Online Business Ideas For Beginners
The Internet is the great equalizer. In business specifically, it has leveled the playing field. Anyone can start an online business to make money, anyone with a computer, that is. But here's the thing: You hardly need technical expertise. Today, there are many tools that you can use to create an online business that makes technical work much easier than in the past.
You can also live anywhere you want, set your own hours, and work as little or as little as you like, depending on how fast or big you want your business to grow. There is also no need for commercial or marketing experience. It is a truly democratic means of entrepreneurship.
Best of all, unlike a traditional business, you don't need a lot of start-up capital. In fact, you can launch many internet companies with no money at all, as many free services make it easy. For example, you can set up a website or blog for free with WordPress. Or you can take advantage of a third-party site like Amazon or eBay to sell products without inventory costs. You use their sales platform in exchange for giving them a part of your sales.
And this is just the beginning of the many moneyless eCommerce startup solutions available. Let's consider five of the best ways to start an online business and make money online with little or no cost.
1. Dropshipping
The basic idea behind an online drop shipping business is that, as a small business owner, you do not have to maintain a large inventory (or any inventory) of products or handle any delivery to your customers. That eliminates the financial cost and risk of having a warehouse full of things you might not sell and the hassle of arranging to ship orders across the country or the world. In fact, you don't have to manufacture or store any products.
The only thing to focus on is marketing and advertising to find customers and make sales. Once the sale is done, the rest is handled by others. Their only cost is the cost of marketing and advertising to acquire a new client.
Once this is done, you will work with a company that specializes in dropshipping. Is that how it works:
- You list the products for sale on your website or on a platform like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy.
- When one of your customers makes a purchase, you buy the product from an outside company (the sender, usually a manufacturer or wholesaler) for a lower price. This process is as simple as forwarding your customer's order, a process that can actually be fully automated. (Remember that here you do not have any risk of buying inventory because the sale has already been made).
- The sender then ships the product to the customer.
Pretty easy, right? With drop shipping, you can offer a wide range of products, making your business operating costs very low.
What are the disadvantages of the dropshipping business model? You should find a reliable direct shipper that you can count on to deliver to your customers. If an order is late or does not come out, or if a product is of poor quality, you are blamed, as it is your company that represents the product and the customer experience.
In addition, because this market is so competitive, the margins, that is, the difference between the wholesale price and how much a product can sell, are lower, so this will be a type of high-volume business to generate a serious income. But still, it's a low-cost or no-cost start option.
One way to stand out from the competition with a drop shipping business is to privately label your products. This simply means that you place your own label/brand on the products that the manufacturer is creating. That way you are not selling the same brand of the product and only competing on price; rather you can use your own brand and face less competition. Think about when you are looking at medications in the pharmacy; brands are sold at higher prices and people think they are different from generic brands even though the ingredients are exactly the same. Keep these important factors in mind when looking for a good dropshipping product.
Anyone considering a drop shipping business should seriously consider taking advantage of Amazon.com to grow their business and learn more about how to become a profitable Amazon seller because Amazon is an established market that people already trust and has an existing customer base. Eventually, you should also consider having your own online store.
Pros
- Requires very little initial capital
- No need to keep inventory
- You can take advantage of established markets with existing customer bases
Cons
- You can be blamed for your sender's mistakes
- The market is very competitive
- You must sell a lot to generate a substantial income
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is somewhat similar to drop shipping but with a few key differences. With this e-commerce model, you will again not maintain an inventory of your own products and you will not have to worry about shipping products to customers.
Basically, you choose a profitable niche for your online business and then find an affiliate partner that has products available in that niche. Some of the most popular affiliate sites are Clickbank.com, Amazon.com, and CJ Affiliate by Conversant (formerly Commission Junction). Among them, they offer almost any digital information product (such as e-books, audio files, video files) or physical products you can imagine. Many large companies and brands like Wal-Mart and Home Depot run their own affiliate programs.
With affiliate marketing, you offer the products for sale, for example, on your blog or e-commerce website. Each product has a unique link that tracks your account with your affiliate partner. A potential customer who clicks on the link is taken to their partner's shopping cart to complete the purchase. Once they purchase, that purchase is recorded and you receive a commission.6 Commission amounts vary by affiliate partner but are generally 5 to 25 percent, or 50 percent or more with digital information products.
As you can see, there is little risk on your part and virtually no investment required. As with drop shipping, your only costs will be marketing and advertising to drive traffic and drive the sale.
The key difference between this and drop shipping is that the business model is even more hands-free. All you have to do is provide a link for the customer to click and the merchant handles everything; billing, order fulfillment, customer service, etc.
All you have to do is manage the marketing for your prospects to buy (via social media, email marketing, blogging, or whatever method you choose). But after clicking on the affiliate link, it is out of your reach. You don't have to ship products or answer customer service questions. And you certainly don't have to keep an inventory.
All you have to do is focus on free and paid ways to market your business online.
Affiliate marketing is really one of the most transferable online business types.
Pros
- Low risk: no initial investment required
- Hands-free business model
Cons
- You are responsible for directing web traffic to the affiliate link (no traffic means no money)
- You may have to spend money on advertising and marketing
3. Blogging
If you have the experience or the passion or interest in a subject, you are ready to start earning money with a blog. With a service like Blogger (www.blogger.com), you can start your blog completely free of charge. You can also create your own site and secure your own hosting for a low price, which is generally the route I recommend, as many free blogging sites have restrictions on what you can say or do, including making money or advertising.8
You may think blogging is about writing. And it can be if that's what you want to do. But written blog posts are just the beginning. You can post photos, videos, and links to other sites, you can even republish news and other articles ... it's all game, actually, as long as it relates to your niche.
The key is that you want to post original content that is useful to your target audience and post on a regular basis. That's the best way to rank on search engines and also get your audience to take action.
What type of content should you provide? Anything that is attractive to your potential customer. Procedural topics, top 10 lists, niche trending comments, tips, and cheat articles should basically provide useful content. There is no shortage of ideas for your blog.
You earn money in various ways with an online business blog.
Google advertising.
Have you ever been to a website and seen an ad on it? An ad has likely been run through the Google advertising network.
These pay-per-click ads appear on your blog. Every time someone clicks on an ad (which is supposed to be about a topic related to your niche), you earn a few pennies or more. Small amounts each time, but add up. This is extremely hands-free. You just need to get a code from Google, place it on your website and the ads will automatically appear on your blog. Google will only show ads that are relevant to your blog, making it a good experience for your visitors and maximizing the number of clicks you get, which means more revenue.9
Advertising networks blog.
You can also work with non-Google ad networks, such as Blogads, and serve ads on your blog. Like Google Adsense ads, you place the code once on your website and when your visitors click on the ads, you get paid. In addition to banner ads, you can also run video ads on your site.
In many cases, you can make more money with blog ad networks, but they tend to work only with blogs that receive tens of thousands of visitors a month or more; unlike Google Ads, where you can start right away, regardless of how much traffic you get.
Affiliate Marketing.
You already know this one. It includes links to products you are promoting as an affiliate and every time someone buys the product, they get a commission. With a blog, you can integrate advertising with content to make it even more likely that you will get the sale. For example, you could review the product, which is useful content, and then include a link to purchase the product under an affiliate link.
Here are some successful blogging tips to make sure people can find your blog, and they will keep coming back. This is the key to creating followers and making your blog profitable.
You must provide useful content in an engaging way.
If your blog is boring or the information can be found anywhere else, no one will read it. Do not hesitate to put your own personality on the blog.
You have to post content on a regular basis.
People are thirsty for the news, so be sure to consistently post articles, videos, or whatever. You could post one per day or three times per week. Whatever it is, keep the same hours. A history of scattered posts means losing readers.
Be genuine.
Yes, your blog is supposed to make money. But you can't do marketing pitches all the time. Focus on useful content so that your readers get to know you, like, and trust you. Then naturally they will click on your ad or buy the products you recommend. In this age of the Internet and social media, people are looking for authenticity.
Do all of this and you will attract the attention of search engines like Google, which are always looking to put sites with useful and relevant content at the top of search results.11 This is what content marketing is all about.
You could start a blog in less than an hour. But it takes time to earn money as you build readers, and only a small percentage of those people end up buying your products.9l;;.
Pros
- Very low initial costs
- You can work on your own schedule
Cons
- It can take a long time to start making money
- Creating and publishing content can be time-consuming
4. Online video
Have you seen a YouTube video lately? Of course, you have! This is one of the most popular websites in the world, with over 2 billion users watching hundreds of millions of hours of video every day.12 And not all cats do fun things, by any means.
You can take advantage of YouTube's reach to earn money online. No, you're not trying to create a viral video, so to speak, although if it reaches everyone and is seen by millions, that's a good thing.
Instead, you will follow a proven strategy to maximize views of multiple videos on a regular basis. It will create useful content, something attractive that people want to see. And it works in many, many different niches. It could be an instructional video or a conversation video on a topic of interest to people in your niche: the sky is the limit.
You earn money with advertising revenue. Your first step is to create a YouTube account and start uploading videos. Then, you enable monetization in your YouTube settings.13 Basically, this gives Google the go-ahead to include short AdSense ads with your videos, which it has seen if you've seen a YouTube video. When viewers click on those ads, they pay you.
Another opportunity to earn money with a YouTube channel is through paid sponsorships. Create a following big enough and companies will be more than happy to pay you to promote or mention your products and services in your videos.14
Some tips for creating professional-looking videos (no expensive professional equipment needed):
You can use your smartphone or a simple video camera. But make sure the lighting is good so that everything in your video is clear and easy to see.
Make sure the audio is clear. You don't want air conditioning hum, construction noise, or other distractions.
Use simple editing software like iMovie to put titles at the beginning of the video and edit any flub.
Above all, remember that your videos can be simple and don't have to be slippery. Just provide useful content and be engaging and interesting. Fun help, too.
And to broaden the reach of your videos, be sure to post them on your Facebook business page, Twitter, your blog, and other channels. Let people know you're in the video business now.
In addition to YouTube video ad revenue, you can also use your YouTube channel to drive traffic back to your website, where visitors can read your product reviews, click on ads on your website, or even Access your email subscriber list, where you can make multiple sales with your email list.
Pros
- You can use your existing smartphone or computer
- It works in several different niches.
Cons
- Creating and posting videos can be time-consuming
- It may take a while to start generating income
5. Information products
When you have an Internet business, it is not about selling physical products. In fact, digital information products are one of the easiest and fastest ways to earn money.
There is no shortage of ways to create information products, but the most popular formats include:
- Audio: a recorded conference call, interview, course, or other spoken-word product
- Video: a recorded webinar, tutorial, interview
- Text: an e-book, an instruction booklet of some kind, a travel guide
In each of these categories, you can really get creative and create any type and format of content, as long as it's engaging and useful.
No matter which way you do it, it is passive income - money you make while you sleep because you put these products up for sale on your website and a customer can buy and download them at any time of the day or night, automatically. All you have to do is check sales periodically to see which items or types of products sell best so you can make more of those.
Pros
- You can generate passive income once you put the product on the market
- It can be a quick way to earn money.
Cons
- Creating a product requires some work and time in advance
- You may need to invest some money initially
Putting it all together
The trick with any online business is to make sure you are in a profitable niche. So be sure to keep an eye out for trends, check out the best-seller lists on sites like Amazon, and consider what people are discussing on social media.
One thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to limit yourself to just one of these e-commerce opportunities.
Start with one and start it. Then add new sources of income as you can. That will increase your income and ensure you have something to fall back on in the event a company starts going south.
