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Best 7 Side Hustles For College Students: [Unusual Ways To Make Money]

Are you a student but you still want to make some money fast? Are you bored of scammers that want to take money out of your pocket?

If you answered yes, then this article is for you.

In this article, we will discuss the best side hustles for college students or even high school students that can make you money as soon as possible.

We will also discuss some more longterm business models that can make you money online forever and this is actually what I have been doing for years.

Best Side Hustles For College Students

I am super excited about this blog post and I want to make sure you make a few hundred dollars as soon as possible.

Let’s jump straight into it!

Make Money Playing Games

make money playing games controller

Yes, you read right. You can make money by playing games! If you are a gamer, you will love this method. But, even if you are not a gamer this is a great way to make money fast. But, playing games is only one thing you can do with this platform I am going to tell you about.

What you have to do to make this money, though?

  1. Go to Swagbucks.com and create a free account
  2. Choose whichever game you wanna play or pays more
  3. Start Playing

And that’s it! It is that simple!

Swagbucks is a legit website that pays people for doing various tasks. If you wonder why they pay people for playing or do stuff on this platform, the reason is they earn money via ads. The more people they bring to their platform, the more they get paid and that’s how they are able to pay people.

They also make money if you wanna buy anything from their platform. You can also shop from their platform and they offer cashback. Overall, it is a very fun platform that you can check out if you wanna make some cash instantly.

When you play a game or you complete a task, you get rewarded with SB points.

These points are used in exchange to Paypal money( which is real money), or Amazon gift cards or Walmart etc. Anything else besides Paypal money gives you some discounts.

So, if you are going to shop from Amazon anyway, you can do it by buying a gift card and not by exchanging points for cash because you won’t take the discount.

And… this is it! This is the first side hustle for college students which is also really fun!

Make Money With Google Maps

Is it possible for you to make money using Google Maps?

Absolutely, yes!

More and more people ask me this question. Google maps provide a great opportunity for people to make money.

In order to use this method you need to use Google Chrome, obviously.

Then, we search for service-based businesses around the country. It does not have to be local-based because you won’t need to meet with them in person. For example, carpenters, roofers, plumbers, electricians, etc.

You add a city in the search bar. For example, ”carpenters California”.

Then, Google Maps will return some results and we try to find one business that is not claimed with Google My Business Listing. If a business is not claimed, it means that it can’t reply to bad reviews.

The first step after we find a business that is not claimed is to reach out to this business via email or phone and tell them this problem they have.

The first thing you want to let them know(email or phone) is that they can’t reply to bad reviews and the second is that Google has officially stated that listings that aren’t claimed are at risk of being removed from the Google Maps listing completely. This will cost this company tons of traffic that they currently get from Google.

If you do this via an email, it is sometimes hard to persuade them if you have a Hotmail/Gmail email.

If you want to do this seriously, you should present yourself as an authority. For example, you can create a website and get a formal email, for instance, tasos@theonlinegold.com which is one of my business’ emails.

This is actually really cheap. With Bluehost that I personally use, you get a website with $3,5/month and up to 5 free emails. But, this is optional. It is just my recommendation if you want to do it seriously.

The final step is when the company responds to your email or phone call. You describe the while situation to them and then you tell them that can provide the solution. You can charge whatever you want for that. $50-200 is a reasonable amount of money for one listing.

Also, you can offer to help them with other services. Some of them, don’t have a website so you can offer to create them a website if they want or most businesses may not have a Facebook pixel or Facebook ads and you can tell them that they lose money by not using it.

If they agree, you will charge them more money.

Pinterest Affiliate Marketing

make money with pinterest on your phone

Affiliate Marketing is the process of promoting other people’s products or services for a commission. If you have read any articles of mine, you would know I like affiliate marketing a lot.

Affiliate Marketing is by far the best business model, in my opinion, because it does not require much money to start and you don’t have to create or have a product.

But, affiliate marketing normally needs time...If you want to start blogging which is my main strength you will need patience. It takes 9-12 months for a piece of content to reach its peak.

Also, Youtube takes time. Google tests you and your website many times before it trusts you.

I think that blogging and Youtube are still the 2 main ways to do affiliate marketing alongside with Facebook organic however if you wanna make $800-1500 in 2 weeks as a teen or student you should use Pinterest.

Pinterest is a search engine like Google. It ranks your pins(posts) both for keywords but also for images. The good thing about Pinterest is that it ranks your content immediately.

Another great thing about creating Pinterest pins is that Google also ranks these pins on their search results.

Also, creating a pin can literally just take you 5-10 minutes.

In order to start Pinterest affiliate marketing you need to do these steps:

  • Choose a niche that does well on Pinterest(Barbering, Cooking, Fitness and more)
  • Go to a platform called Clickbank.com and find a product/products around your niche that you wanna promote
  • Go to Canva.com and create a simple image using your product’s keyword for example( X product’s Review, X Product’s Pricing, etc)
  • Upload your image to Pinterest(create the pin)
  • Add Title, Description. This is really crucial. You have to include your focus keyword and other keyword variations in your Title and Description. (Remember Pinterest is a search engine)
  • Choose a board(that you have created before) and upload the pin
  • Repeat

As you can see, the process is not that difficult. In fact, it is very simple and also free. No one has an excuse for not using Pinterest if he wants to make some quick cash.

This is not just a side hustle for college students but it is a proper business model that you can use longterm.

Make Money With Facebook 100% Free

This method is one of the best and fastest methods to make money in 2020. While I prefer Search Engine Optimization (Blogging and Youtube) more than Facebook because they give you more security, Facebook is a platform I recently use and it has done wonders for me so far. Also, most of my students and friends also have found great success with Facebook really fast.

But, what exactly you have to do to make money with Facebook?

To make money with Facebook you have to follow these 3 steps:

  • Find/create An Amazing Product Or Offer.
  • Optimize Your Facebook Profile
  • Drive Traffic to Your Profile

The first step to make money online with Facebook is choosing a product to promote. This is an essential step that you need to do even if you don’t use Facebook as your main platform.

Choose a valuable product. You need to build trust with your audience. Choosing bad products just to make some quick cash won’t help you create a longterm business.

The second step is a huge one. In this step, you should optimize your Facebook profile.

Make money with Facebook banner example

The first thing you need to do is create a good cover photo. This photo should have a call to action button and also inform people what you can do for them. Something like: ”Get More Leads And Make Money With This Free Course”, ”Get Started Here”

You need to display a nice relevant photo and it is also good for you to display yourself so that people can recognize you and start building a personal brand.

This may take you 10-30 minutes.

  1. Choose a nice photo
  2. Display Yourself
  3. Write Some Text With A Call To Action

And this is it with the cover photo optimization. All of these can be done in Canva.com in less than 30 minutes.

Facebook featured image with affiliate links

The second thing you need to do is optimize your bio and description.

You should display your website and other social media accounts (if you have) and also you should incentivize people to click your links and pass-through your funnel that may start with a free course or a low ticket item. (something cheap)

The final thing you need to do to make money with this method after you set all this up is driving traffic to your profile and offers.

The best way to drive traffic to your profile is by engaging with people in related Facebook groups.

For example, let’s say your niche is the health and weight loss niche. You can type weight loss on the Facebook search bar and find some related Facebook groups. Then, you need to answer people’s questions and provide free value so that people naturally wonder who you are, visit your profile and probably click your links.

This is the fastest way to make a serious income online. In fact, people are making insane amounts of money with Facebook organic because they promote high ticket products. But, nothing is guaranteed. You have to work your butt off to achieve these results.

But, if you wanna do it. Here is how.

I have seen people that knew nothing about online marketing making 5-10k/month in 4 months. This is insane. For instance, if you wanna make money blogging as I am doing, it will take you at least 1 year to reach 2-3k/month. SEO is very slow compared to Facebook organic.

But, it is probably more sustainable. (Who knows for sure if Facebook/Tiktok/Instagram, etc will exist in 5 years time)

Before we move on to the next method, I want to make clear that this method is the toughest.

It requires basic affiliate marketing knowledge which is the process of promoting other people’s products or service and we get paid for it, basic Facebook knowledge, but in the long run, you may also need some sales funnels and an email marketing automation tool.

In fact, I am very good at these things.

This is my main strength and my passion and I have tons of articles around these topics on this website. However, if you have any questions on this, let me know in the comments and I will be more than happy to help or even write a whole new article for it.

Make Money On Youtube Without Making Videos

make money with youtube

Yes, you read right again!

We all know Youtube, don’t we?

Youtube has been growing rapidly over the past few years. More and more people, nowadays, are watching Youtube videos for hours. Literally, for hours.

But I understand, most people do not want to show their face on camera or they fear publicity and that’s totally normal.

For this method, you won’t need to shoot a video, you won’t need a camera or anything like that.

The strategy focuses on graphs and visuals that you can create. You can create a really easy graph with some statistics or data that you can get from Google and upload an amazing Youtube video.

In fact, there are many channels that are currently doing that and they make thousands of dollars every single month. For example, Ranking Man, Animated Stats, etc.

In order to make money with Youtube, without shooting videos or showing yourself you have to do this simple process.

  1. Go to a website called Flourish.com
  2. Watch some free tutorials they have. (I won’t waste your time now explaining the details. It will take you 15-20 minutes to learn the platform)
  3. Create the video
  4. Upload it on Youtube

However, Youtube is slow. This process will need some time to work. Don’t expect to make 2 videos and make thousands of dollars online.

Become A Freelancer in Fiver or Upwork

money coins

Do you want to make some quick in a day?

Become a freelancer!

Now, you will tell me what can I do as a freelancer, Tasos?

But the answer is not what you would expect!

As a freelancer, you can do anything! Yes! Do you just know the English language really well? Go and translate or narrate an article or a book! Go write a blog post yourself!

I am sure that everyone on this planet knows something really well. Take advantage of it! Sell your services as a freelancer to make some quick cash like 500 or 700 in just a matter of days.

Then, you can reinvest this profit into something more stable like affiliate marketing or you can just create a website for 3$/month here.

Some people make a serious income from these platforms. It can be quite profitable. However, if you want my opinion, it is not good to work for others forever. I like working for myself. For example, someone pays you 40$ to write an article and this article may possibly make him thousands of dollars.

Why should I make just 40$?

You get what I mean…

All in all, if you are someone that wants some quick money, some quick 600-800$ per week or more just find something you are good at and sell your services in these platforms. Thousands of people buy services from these platforms each and every day.

What I Do To Make $1000 Commissions In 1 Day

make money with affiliate marketing from your laptop

Well, all these methods are really good ways to make 500-5000/month fast. It just requires a little bit of effort.

If you are really serious about making money online, you should earn some money using these methods or saving money from your everyday job and invest in a course or into a proper business model.

My favourite business model is affiliate marketing because:

  • We don’t need a product
  • We don’t need customer support for our clients
  • We don’t need much money to invest
  • We don’t need technical skills
  • We don’t need much time

I have much content on my website if you don’t have any money to invest. However, if you want to fast forward the process and make money fast I would definitely recommend taking a look at the program that has helped me make $1000 commission in a day.

This program is called Legendary Marketer and you can join very inexpensively just by paying $7.(Starbuck’s coffee pricing!) And this is a one time fee.

But this is just what I do and what I think is best for your financial freedom and stability, you can choose whatever you want and whatever makes you happy.

Final Words 

There are definitely a lot of side hustles for college students. I told you my favourite and the easiest that I could think of. These side hustles can be used even by high school students and kids. They are not hard at all.

Online side hustles are the best because it does not matter if you are a white or black or yellow guy or whatever to do them. Why should a black college student not have the same opportunities with a white guy? These behind the scenes side hustles ideas and also affiliate marketing give everyone the same chances of succeeding and this is very important.

However, if you’re really serious about making much money online for years, then you should start using some of these options on your spare time just to set aside some money, but you should also consider creating your own online business.

In fact, starting your own online business is the best advice that I can give you today. Thousands of people lost their jobs during this coronavirus crisis. Thousands of traditional businesses went bankrupt during this pandemic crisis…

Do you wanna be one of them?

I bet you won’t.

When I first got started, I was working my normal job and I was not making much money at all but my main concern was that I didn’t have time for my family and friends…

And when I had some days off, I was too exhausted to go out and I wanted to sleep the whole day…

I was not happy at all…

This was the time that I realised that there should be an easier way to make money…And this way was by stopping to trade my time for money. For example, you work 5 hours you get paid $200, you work 5 hours you get paid $200.

Then, I started searching for some ways to make money online but everything was too complex for me. Amazon Fba, Dropshipping, Stocks etc all require much money to invest upfront.

That’s why I chose affiliate marketing. I took a simple 7$ course from Legendary Marketer to learn the basics and then I took more expensive stuff to make my life easier( Ready to use funnels, email scripts, sales pages, etc)

All in all, making money online longterm is not a walk in the park. I want you to remember this. It is a competitive game. Don’t get discouraged if something does not go well from the very beginning.

That’s it for today’s topic. I hope you took some ideas that can help you make some cash. I really want you to succeed.

Are you ready to crush it this year with online marketing? Are you ready to change your financial situation forever?

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