courses is the foundation for your entire business. It impacts everything from your students' experience to your ability to get and convert new learners. There are many online course platforms, such as Thinkific, that allow you to create, host, and sell your online course without requiring web developers. You should also consider choosing a site that's easily accessible by potential customers.

4. Set the Best Price for Your Online Course

Pricing your online course can be a bit of a guessing game, and it may even take a lot of trial and error to determine the right price for your online course. However, you must try to set a competitive and profitable price. Your price will depend on your audience, expertise, and topic.

When setting a price for your online course, the following factors can help you maintain a healthy cash flow.

• How much you spent creating and hosting the online course
• The average income level of your target audience.
• Your competitor's pricing.

Also, you can structure payments for your online course as a one-time lump sum payment for lifetime access or a lower, recurring membership fee with limited access.

5. Market Your Course

Spread the word about your online course to your target audience via social media accounts, paid search ads, and email marketing campaigns. You can also share information about your online course via word-of-mouth and leverage your existing network.

6. Sell Digital Art Using AI Tools

Previously, when anyone wanted to create artwork, they either made it themselves or hired a professional artist. The challenge here was that if you weren't a skilled artist, your images wouldn't do much conversion. Also, you needed to have enough money to hire a great artist. Fortunately, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has brought a more accessible alternative.

AI is fast becoming a global trend. AI statistics report that its value of about 100 billion U.S. dollars is estimated to grow twentyfold by 2030, up to almost two trillion U.S. dollars.

Using AI tools to create digital art is one of the easy and straightforward business ideas to start. Small businesses can produce a vast array of unique and breathtaking images for free, all by simply typing words into a generator. These digital arts usually have low overheads, meaning most of your earnings will be profit.

Below are the simple steps that can help you start your digital art business and make more money.

1. Choose a Unique Idea in High Demand

As with most passive income ideas, you must create a unique visual identity with your digital art business to help you stand out from competitors. Ensure your AI-generated images fit the needs of your target audience. Here are some suggestions that you can make money from.

• Sell printables, wall posters, or patterns
• Sell social media templates with AI art
• Create and sell your own patterns, textures, and backgrounds
• Sell 8K laptop backgrounds
• Sell backgrounds for iPhones and other mobile devices
• Offer custom work
• Build your own image library with a monthly/yearly subscription plan

2. Choose an AI Tool to Create Your Unique Art

Most AI tools are affordable and easy to use. DALL-E 2 by Open AI and Stability AI are popular AI tools. The startup cost for selling digital art using these tools can be as little as a monthly subscription fee. They also have an input box where you can type whatever idea you want to create. The more specific your prompt is, the better your result.

3. Select an Online Marketplace to Sell Your Art

Once you have created your digital art, you can sell them on Etsy, stock image sites like Adobe Stock, and other online marketplaces. An example of a thriving digital art store is the Etsy shop below, owned by PhaseCaseConcept.

They sell poster sets, gallery walls, gallery wall collages, printable eclectic wall art, and maximalist home decor. The items are available for purchase in high-resolution JPEG file format at 300 DPI. Customers can only download and print them out.

You can also sell your AI-generated art as NFTs. NFTs are non-interchangeable digital ledgers that allow creators to sell their art in digital format. Organizations like Eponym, a text-to-image software, can help you to sell your AI-generated art pieces directly on the NFT marketplace, OpenSea.

4. Promote Your Digital Art Business

Selling your art pieces via online marketplaces is a great start, but more action is needed to spread the word about your small business. You should showcase your art pieces on your social media platforms.

Similarly, you can make a portfolio of your work on your own website or an art community website, like DeviantArt or ArtStation. Doing so gives your customers a better picture of what to expect from your work.

Start Your Hustle and Make Money on the Side

If you're interested in supporting your full-time job with a part-time gig, the timing is as good as it gets. Here are six great part-time business ideas to start that will help you break easily into the world of entrepreneurship while doing your day job.

Running your own part-time business has become more accessible than ever before. You can offer all these services online, on your own schedule, and in your spare time. However, before you start any business, conduct thorough research and select a niche in high demand.

Our recommendations for part-time business ideas to make more money are as follows:

• Start an affiliate blog
• Create and sell online courses
• Launch a dropshipping business
• Launch a print-on-demand shop
• Become a freelancer

Explore Further

• 21 Best Small Business Ideas to Make Money Online
• 31 Profitable and Simple Small-Scale Business Ideas For Women
• How to do Market Research For Your Business
• 9 Steps to Achieve Financial Freedom Fast

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