Side Hustles for Physical Therapists in 2022
These are 5 simple side hustles for physical therapists that may be used to either supplement your full-time income or replace your full-time income.
Every physical therapist should have a side hustle!
As a physical therapist myself, my main goal for any of my patients is to build independence and resilience. I have that same goal for myself!
A side hustle may provide additional income with little extra work. It could be an extra $100 or $500 or even a couple thousand a month.
It shouldn’t detract from your full-time job or take away from family time. It should be something you enjoy and do to relieve stress.
The 5 side hustles for physical therapists I am discussing in this article are the kind of things you can do without getting stressed out and without it feeling like a second job.
Best 5 Side Hustles for Physical Therapists
- Low or No Content Books
- YouTube
- Blogging
- Website Creation
- Social Media Manager
1. Low or No Content Books
This is one of the easiest side hustles for physical therapists. It requires no upfront costs and may be done without the need for grammatical or literary skills.
If you have never heard the term low or no content books then you might be thinking of a book with a bunch of blank pages.
And if you are, then you are kind of correct.
Think of a journal. A journal might be a no-content book.
Now think of a journal with questions at the beginning of each section. That is a low-content book.
Physical Therapy Conditions Specific Low Content Books
Helping patients recover from a total knee replacement has become my niche over recent years. I have wanted to create a low-content workbook for this patient population.
What could be included in a low-content book for patients recovering from a total knee replacement?
- Range of Motion Tracker
- Post Surgical Physical Therapy Protocol and Calendar
- Home Exercise Tracker
- Girth Tracker
- Mood Tracker
- Mindfulness Quotes and Journaling Pages
A resource like this could be created using Amazon’s print-on-demand service. It could be a paperback book sold on Amazon’s marketplace.
The only cost in creating this asset is the time invested on my part.
Once created this becomes a passive income stream that could generate revenue for years into the future.
2. YouTube is a Great Physical Therapy Side-Hustle
Starting a YouTube channel is free. I have already written a recent article on How to Monetize a YouTube channel.
How much does YouTube pay?
Great question! YouTube doesn’t actually pay you to create videos. The way it works is you, as a physical therapist, create a video.
Let’s say you create a video on “What to expect after rotator cuff repair surgery.” Within this video, you discuss post-surgical care, physical therapy protocols, and you answer some of the most common questions patients have after surgery.
Your video gets shared on YouTube and because nearly a million rotator cuff repair surgeries are performed in the US annually your video starts to get views. Advertisers who want to get their ads shown to people who have had rotator cuff repair surgery
3. Blogging
So far this year, one of my blogs has been generating more than $350/month in passive ad revenue. If you would like to read more about monetizing a blog read: I’m Earning $18,000 a Year from my Physical Therapy Blog.
If you would have asked me for my opinion about blogging 5 years ago I would have laughed and said “Who the heck wants to read about some random person’s life?”
That was before I realized what blogging can actually be.
These days I still use the word blogging, but I think of it more like a media company. People are searching Google, Bing, and Yahoo for answers to questions.
For example, SEMRush suggests that 4,400 searches a month are performed for the keyword “rotator cuff repair recovery.” Who is better to discuss this topic than a physical therapist who treats patients following rotator cuff repair surgery?
Creating a 1,200 to 1,500-word article/blog post discussing aspects related to that keyword could rank at the top of page 1 Google search results in 3 to 6 months. This could account for 1,500 pageviews a month in traffic and when monetized with ads, affiliate links, and possibly a digital course this one page on a website could generate a couple of hundred dollars a month in revenue.
Answer Questions People Are Already Asking
If you have been working as a therapist for any length of time you likely have heard the same questions repeatedly. Dr. Google is the same.
When a searcher types a question into Google there is a list of 3 “People Also Ask” questions below the first search result.
This is a great place to start finding ideas for content people are already searching for.
Google’s Search Bar Autocomplete
Another great place to find content ideas is within the autocomplete function of most search engines. Once a searcher starts to type a search query the search engine will generate a list of common searches related to what has been typed.
In the image below you can see the search term “are physical therapists” followed by a series of recommended longer tail search terms.
4. Website Creation
It may be hard to believe but there are still physical therapy private practice businesses without a website or without a decent website.
Creating private practice websites or offering private practice website redesigns and makeovers can be a great side hustle for any physical therapist.
Website Package
If I were to create a website redesign package I would include the following components:
- 5 Page Personal Brand Website
- Facebook Business Page
- Instagram Page
- Email List
- YouTube Channel Creation
- Photo Shoot
5. Social Media Manager
As a private practice owner gets busy treating patients everything else seems to fall to the bottom of a to-do list.
Managing social media posts can be hard. A common scenario I see is a therapist starting a new mobile physical therapy business. That therapist has lots of time to actively manage social media. Once that therapist gets busy, social media posts stop and new patient referrals quickly slow down.
As new referrals slow down the therapist has more time, resumes social media posts, regains more new referrals, then gets too busy to post again.
This creates an opportunity for you to find therapists who want to maintain the continuity of their social media posts.
You could be hired to create posts, repurpose old content, manage lead generation, etc.
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