Are you looking for the best online business ideas to make an extra side income, you’ve come to the right place! There are a lot to choose from when it comes to online business. There are some online business ideas that are better for you who are just starting out then others. One of the best things with the internet is that it offers so many opportunities. Everything from side hustles that makes some extra cash to a full online business lifestyles that makes millions. This article will cover the best online business ideas for you who are looking to start making money online as a beginner.
Why consider an online business
No one is more blamed then the internet for destroying conventional businesses. But there is a catch that so few actually see, the online world is creating a ridiculous amount of new opportunities. Opportunities that can be taken by anyone with access to the internet.
It has never before been so easy to start your own online business. You can literately do it from a beach in Thailand while drinking a refreshing smoothie. All you need is a computer and a good internet connection. The fine thing with an online business is that you don’t need to invest tons of money to get started. Some of the examples below can be started for less then 100$.
However there are people out there that wants to sell you expensive shortcuts aka. the get rich quick scam. One good rule of thumb is that if it seems too good, then it probably is. Stay away from those kind of deals, the will drain your wallet faster then a strip-club.
I hope that you are here looking for a way to create a legit online business. Everything on the list below requires hard work and dedication to succeed. Some requires more other less, the choice is yours to make.
Now that you get the hang of this, lets start looking at some of the best online business ideas out there. Ideas that actually can make serious money if executed right.
#1 – Start a blog
Why do so many start blogs these days? Because it is one of the best ways to start an online business. Blogs like Matthew Woodward, Entrepreneurs on fire and The smart passive income blog are well into the six-figure a month income. There are so many businesses that started out as blogs. The amount of bloggers out there on the world wide webb that is making a full-time income from blogging is amazing.
Would I say that it’s hard to start a blog? No, the opposite. It’s very easy, and there is a wide collection of things you can do to monetize it. One of the most common ways is to use Google AdSense to display ads on your blog. Other things to do is affiliate marketing or adding a store and sell merchandise.
Let’s get serous for a moment. You can set up a blog in under 30 minutes, but that does not mean that it will make money right away. You will need to work on it in order for it to become a success. make sure to add entertaining, useful and engaging content that is inline with your target audience on a regular basis. There are no easy way around this. You live on your audience, keep them engaged and they will return. They might bring a friend next time too.
As your crowd grows, so will your blog. As it expands you will be able to start looking into ways of making money from it.
#2 – Create online courses
Do you have a thing you are really good at? Why not start teaching others and make it your career. Online courses that teach others how to do something is a huge market and is a thing to consider when looking for online business ideas.
The morden human wants to learn new skills and gain knowledge fast. They do so by taking online courses. Why not create a course and take advantage of this opportunity. Creating an online course today has never been easier thanks to LMS software. These software’s allow you to create beautiful and interactive courses with ease. Complete with tools for students, classes, course material and much more.
The really awesome part is that you don’t need to know anything about coding. most studios use drag and drop features.
#3 – Do affiliate marketing
When you recommend other peoples products or services and make commission on it. It’s called affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketers reach their audience through blogs, websites and email lists. They also need to know about different marketing strategies like SEO and content marketing to build a following.
There are mainly two categories of things to advertise. Low ticket and high ticket. Where a thing end up depends on how much commission you’ll get from each sell made. A low ticket item can be up to 8% (Amazon Associates) and a high ticket can be as much as 40%(Click-funnels). Generally speaking, a high ticket item is harder to sell compared to a low ticket item. This all depends on how good you are at marketing.
#4 – Create a drop-shipping site
When you combine affiliate marketing and E-Commerce you get drop-shipping. What you do is that you create an online store and sell other peoples products. In return for the you get commission. Basically you run an online store without any inventory. Since you sell other peoples stuff you don’t have to worry about shipping either.
The greatest advantage of drop-shipping compared to an conventional store is that it is cheap to start up. Since you don’t have to worry about keeping an inventory, a physical store and shipping. The drawback is that you will be working hard to sell other people’s products. This is why I like affiliate marketing more then drop-shipping.
The trend tends to be that drop-shipping business eventually starts selling their own products to increase the profits.
#5 – Start a membership site
A membership website earn its income from selling subscriptions with access to premium features. The best thing is that you can put ad revenue to the side and allow your customers to show their support by joining a paid membership.
There are mainly two ways to a membership website. One is that you show limited content for free and let paid members take part of all the exclusive content. Second is that you have special features that are unlocked by a paid membership. Things like Facebook groups or webinars.
You need to remember that you need to provide content valuable enough for people to want to subscribe. Again, exclusivity is key.
There are already good software out there to help you set up a subscription website, no knowledge of coding is necessary. There you can choose from different subscription models, receive online payments, manage users and much more.
#6 – Do content marketing
Do you want to help businesses promote their products and services? Content marketing does just that, it creates useful engaging content for a business. All business wants more customers, use content to attract them. The demand for content marketers is increasing rapidly and there are no signs of it slowing down.
When you are a content marketer you are more than a blogger. You specialize in creating the best content that will bring more potential customers to a website.
#7 – Start a fashion blog
Do you follow the latest fashion trends and news like a manic person? Why not make use of your passion and start a fashion blog and make money on it.
Advertisers, promoters and brands are constantly looking for places to display their items. The fine special thing about a fashion blog is that you can do more things then just making money. You can become an influencer and get special benefits like free things, exclusive invites and much more.
#8 – Become a SEO specialist
Search Engine Optimization is a great way for websites to earn more visitors from search engines. If you do want to start with SEO, you need to know that it will require you have your eyes open for the latest trends and to always want to learn more. When you become a SEO specialist, you can run your own agency, be a freelancer or work for a company full-time.
If you as a SEO specialist have a website, make sure to make it so it ranks high for SEO scores in search engines. Make sure that it clearly states that you can help others with their SEO if they contact you. Other way to find clients are on freelancing websites like freelancer.com or UpWork.
The SEO industry is very competitive, and you need to make sure that you stand out from the rest and make the most out of the best SEO tools out there. You also need some basic wordpress SEO techniques, keyword research tools and marketing tools.
#9 – Create an E-Commerce store
Among the best online business ideas for beginners is creating an E-Commerce store. It has never been easier to sell things online. You can easily create an online store in the matter of minutes and start selling things right away.
You can sell both physical products like flip-flops and game consoles and digital products like eBooks and software. The sky is the limit, if it has high demand you can sell it.
Before you launch your brand new online store, you need to do some research. Brainstorming is a great way to find new things to put in your store. Use these if you struggle:
- Think of ways that can make your E-commerce store stand out from the rest. Be unique, stand out and do what the competitors aren’t.
- Pick a niche with high demand and fairly few competitors.
- think money. What are the costs of getting the customer his/hers product. Pick a pricing model that is competitive and gives great value to your customer.
- Don’t forget to that you need a profit to survive. The profit should be enough to ensure that your new business can continue to live on for many years.
The last but certainly not least is that you need a platform. The best way for you to start your E-commerce store is by using WooCommerce or Shopify.
#10 – Food and/or recipe blog
Who does not love a good bite to eat. If your passion is food, A food blog is the best thing ever. Why not make money on your passion. Food and recipe blogs are a very lucrative niche and it’s one of the best online business ideas here…if you love food. There are so many ways for you to make this into an income. For instance you can use Google AdSense, do affiliate marketing, have an online store, sell your own recipe books or have people subscribe to take part of exclusive recipes and tips and trix in the kitchen.
Since there are many people on the web that runs this kind of sites, it can be competitive. You need to find a way to make people want to come to just your site. Be unique and interesting, why not have a cooking show hosted in a tree house?
#11 – Start a podcast
With the launch of the ability to listen to your favorite tunes wherever you are, podcast came to be born. Podcasts is like Netflix without images aka. audio files released in episodes for people to download and listen to whenever they want. Podcast are a great way to start your first online business. Why? Because the opportunities to grow are endless.
You can tur a podcast into a money making machine with the use of ads, sponsors, partnership and affiliate marketing. What you need to focus on is to keep your podcast interesting and engaging. Come up with topics that make your podcast unique.
Ps. If you are a fellow Swede, I highly recommend you to check out the TappadSomBarn podcast. Listen and you’ll understand why.
#12 – Review Website
At the top of the online business ideas for beginners is: Review website. One of the most common things people search for is reviews. This is why a review website is such a good idea. TripAdvisor is one of the most popular review websites and it’s estimated to be worth more than $10 billion dollars. You get the idea, there are a lot of money to be made here.
Competitors is however the biggest problem in this industry, this means that you will need a niche with low competition or really stand out from the rest. The revenue from a site like this comes from affiliate marketing, ads or paid reviews.
#13 – Become an Instagram star
Who here has not thought about becoming an Instagram start. If you are into taking photos and making videos this can be a good path to an profitable online business. The man income comes from sponsorship, affiliate marketing, product placement, and much more.
What you need to get started is a camera(phone with good camera works fine), basic video/photo editing skills and a bunch of creativity. You will also need to be consistent with your posts, regular updates attracts followers. Instagram uses hashtags to promote your images, learn how to use them to your advantage.
One more thing to give your Instagram profile a good look is a website or landing page with a contact form.
Ps. Link your account to your website so it uploads the images on your site as well. It makes your site look professional and interesting.
#14 – WordPress developer
What is powering moren then 30% of all websites on the internet? The correct answer is WordPress. What does this means to you? For starters there are millions of businesses around the globe using this platform.
What comes with so many users? The need for WordPress developers. WordPress is an open source software. that means that if you know how to do coding, you can create themes and plugins.
Skills that you will need to learn are as following:
There are WordPress tutorials, books and online courses that will help you get started.
#15 Be a graphic designer
Have you ever visited a website and thought the design was awful and that you can make it better with ease. Maybe graphic design could be something for you to try.
As a graphic designer you earn you living on crating images, logos, website designs and much more for other people. This industry is massive, there are business opportunities literally everywhere.
How do you become a graphic designer? First you need to learn how to use professional design tools like Photoshop. Once you have learnt how to use this tool you need to reach out to people and ask if they want help with their graphic design.
The easiest way to promote yourself is by making a portfolio to showcase your skills. This can be done by the use of social media like Instagram, however if you want to look like a real pro. Set up a nice professional website with a contact form.
#16 – Start a YouTube channel
YouTube has helped so many to financial freedom. So if you love making videos, you might want to consider this to be your new future business. YouTube is by far the biggest video sharing platform on the internet. It also comes in 2nd place for being a great search engine (1st is Google).
YouTube is free and allows anyone to create and upload videos. There are so many ways to make money on creating videos. You can do: Advertising, affiliate marketing, sell things or sponsorship. There are thousands YouTubers out there that makes well into the six figure in income for creating videos.
The best thing is that you can do videos covering whatever topic you like. You can create a video covering anything from how to play Fortnite to how to rebuild an airplane with one hand ties to your back.
Conclusion
There you have it, 16 of the best online business ideas for beginners. If you paid close attention you will have noticed that affiliate marketing is almost used in every point in the list. This is not a way for me to force you into affiliate marketing, this is only the truth. It just is the best way for a business to get people to help them market them where both parties win. They get new customers and you get pain in return.
With that said, if you are looking into starting your first online business and don’t know what to choose. This list have narrowed the field to the once that are easiest to make profitable for a beginner. Make the most out of it and become the hero in your success story.
I believe that you have what it takes to make it!
