How to Turn a Hobby Into a Business and Make Money Online

Wouldn’t it be nice to turn your hobbies into successful businesses and make money online? There are a lot of people that doubt this as a possibility even in 2013, but I assure you that it is possible. Luckily for you, you have stumbled upon this post where I will show you how you can create a successful niche based business. The benefit of all of this is that as long as your business revolves around your hobby it won’t feel like work, and there is a lot of that needed in order to making money online.

Another thing you should be aware of is that this is all a learning experience and there may be things that will require further education but if you are serious about it then you might just see the beautiful side of the internet world, the profit side.  Also keep in mind that the main thing that is needed in order to make money online is content, content, content. If writing is another one of your hobbies then you are even deeper in luck. When I say writing I’m not just referring to blogging, which is a part of it. There are other things you will need content for but we will get to that in just a minute. If you don’t enjoy writing then it may be a little tougher but there are alternatives to that as well which we will also discuss shortly.

Figure Out What You Enjoy Doing

In other words try to find your niche, or niches. Hopefully you already know the things you enjoy. If not, you can read my article on how to pick one of the niches on my list.

List of 100+ Niches and a Method on How to Pick One

What you would want to do I just jot them down for now. For the sake of this post, let’s say you enjoy out door activities such as camping, hiking, fishing, things of that nature. Get it nature? Okay never mind. Anyway, it is good that all these are closely related but I would go as far as selecting a sub-category. Perhaps hiking, something that you would enjoy the most out of the bunch.

So from here on out we are going to use hiking as an example.

Brand Yourself Or Your Business

It doesn’t matter what name you choose to go with as long as it has something to do with hiking, since hiking would be your niche and your keyword, more on that later. But you can choose your username to be something like “Mike the Hiker”  “Hiker Mike” whatever floats your boat. What I suggest is that you think it through so you don’t change it later ’cause this is where the branding comes in. Whatever the case it should revolve around hiking.

Here are 2 articles you can read up on to get an idea on how you should brand yourself.

The New Rules of Branding Your Business Online

Mastering branding online takes a lot more than a cool logo and catchy slogan. Experts play by a fresh new set of rules.

7 Fresh Ideas on How to Brand Your Business

Research and Strategize

In a perfect world, Hiker Mike obviously enjoys hiking along with writing, photography, Photoshop aka graphic design,  along with other things that he can do to build his business. Since the odds of that are low, networking or hiring will have to come into play, but let’s not worry about that now.

The very first thing that Hiker Mike needs to do is educate himself, thinking of a goal, and setting up a business plan. I have written a post on the things you should do before you launch your blog but I think it still would be good reading material if applied to other things since it’s a resource page. See what you can gather from it.

What You Need to Know Before You Start Your Blog – Resource List

Create Content Before Launch

After a few days of research Mike has gathered some new information, taken some notes, and had a general idea of what needs to be done. He now understands the importance of writing great unique content and how it holds the internet together. He has even taken the initiative and clicked that link just to learn how to write good content and has written several tutorials. Enough about Mike for now.

The next step you should do is write several tutorials or “how tos” in relation to hiking, by several I actually mean more than 10, 700+ words professional articles. In addition to written tutorials, you should create video tutorials as well. Keep in mind that both written and recorded content have to be good and unique in one way or another. If it sucks, then you just waste your time. Trust me, I know… If I did it right the first time, I would not be rewriting this article now; instead I would be writing new ones.  “But Bernard, that’s a lot of work!” Well I never said it wouldn’t be; in fact If I recall I did say there would be a lot of it.  Hiker Mike isn’t complaining, ’cause he knows all the good things that will happen.

Anyway, Back to Mike. See he went and wrote and recorded several tutorials and how tos in relation to hiking. He wrote How to Start a Camp Fire With Your Bare Hands, How to Grow Marshmallows. Mike sure knows more about hiking than I can give examples for. He went and not only wrote tutorials but other types of “expert in the field” type articles about sleeping bags, tents, RV’s, marshmallows., Rocky Mountains, Rocky Baboa… Okay maybe not him.

Setting Up the Business for Success

Before this next step, please be aware that the more content you have whether they are written or videos the better. After you have all your content ready you should start your journey by creating a blog and a YouTube channel. Not to mention the social networks. For right now that’s all you need to start making money but you should always try to expand.

Another way you can generate both an Income and traffic is Hubpages. This is the reason I said you should have a lot of content ready. Because at least one article should be going to this site.  This will not only create a back link but also put you in a position to have an income from this site.

Let’s talk about numbers and a scheduled approach. Let’s say you have got a hold of 20 articles, whether you have written them or not, and 10 YouTube video tutorials.

After your blog is set up professionally, by that I mean it’s SEO optimized and user friendly. You should publish between 5-10 posts right away. No more than how many can fit on the first page. Let’s say you post six posts right away. Schedule four of them to post once a week and post one to Hubpages for now.  Now you have eight posts left.  What you should do now is go look for blogs you can post guest posts on in relation to your niche. Don’t give out more than 3 because you do want to save some for rainy days.

The numbers don’t have to be exact. The point here is to strategize and be prepared. By doing this you should already see some traffic. And a tiny income for starters.

Different Ways You Can Make Money from Your Hobby

AdSense: AdSense Revenue can come from your blog, YouTube and Hubpages. If you have great content on all 3 then rest assure that you will generate an income. But be aware that how much you generate from AdSense varies from niche to niche.

Affiliate: If you don’t have any products of your own you can sell affiliate products in relation to your niche.  Hiker Mike might want to sell hiking related equipment. He can sell these on his blog and YouTube.

Offer Classes: You can also offer classes in relation to your niche. That’s if you are really good at your hobby. If your hobby is diving for example, offer diving classes. If you were to get to a level where people all over the world come to you based on the work you did online can you imagine the success of your business?

3rd Party Products: This might not work for Hiker Mike but if you  are a graphic designer you can create t-shirts, mugs, etc. through Zazzle and CafePress. How well this works depends on your hobby, or niche. The products can also sell if you come up with neat ideas on what type of products to design.

Create Your Own Product: You can either write an eBook, physical book, or as for Hiker Mike, he can make his own sleeping bag line.

PPD (Paid Per Download): The best PPD site out there by far is ShareCash. The way it works is you put up something to download and share it. When someone wants to download the file they have to fill out a survey first. You would think that most people don’t like surveys but what if there is a survey on there that has your target audience in mind? There might be a survey about hiking goods and Hiker Mike can simply state “Fill out the Hiking survey, they are a sponsor” Mike would be telling the truth. It’s a legit way to get paid. A lot of people have a hard time making money from this since they can’t seem to find a niche. But if it works well with your hobby you can create a passive income. Programmers can upload lines of code, while people that play video games can upload cheats and tricks. It’s not that hard when you know what you are doing.

Writing: As previously mentioned, content would be the centerpiece of your income online. Even if you don’t like to write you will have to find a way to have content. You can hire a writer or network with someone.  Give someone a percentage of your income of your blog and have them write. Just provide them with key points to make. You can even offer guest posts. Not to mention, you don’t have to have all the content go to your blog. You can even post it on Hubpages. I know I have mentioned this several times already, but the reason why is they pay you. Hubpages pay through AdSense while on Squidoo you can place 3rd party products and once they sell you get a cut.

The Big Picture of Having a Hobby Based Business

Now imagine that Hiker Mike has a blog with great “how to” articles that offer advice and teach readers about hiking. His blog contains AdSense ads and/or affiliate links to hiking related merchandise such as hiking equipment amongst other things. So that means that his blog generates revenue from AdSense and affiliate links. He also generates AdSense clicks on his YouTube videos.  Hubpages pay him. He has his eBook up for download on ShareCash, offering classes. I guess it’s safe to say that he has a passive income only by doing and talking about the thing he loves. Hiker Mike has went and created an online business from his hobby.

Don’t you love happy endings? Do you believe me now when I tell you that it’s possible to make money from your hobby? There are so many legit ways to make money; it’s all about knowing what method can be the most beneficial for you. And if you were to leave a comment below telling me your hobby, I would have no problem giving you some advice making suggestions.

Further Reading

How to Make Money Online without Any Investment

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About Bernard Zarifovic

I'm a young entrepreneur currently living in Atlanta, Ga. The reason I created this blog is to share my personal experiences in making money online. I have an analytical mind by nature which helps me to come up with strategies and has drawn me to business and marketing. My entrepreneur mindset allows me to be fearless in trying new things and acting on my ideas. I prefer to have things planned ahead and thought out before diving into them which I believe is the reason why my ideas have mostly worked out. Some ideas did not work out and were not profitable, but I do not regret my failures as I look at them as learning experiences and humbly accept them. To learn more about me, please read my personal story.