The last few years have reshaped the world economy. Inflation is high; a record 6.1% in Australia. Lots of work has moved (and continues to move) online.
Enter the side hustle.
A side hustle is a good way to keep up with rising costs of living. It’s also an easy entry into freelancing or running your own business in your off hours.
As Australia’s #1 marketing agency, we’ve worked with hundreds of businesses that started out as side hustles. And from what we’ve seen, most “side hustle” lists on the web are full of tips that won’t make you any real money.
That’s why we’re making this list to try and do better. Here are 10 real remote, high-income potential side hustles for Australians in ‘22 and beyond.
(Note: If you want help finding leads for your side hustle, get a free consultation with us and score $600 in free Google Ad credits!)
Freelance Side Hustles
The freelance economy in Australia is worth more than $6.3 billion annually. Worldwide, freelancers earn $455 billion each year (Statista). This is a massive opportunity to find online side gigs!
Upwork, the largest freelancing site, has identified marketing, customer care, and technology as booming fields in the freelance world. Below, we cover specific services you can offer to find side hustles in these spaces.
1. Content Writing
Content writers create text for social media content, blog posts, and more. Content writing is straightforward. You research a topic, then cover it in a way that educates and/or entertains an audience.
How easy is it to find work as a content marketing writer?
Brands require a vast amount of content to maintain an online presence. 4.4 million blog posts are published each day, and that doesn’t cover social media, email, and other channels. It doesn’t matter where you work; people will always need fresh content.
To become a good content writer, it helps to learn SEO and SMM basics. These will help you understand how to create engaging, profitable content for brands. YouTube has lots of tutorials on writing content for both Social and Search channels.
You might start out at $15-20/hour, but a highly skilled content writer can make $100+/hour. A major perk of working as a remote content writer is that you can lead a very flexible lifestyle, living and working from wherever you want.
Content side hustles are perfect for people who enjoy creative writing, business writing, or blogging. Anyone who’s a skilled writer in their current job can transition into the space.
2. No-Code Development
Employers always need new apps, automations, websites, etc.
No-code applications help create these without developing any new code. People who know how to use these are called no-code developers.
No-code has a relatively shallow learning curve. And it pays well; $15/hour for beginners and up to $100+/hour for advanced no-code strategists.
A basic example of a no-code builder is Elementor for WordPress: a website builder that lets you create useful sites with zero coding knowledge. An Elementor website can cost thousands of dollars, letting you earn 4 and 5 figures developing no-code websites.
3. Web Design
With more brands having websites and investing in marketing, there’s a massive need for designers. Freelancers in high demand include graphic designers, illustrators, website designers, and UX designers.
Graphic designers create layouts, often using pre-existing images, text, etc., to get a message across. Illustrators create images from scratch to do the same thing.
Website designers create beautiful websites, which play a huge role in building brand awareness and converting leads.
UX designers improve the appearance and “feel” of a website to make it easier and more enjoyable for users, i.e., improve user experience.
Top designers can easily make $150+/hour; beginners can hope for $15-20/hour.
4. Remote Sales
Know how to sell? Lots of companies need part-time salespeople!
In the past, remote sales gigs often meant selling junk. Today, legitimate companies – start-ups, scale-ups, even established businesses – need people who can get on phone calls and move product.
Base rates tend to be lower than for other jobs – as little as $10/hour. But if you’re good at persuading and selling, you can easily make $100+/hour on sales commissions.
Popular sales niches in Australia include solar, IT, and SMB services.
5. Customer Success
Are you good at talking to people and explaining things? Customer success gigs might be for you.
These gigs are not as high-pressure as remote sales, but they also involve engaging customers. They are centred around helping customers make the best of products, often IT products.
Working in customer success can be a low-pressure way to learn about how IT – SaaS, enterprise products, hardware – works.
This gig pays pretty well ($20+/hour), has a relatively low cap ($35/hour), is a pretty easy job. Working in this field can help you transition into long-term IT work and prepare you for content writing and more remote-working opportunities.
6. Coding
Do you have some experience with web development from school, university, or a hobby? You can monetise it by taking up coding gigs.
Basically, you have to be proficient in either front web development, backend, or full-stack development. Front-end developers are responsible for the appearance of a website or app. Some popular languages here include Javascript – Vue, React, and Angular.
Backend developers create the engine of the website. They write code that runs the site. You’ll need to be excellent in a popular language such as Python, PHP, and Java to be successful in this role.
Full-stack developers are all rounded and take up both the role of a front-end and back-end developer.
A web developer can easily start at $35/hour and go up to $250+/hour. Don’t forget, doing this as a side hustle can easily help you polish your old skills for future work.
7. Consulting
Are you a skilled professional with a current (or past) successful career?
You can sell your knowledge in fields as diverse as law, medicine, psychology, business, etc., to brands that need it.
Depending on your field of knowledge, this can net you anywhere between $25/hour and $250/hour. This is a good way to eventually get into a high-profit consulting business.
Running an Online Business Side Hustle
Creating an online business is easier than ever. We live in a digital economy based on knowledge and attention; if you have (or can get) either, you can run a business.
Here are some smart ways to make money:
8. Affiliate Marketing
As an affiliate marketer, you can make extra income by promoting a brand’s products on your blog or social media.
Important: you need to have a following for this to work. This means having or building an Instagram page, online blog, YouTube account, etc. Being an influencer – even a minor one – helps.
To monetise your following, you need to share a link to products. You then get payouts when someone buys via the link. While making cash through affiliate marketing takes time, it can be a highly profitable side hustle if done right.
There’s relatively little Aussie-specific content on the internet, so affiliate marketers have a wide open lane in the country.
If your affiliate marketing business takes off, you can start selling your own products online (see below).
9. E-Commerce
Over 5 million households buy things online in Australia every month. More and more businesses are starting to sell their good and services on the web. Here are a few ideas on getting started with your own e-commerce business.
Buy stuff that’s hard to find in Australia and resell it locally
Start out ordering in small quantities and scale up if things work out. This might take a bit of upfront investment, but lots of things are hard to locally and shipping times are long. If you know what to sell, you can make money.
Resell clearance stock
Buying items on clearance allows you to get them at very low prices. Then resell them at their normal prices for a profit. Not exactly a long-term play, but useful for getting your first e-commerce experience.
Conclusion
The gig economy offers a unique opportunity for anyone to earn cash even without specialised skills. Profits from side hustles can help you achieve financial independence, build an emergency fund, and pay off debts.
Are you having trouble making your first dollar from remote side hustles in Australia?
It is normal to encounter challenges before enjoying a steady income from any side gig. Fortunately, seasoned marketing agencies like Megaphone can help market your side hustle and make you more visible to your target clients.
Consultation is 100% free, and you’ll receive $600 in Google Ad Credit to help give you more exposure to the millions of people browsing online.
FAQ
Why freelance as a side hustle?
This is a huge opportunity to make money, especially if you’re an English speaker. Benefits of freelancing include:
You don’t have to dress up or bear long commutes. You can make extra cash from the comfort of your home working online.
Even cooler, you can easily learn new skills, find long-term job opportunities and even launch a business after starting as a freelancer.
Any skill you possess in the gig economy, there’s always a potential client willing to pay for it.
