5 Ideas for Your Online Business

The Internet has brought many possibilities for entrepreneurs of all ages to expand their business and create well-known brands. At the same time, it brought many opportunities to create a business online. Both of the business models have their pros and cons, but in most cases, the online business is easier to start and needs less money upfront.

Although that doesn’t mean that the whole process of creating a successful online business is easy. It’s all hard work, like everything else, but if you ever need motivation try reading about millennials making six-figure online businesses. Just keep in mind, before you start, since there are so many online businesses out there and yours need to stand out. Here are some ideas to make you started.

1. Business services

There are some parts of the work in physical and online business that can be done remotely. These tasks are bookkeeping, accounting, social media marketing, SEO, marketing in general and many more. You can become a business, that provides services to those companies. Although some of the tasks may require person-to-person interactions, in the age of digital technologies like conferencing tools and online communication, this will be a piece of cake.

Think of those tasks and try to come up with ideas what service you would like to sell to other businesses. Maybe you’ll be consulting them about advertising on Facebook? Or maybe you’ll become someone’s virtual assistant? Even if you have no skills yet, you can easily learn new things online like becoming a web designer. There are many possibilities out there, just don’t forget to be creative and a little bit stubborn.

2. Online Store

Image credit: Luca Bravo

Internet not only gave us the ability to make money, educate and entertain ourselves but at the same time opened doors for big networking possibilities. Every business now has their own webpage, it’s a must these days. If you’re able to find businesses with interesting products you think you might sell for more, you can start your online store.

You could be buying big quantities of those products to retail them on your store or have the suppliers send products for you to your customers only when you get a sale. The first option will be a bit harder since you’ll need to have some money to invest upfront. The last method of selling online is called drop shipping and is one of the cheapest ways to start your online business.

There are many things you can drop ship from your store, but why not to sell something which would differentiate itself from everything else? If you know how to design or know someone who can create a great t-shirt or other apparel designs for you, you can start yourself a t-shirt drop shipping business. Creating something unique will make your business stand out, which will end up in making sales if you’ll play your marketing cards right.

3. Affiliate marketing

If you have an online presence you can make money. This online presence can be a big number of followers on Instagram and Twitter, lots of subscribers on YouTube or Twitch, many page likes on Facebook or lots of people on the Facebook group etc. The more people you can influence and reach, the more money you can make, by linking to products or services of other businesses, which you get a commission from.

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing means connecting product or service to a customer. You can do that by influencing people on Instagram or creating a website and using Google AdWords and SEO increase traffic and drive sales this way. Maybe you’ll start making YouTube videos or in the end, you’ll choose to do something unique that nobody else is doing. In all the cases, creativity will be very important, to make this type of business a success. Of course, it comes without saying, that hard work will be very important as well.

If you’ll be starting your affiliate business with making a blog, you should be careful. Writing a blog is easy, but the market is too crowded and you need to have something unique to seperate yourself from other blogs. One idea how to do that is to give the power to your readers by giving them a possibility to determine what you should do on your blog and ask them for advice and feedback on your work. To create different forms for your readers and ask them questions, download WordPress form builder plugin by CaptainForm, visit their company website to learn more. From then, the most important thing for you will be to interpret that data, create decisions and plans.

4. Tech services

Image credit: Olu Eletu

Technology is progressing at a pace which is hard to keep up with, especially for companies. If you’re keen on technologies you might as well consider establishing an online business where you’re using the newest tools and technologies to optimize other business.

These technologies can be SEO or tools for creating websites from scratch even if you’re not a programmer. Maybe you’ll even consider reviewing different gadgets and tools to make a YouTube channel and create a personal brand for consulting business where you consult companies what technology they should use and why.

5. Franchise

If you would like to start with a ready-made business package, you can buy an online franchise. For a business that sells digital products or services, you can create yourself a website to sell their products and consult your clients which of those products they should select. This might seem like an affiliate business, but in reality, you’ll be responsible not only for connecting consumers with products but also making sure they are satisfied and are keep returning to you.