- If you’re asking how to start in an online business today, there’s a strong chance you’re wanting to make money with a computer. Don’t put off for tomorrow that which you can do today?
Many people are searching for the best ways to make money from home and how to make extra money online these days as an alternative to the usual 9-5 grind. In this post we want to provide you with different options on how to start with an online business today if you really want to.
Finding what’s right for you shouldn’t be too difficult when you take the time to ask yourself a few simple questions
Try asking yourself the following questions to start with,
- What are you good at?
- What are your hobbies?
- How much do you want to earn online?
- How much time are you prepared to give to an online business?
- Could I write to entice people’s decisions?
- Do I really want to have an online business?
These are just a few questions to get the ball rolling but at least you should answer them honestly and in a notebook of some kind so you have a record of them to work with in the future. Don’t just ask them to yourself mentally if you are serious about getting online. Start making plans!
You know the old saying… he who fails to plan, plans to fail.
If you know anything about planning then make take notes and build strategies, set future goals and mark off achievements. By doing this you will ward off procrastination and set yourself on a path to success that could provide exactly what you’re looking for.
You know the old saying… he who fails to plan, plans to fail, hey wait a minute… didn’t I just say that?
The online world continues to grow in the 2020’s
There are multiple different online business models you could use to get started with and you may prefer one over the other much the same way someone prefers type “A” vehicle over type “B.” Only when you feel comfortable with something will you move forward with it.
It’s no secret that the way we do business today is constantly changing. People everywhere are finding their own niches in just about any given market place and turning nothing into something to make exceptional livings and lifestyle changes for themselves..
Online business is the way for many to get out of the rat race and live life at their own pace, whether that be simply offering your services online as a digital nomad, blogging or running a full phased shop on the likes of Shopify or some other web based platform
Many people might think the gold rush is over on the internet but it continues to grow each and every year. According to Oberlo.com there was 2.14billion people shopping on the internet during 2021, that number was up by half a billion from 2017 and the ongoing trend hasn’t stopped yet.
Positive reasons to start an online business
The number one reason for starting an online business is to earn extra money or income of course. Whether it’s the extra you want for enjoying holidays, little things around the house or sufficient money to just help pay the bills, having extra income will always be a bonus and a positive reason for having an online business.
The second reason will be the opportunity to grow your business over time. While any business might start out from small beginnings, given the time they can be great income producing assets that provide for you and your family. They can also be willed to family or friends, sold for profit or even boosted to sharing publicly listed stocks.
The third reason and possibly the best reason is that when they are operating properly they can provide you with money while you sleep, unlike the traditional bricks and mortar businesses. Having an online business can be very rewarding when you check your bank statement or sales stats each morning. Knowing that you have a world-wide audience and the opportunity to efficiently scale what some call passive income can be a very good reason to want to pursue a business online.
Starting today is the first step in the right direction to achieving success – go for it!
What online business do you want to start?
We’ll give you what we think is the 10 best online businesses for beginners or ways to sell online for free but we also understand what you really want to know is, how can I make money at home on my computer? There’s a number of ways but we’ll leave the choice up to you.
It’s a really good question to ask because you obviously want to do it and maybe some want to do it today – make money from home online, we all want to do it. Having an online business from home is the best way to earn extra income from home.
One of the simplest ways to get started today is selling. Selling on Amazon or eBay are two of the easiest ways to start today, you may already have an account that you could use. All you need to do is make use of it by selling off all that unwanted stuff you don’t use anymore. Then you can progress to selling other things online as well.
Another business is affiliate marketing …or sales, we’ll discuss this a bit further on but first let’s look at…
What’s a good online business model?
Before starting any online business you’ll need to consider the three main products available and choose just one to start with. Of course you may choose to use either of the others as well but it’s best to do it at a later point in time after establishing your first choice. You will need to decide on what fits you best and prioritize that.
Your ideas, your style, your influences will all play a role in choosing, starting and establishing your very own online business.
There are three basics online business models to choose from. Study them well and do your due diligence before jumping in. Remember you want your business to grow and provide for you and your family well in to the future. This is not a get rich quick scheme!
- Services. Services are traditional and time honored like Joe the Plumber or your local hair and beauty salon, real estate etc. Services are rendered using time and will only provide X-amount of income per hour unless you plan on growing your business. If you’re happy to services customers for X-amount of dollars then who are we to argue? Some people highly value the personal relationships and interchange with others that they have on a personal scale.
- Digital Products. Digital products consists of practically anything downloadable online. It could be an e-book, Kindle book, audio recordings, photographs, music, online courses, memberships etc. Digital downloads can be very lucrative if you find or know of a market to jump into. However, you will need to do some research first.
- Physical Goods. Physical goods are the everyday items that get sold online from sites like Walmart, Amazon, and eBay. These items are things like clothes, supplements, toys that get manufactured either nationally or internationally, warehoused and then shipped to customers wherever they may be. There’s lots of individuals running their own successful business brands these days too, manufacturing their own goods, warehousing them and sending them from home.
10 Most popular online business models
1. AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate Marketing is can be a very rewarding online business if you can master it. I remember in the middle or late 2000’s being at a seminar where one of the internet’s best affiliate marketers was being promoted. He started early and had made millions of dollars in a way very few people were doing at the time and was very successful.
Come to the 2020’s and many people are using this business model to reap financial success by promoting products or services online. There’s a phenomenal amount of opportunities to be had with affiliate marketing because so many businesses use affiliates to promote them. Businesses like Hotels Combined, Air BnB, Qatar Airlines, CheapTickets and TripAdvisor. The lists go on…
You may have even viewed a website or blog doing reviews for a specific product or making comparisons that had a link directly to the product on the seller’s site – guess what? You were using an affiliate marketing site to check that item out. This is quite an easy business model to get started in and to run.
2. AMAZON AFFILIATE
Amazon is such a well trusted brand and millions of people shop there regularly each week. Being an Amazon affiliate is simply being a sales person for Amazon. You can sell any number of products for a commission from Amazon but first you will need a website to draw people’s attention and point them to those products you are promoting.
There’s a simple procedure to join the Amazon Associates program from their website and once you’re approved the whole back office opens up. Just add you’re specialized affiliate link to the product you promote and whenever somebody purchases you receive a commission.
There are literally thousands and thousands of products available in numerous categories that you could link to and promote and this could pose a fruitful financial reward.
3. BLOGGING
Blogging has become uber popular over the years with more and more people
realizing that blogging has huge reach and potential impact.
There are several bloggers of fame making solid 6-7 figure incomes of late, knowing how is often the key that will get the results. It’s not like you can just write about anything in the hope people will flock to your blog and buy but it is certainly possible to find a market, niche in and monetize to capture some for yourself.
We will follow up on this with another post with more information highlighting the necessary steps and procedures to take to find success at your own pace and with your own style. Stay positive because this is one our most popular ways to make money online for yourself before or after retirement.
4. COACHING & CONSULTING
The inquisitive human mind is always learning and there is always a need
for answers. Providing coaching or consulting fills a popular need in
society today.
You don’t really need to be a brainiac, you just need to have the necessary knowledge or skillset within a particular industry. You could be tutoring an academic subject or you could be coaching how to build websites. Do you have industry skills that people need? If so you have a great opportunity to help others become more educated.
Don’t forget the motivation and education industry is one of the biggest available. Think of motivational speakers like, Jim Rohn, Tony Robins, Zig Ziglar, Robert Kiyosaki and the many others who grace stages around the world to bring information to all sorts of people everywhere.
5. DIGITAL ARBITRAGE
I can hear you asking… what is digital arbitrage? To explain it in simple terms, it is making a profit from moving a product onwards. In this case a digital product. Think buy low, sell high and you can understand it
better.
There’s a multitude of industries or categories you can buy from and on-sell. You could even deliver customers to specific products or websites as a means of being paid for doing so.
Digital arbitrage can take on many different forms and to the entrepreneurial warrior it can provide an excellent business income online. Just remember if you are doing this you will need to treat it like any normal business, meaning you will have acquisition costs and you will have expenses …and you’ll need to pay taxes on income earned.
6. DROPSHIPPING
Dropshipping has to be one of the most popular online businesses to get started with these days because there’s no inventory to hold. This becomes a huge saving that allows people to concentrate spending money on advertising instead and this advertising is what can give a real boost to your initial business structure to move it forward.
From little things big things grow – many, many people have opted for dropshipping in recent times to get themselves started online as a means of providing a small extra income. By mechanizing some simple processes some individuals have created passive income for themselves and their families that have allowed them to live a dream life.
Of course you could find a good mentor to teach you or you could simply research popular products and go for it yourself and you’d have a very good chance of success as long as the logistics are favorable.
7. E-REALESTATE
There’s a lot to be said about e-Real estate that people may not know about. As the name suggests, owning electronic real estate is a great way to make money online rather than working a real job.
Many people have discovered there are businesses out there that simply don’t have the time to play around getting themselves online because they too busy caring to their needs to provide for customers, so if someone else can do it for them it simply becomes easier to just pay.
Owning electronic real estate is much cheaper than owning bricks and mortar property but it has the same affect, rental income. Being an online landlord can allow you to lease online space so businesses can have a presence online too. All you need is the know-how and you’ll have yourself added income regardless of where you are on the planet.
8.FREELANCING
Are you good at writing books, blogs, copy, short stories? What about graphics? Do you know how to design? There are many people freelancing their talents for money on various sites such as, Freelancer, Fiverr, Upwork and others.
There is always a need for image editors, videographers, programmers and others who have the knowledge and talents to help produce the needed wares for the online world.
If you have the talents you can simply join one of the many service providers and offer your skills to those seeking them. If you do, you could find yourself with a good and growing business that can allow you to scale up and provides similar services.
9. MEMBERSHIP SITES
It has now become a popular thing and good business sense to have your very own membership site or sites (yes plural sites hmmm) where your members pay regularly, either monthly or annually for the goods or service you provide.
Membership sites consist of providing either goods or services in specific fields to those who are particularly interested in that scope of things. Some such sites might include nutrition, weight loss or even weight gain. How to… like how to make things, such as, different pieces of furniture or do it yourself classes.
I even know of a membership site that teaches people how to build and have their own membership sites. How’s that? They have lots of members wanting to learn. Perhaps you could join or start your own.
10. SOCIAL MEDIA INFLLUENCER
Do you spend lots of time of social media? Why not do it and get paid for it? You could become a social media influencer in a field you like. Health and fitness, travel, sports, whatever you passion, the possibility is there if you’re prepared to pursue it.
There’s a certain knack to creating an influencing site, first you have to pick a topic or subject that is very popular and one that interests you. Second give your site a name that resounds well with the topic or subject matter like a popularly associated hashtag and third, make plenty of content available as you find favor in the public domain and grow your audience.
Influencers create their very own online business with either paying customers who want to promote their brands or simply those who are happy to exchange product for exposure. Either way it’s a win-win when you go about it in the right manner and with the right mind set.
11. WEBSITE BUILDER
Become a website builder because as long as the internet exists there will always be a need for website builders.
Learning this craft is not that difficult if you have an eye for balance and co-ordination and many who have started doing this have found themselves ending up running teams as their businesses have expanded, and in some cases, exploded.
Today there are numerous platforms that provide all the tools needed to have a sophisticated and powerful online presence. It’s just a simple process of putting pages together in a way that pleases the eye and attracts the viewer with minimum bounce rate. The world’s most popular website builder is WordPress and it’s extremely easy to use. It also has lots of extra plugins in case you start getting serious. Getting started is as easy watching YouTube videos.
12. SEO
Do
you know how to SEO? There’s definitely a knack to knowing what’s
involved with search engine optimization and many businesses just don’t
have the time or manpower to pursue it, that’s where you can come in, by
offering your skills.
If you are able to, you could start with small local businesses close to home or near-by and as you grow the SEO for small businesses you will find your own business growing in parallel.
SEO is not just about keywords, it’s knowing how to use keywords and search terms on the pages you build so they can rank in the search engines. Definitely a field all of its own but one that can bring great gain and satisfaction as you watch those pages being ranked further toward the top on the first page.
The future is yours to make what you want of it
Now that you’ve read this information and looked at some of the
different options on how to start an online business today don’t just
say great, that all sounds good, do something for yourself and for your
future, perhaps even for your family’s future. There’s a very good
chance you arrived here because you’re looking for something else,
something, different, something better than what you’re doing now on the
tread mill or in the rat race.
Only you can make the difference, the future is yours to make what you want of it.
A
journey of one thousand miles starts with one step followed by another
and still another. Procrastination never achieves anything but taking
action can achieve great results and milestones that stay the distance.
Goals can be reached and lives changed for the better.
Look, we
even gave you a couple extra tips to consider. We sincerely hope you are
motivated to follow your dreams and make it happen.
If you like any of
these opportunities we encourage you to do some research and follow up
and you could be having yourself a whole new opportunity to make extra
income from home or a coffee shop or even some beach club somewhere in some far of
Tropical Island.
Here’s to your future – Do something great!
In the upcoming times ahead we will be examining these twelves different online business models individually along with other types of ways to make money online along as well as various opportunities to bring you more in-depth information and understanding about the pros and cons surrounding them.
If you want to add any tips or other types of online money making opportunities to this post please comment below to keep this thread moving 😀