Knowing where to get started can always be difficult so I’ve collated my ultimate list of side hustle resources and tools to help you out.
Small Business Resources & Tools
Finances
Bank Accounts
Tide Bank – Tide bank offers business accounts to freelancers, sole traders and limited companies.
Bonus Offer – Tide Bank is currently running a generous new customer bonus offer where you can get £75 for joining, full details can be found here.
Accounting Tools
Earnr – Earnr is a clever app that takes the hassle out of self-employed finance. It connects to your bank account and pulls in your transactions so that you can check through them, separate out any that might be personal expenses, upload related receipts and add any notes you might need to. You can read our full review of the app here.
Blogging Resources & Tools
Getting Set Up
Hosting
Lyrical Host – Lyrical Host are the gold standard of hosting companies. I’ve been through a lot of website hosts in my 15+ years of blogging/building websites and LyricalHost are hands-down the best I have ever found. They are really affordable for the level of service they provide, with hosting starting from just £14.99 a month for a single site.
Discount Code – Use code SIDEHUSTLE10 to get a 10% discount on your first-months hosting with Lyrical Host
BlueHost – BlueHost is a popular option of host for new bloggers as they offer a really good price for the first year of hosting. You can get a free domain and a year of hosting for £26.39
WordPress Themes
BluChic – BluChic offer beautifully styled feminine WordPress themes. I use them for the majority of my blog sites and find them to be great value, easy to edit and their support team are very helpful.
Restored316 – Restored316 tend to be a bit more expensive than the likes of BluChic but they are ‘all singing all dancing’ stunning themes. They are built on the Kadence framework which means they are nice and fast to load and super simple to edit.
Studiopress – Studiopress provides themes that are built on the Genesis framework.
Monetize Your Blog
Ad Networks
EzoicAccess – Ezoic are a great ad network to get started with, they have a good RPM (revenue per 1,000 page views) and you can join them no matter what your traffic level is meaning you can look to monetize your site right from the start!
Affiliate Networks
Knowing which affiliate networks to get started with can be tricky but these are a few of my favourite (and most lucrative) ones.
AWIN – AWIN is a great platform to join if you are just starting out with affiliate marketing. It has a massive selection of well known companies that you can apply to work with.
ShareASale – ShareASale is a predominantly US company based site but there is still a good selection of UK retailers on there.
Blogging Tools
Keyword Research
Keysearch – Keysearch is the first tool I suggest to anyone who asks about keyword research. It has a free option as well as great value paid subscriptions and it is super easy to use.
Content Creation
Content Conga – Creating content as a blogger or website owner isn’t always easy. Whether you are lacking time or suffering from writer’s block, Content Conga can help you create fantastic quality content at great prices. All you need to do is provide them with an outline idea for the piece of content (I will sometimes add in keywords and internal links I’d like used), choose your word count, writing style and submit your order.
25% Discount – Use this link to sign up to Content Conga and get 25% off of your first piece of content
Rytr – Rytr is a very clever AI writing tool that can help you create content for your website in just a few minutes. All you have to do is add in a few keywords or a short description of what you want it to write about and it can then produce blog ideas and outlines, marketing emails, social media captions, copy for landing pages, it can even product descriptions!