With the popularity of the internet and “gurus” hawking all kinds of make money online courses, it’s hard to know what are the best online business opportunities, and what are just SCAMS. I mean, they all sound great. Get-Rich-Quick, easy money, be your own boss, make millions in your spare time. I’ve heard and seen ’em all.
Starting a business, online or otherwise, is a major undertaking and the last thing you need is bad advice or to get SCAMMED by some, so-called, internet guru.
These past two years of the pandemic has changed the way business is done. Many full time jobs now allow you to work remotely online.
Some may have found themselves out of work due to the pandemic and are looking to start their own business. And some, are taking the opportunity to start an online business, or side hustle, from home in their spare time. Whatever the case, there are so many online business opportunities it can seem overwhelming. Ultimately, the best online business opportunities will depend on you and your situation.
Best Online Business Opportunities for You
Working from home, either at a job or your own business, will take time, effort and discipline. You will need to take an honest look at your life situation, your talents, your experiences, abilities, interests and passions. Then, you can start evaluating what is the best online business opportunities for you. It is a very personal choice and what is right for you could be totally wrong for someone else.
Make a list of what experience and talents you have, and a list of what you are interested in or are passionate about. Determine how much time you have to devote to a business keeping in mind we all need some free time or family time. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We don’t want to go “Redrum” .
When you have your lists together, try to find something that you have experience in and you are interested or passionate about. If, you are truly interested in it, you be much more likely to stick it out until you become successful.
Most people chase after that opportunity that promises big bucks, but they are not necessarily interested in. When it gets tough, or the overnight riches don’t materialize, the QUIT.
Fifty percent of all businesses fail in the first year. And, 50 of those that make it through the first year fail within 5 years.
Discouraging, I know, but if you dig into the reasons why, you will find that: 1) they weren’t prepared for the time, and effort that it takes to build a successful business. 2.) They were chasing money and not really interested in the business.
IF you will take the time to make the lists we’ve discussed here, and be honest with yourself, you will be way ahead of the majority of people who try to start a business. Online or offline.
Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks, or any “free” advice they offer. This is about you, your situation, your talents, your interests and your passions. Choose what’s best for you.
| For More on Making Extra Money From Home |
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| Read: How to Make Extra Money at Home – 3 Options |
There seem to be unlimited online business opportunities so, you can find the best one for you. We’ll take a look at four broad categories of online businesses here. Just for clarification, these are online business opportunities, not work from home jobs, the buck will stop with you. You will be CEO, secretary, shipping, customer service, janitor etc.
- Business Opportunities around your experiences and talents
- Business Opportunities around Website and SEO consulting
- Business Opportunities around Ecommerce
- Business Opportunities around Affiliate Marketing
In Summary:
The best online business opportunities for you may be entirely different for another individual. It will depend on factors such as your skills, talents, experiences and interests. The time you have available to invest in the opportunity will be another important determining factor in what is the best opportunity for you. The four online business opportunities I recommend are: 1.) Freelance Virtual Assistant, 2.) SEO consultant services, 3.) Ecommerce store and 4.) Affiliate Marketing.
| Online Businesses | Virtual Assistant | SEO Consultant | Ecommerce Store | Affiliate Marketing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Special Skills Needed | Yes some | Very Specialized | Easy to Learn | Easy to Learn |
| Cost to Start | Very Low | Moderate Cost | High Cost of Inventory | Minimal Cost |
| Demand for Services | High and Growing | Extremely High | Very High | Very High |
| Profitability | Limited by Your Time | High but Time Limits | Highly Profitable | Profits 24/7/365 |
Online Business Opportunities Using Your Talents
Now, that list you just made of your talents and experiences. We’re going to use that here. These online business opportunities are built around specific talents and abilities.
Whether its teaching, writing, design and graphics or any other special talents or experiences your have, you can build a very lucrative online business with them.
The following opportunities are some of the more profitable and in demand. There are many other possibilities where you can take advantage of your skills and talents to start your own online business.
Remember, to have the best chance of success, you choice of a business has to be what is best for you and your unique skills and circumstances.
| For More Tips on Starting a Business |
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| Read: Need Extra Money? What about a Side Hustle – 5 Tips |
1.) Virtual assistant
Now this can cover a wide range of tasks. From data entry, customer service, administrative tasks, research and more.
If you have good organizational skills and are detail oriented, you can start your own online business and offer your services to a wide range of businesses and individuals as a Virtual Assistant.
You are an independent business and your work load and expectations are discussed and agreed to with your clients beforehand. You can work when you have time, on your schedule, as long as all parties are in agreement.
Online platforms like fiverr, upwork, TaskRabbit, and others allow you to list your services and skills for potential clients to contact you for services.
2.) Graphic Designer
Are you an artist? Do you know photoshop or canva? There is huge demand for graphic designers. Everything online is very visual, and good designers are needed for everything from website images, social media imagery and YouTube videos. Designing company logos and letterheads and images for advertising and promotions.
IF you are skilled at graphic design, you could build a great business. Again platforms like fiverr, upwork, freelancer and more can put you and your work in front of potential clients from all over the world. The internet is worldwide after all, and with digital downloads, you can service clients anywhere in the world that has internet connections.
3.) Online Tutoring Business
Do you have teaching experience? Do you have specialized education or knowledge in a particular field? Are you bilingual? If you have the talent for explaining things to others you might be perfect for an online Tutoring business. With internet communication apps like Skype, WeChat, Line and Whatsapp you can meet with individuals and groups in an online setting and tutor them.
You can work anytime and anywhere and the platforms like fiverr, upwork and others are great places to market your services. Build an online business around your knowledge, teaching and language abilities.
4.) Create and Sell Digital Courses
Along the same lines as tutoring, you can share your specialized knowledge and experience by creating digital courses on those subjects. Like the digital golf swing course on the right from Clickbank.
Build an online business that sells those courses, as a digital download, to people interested in the subjects. You can offer your courses on platforms like Udemy, Clickbank, and others where the platform will handle the delivery of the course and collect payment.
5.) Provide Writing Services
There are people all over the internet who provide freelance writing services. Everything from resumes to blog content and technical manuals. The writers that have the technical background to write scientific and instruction manuals demand the highest fees.
But there are people looking to hiring writers to create professional looking resumes and letters. If you have a talent for writing, you can find endless opportunities. Bloggers are always looking for writers to help produce content for their blog sites. And, smaller companies are often in need of experienced writers to produce employee manuals, company policies, and other business documents.
Build an online business where people can hire you for technical writing services, resumes, blog content or whatever writing skill you possess. You can post your services on LinkedIn, Fiverr, iwriter, upwork, freelancer and others to get in front of potential clients.
Online Business Opportunities Web and SEO
This next category requires some specialized technical skills, but if you do have the skills and talents to design websites, know SEO ( search engine optimization), know how to build and manage social media accounts you will find yourself and your services much in demand and highly profitable. 😉
6.) SEO consulting Business
If you are knowledge in SEO, Google Ads, Google Analytics and Microsoft ads you can build a very successful and lucrative SEO consulting business.
There are many business owners who don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO) much less how to use it to improve their business.
You can sell your SEO services and help those business owners with their web presence and increase their leads and conversions.
Offer marketing services that uses analytics, keywords to build them more “free” organic web traffic. Build and run PPC ad campaigns to bring in more customers and sales. Local business marketing has become a very profitable business as most small local businesses don’t have either the time or the skills necessary to manage their websites, SEO or online marketing. And, they don’t have the resources to hire a full time staffer to do it. That is where you come in.
7.) Social media consultant
Yes, social media can be a valuable avenue to promote a business. And, much like websites and SEO, small business owners lack the time, resources and expertise to manage all of their social media accounts. If you have the skill and knowledge to manage social media accounts and maximize their potential for businesses, you could have a very successful online business opportunity.
You can generate a recurring monthly service fee for each client, to manage their social media presence.
From designing and posting, to tactics for growing a following, social media management is a rapidly growing business model.
Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Linkden are the top business platforms, but there has been tremendous growth with other visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest.
All of these social platforms have huge numbers of active users who could be potential customers, but many businesses don’t know how to effectively utilize them for business growth and brand awareness, If you have a background in social media marketing you, as a social media consultant, can make a great income by helping other businesses improve their social media presence and achieve their business goals.
8.) Web designer or web developer
If your background and experience is in web design, you can start an online business building websites for small businesses.
You would be surprised at just how many businesses either don’t have a website or have a very simple one at best.
With your skill and talent for web design you can build professional, easy to use websites that draw customers and create a positive web presence and brand awareness.
You can even build digital real estate. A new and lucrative web design field where you can build websites, maximize their SEO and build their traffic and then sell them to businesses as a website package.
And, build recurring revenue by contracting your website and SEO management services to maintain it for them. Simple platforms like wordpress and wix allow you to build attractive and fully functional websites with a wide variety of themes tools and capabilities to suit most any business need.
Online Business Opportunities Ecommerce
Ecommerce is basically buying and or selling products and or services electronically online. Everything from your own products and services to those you purchase elsewhere and resell. And, it includes such activities as selling on Ebay, Etsy, Amazon, WalMart and others.
9.) Set Up an E-Commerce Site
If you want to sell products or services online, setting up an ecommerce website on platforms like shopify, wix and wordpress can make it simple to get your online store up and running.
You can sell your own products like artwork, photographs, crafts, etc. Or, you can find popular products to buy at wholesale and then list and resell at retail on your online ecommerce store.
There is some work involved in sourcing products, purchasing and housing inventory, order fulfillment, packing, shipping, payment processing and customer service. You will be wearing many hats but, when done right, it is a very profitable online business model.
10.) Dropshipping Business
Dropshipping is an ecommerce business model where you list products in your online store but don’t actually have them in inventory.
The manufacturer “drop” ships directly to your customer. One of the most popular dropshipping platforms is Shopify where you build your store and list the products for sale.
When a customer makes a purchase, shopify collects the money, sends the order to the manufacturer, sends you your money.
The advantage for you is that you don’t have to invest a large sum of money in inventory. You don’t have to worry with packing and shipping or payment processing. The disadvantage is shipping can take longer as many manufacturers are overseas, and the platform charges a fee for the transactions. Still, it can be a very profitable business if you spend the time to research the best-selling and most profitable product offerings.
11.) Sell Products on eBay Amazon and WalMart
What if I told you that you could leverage the biggest ecommerce platforms in the world to sell products for you?
Well you can, pretty cool huh? In fact, over half of the products sold on amazon.com are from what they call “third party sellers”.
People just like you and me, that have opened a store on amazon, listed products and let amazon host our ecommerce store.
And, guess what, you can do the same thing on WalMart and Ebay as well.
Now, it does have its draw backs. Amazon, WalMart and Ebay take a commission off the top that cuts into your profit margin. You will also be on a massive platform with thousands of other sellers so it is easy to get lost in the shuffle or be competing with other stores with the same products.
On the plus side, you won’t need to build a website and arrange for hosting. You will be listed on the biggest online retailers on the planet that are already getting massive amounts of traffic from people looking to buy products. There is a learning curve, and they frown on dropshipping, so you will have to package and ship products either direct to the customer for each order.
In the case of amazon, you can elect to use their fba services (fulfilled by amazon) where you package and ship the products to amazon and they take care of shipping each order to the customer for you.
There are some companies that offer amazon and Walmart store automation services where they use your capital and they do all the management of the store and you split the profits. Be careful, some are pretty sketchy and the up front set up fees can get quite expensive.
Online Business Opportunities Affiliate Marketing
13.) Start an Affiliate Marketing Business
Affiliate Marketing is nothing more than you recommending someone else’s product or service and the owner paying you a commission when a customer makes a purchase from your recommendation.
A freelance commissioned salesman, so to speak. You start an affiliate marketing business online and promote services, physical products and digital products.
Affiliate Marketing online can take various forms. You can promote products on social media. Place paid ads on search engines like Google, Yahoo and bing.
Or you can build a website and use quality content and SEO strategies to generate organic “FREE” search traffic to your affiliate offers. One example of that is blogging.
| For a No BS Guide to Affiliate Marketing |
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| Read: No BS 10 Step Beginners Guide to Affiliate Marketing |
14.) Start a Blog
You might ask, “what the heck is a blog?” and you can get varied answers. The classic definition from Wikipedia. A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries. Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.
A blog can be about anything you are interested in. Remember those lists at the beginning. Take the one of your interests and passions. You can start a blog website about any one of those interests and most likely there are products and or services you can review, recommend and promote on that blog for affiliate commissions.
In fact, that’s one of the primary ways I make money online with affiliate marketing. I currently have 3 blog websites up and generating commissions every day even when I’m off enjoying some free time. Your blog is up and available on the world wide web 24/7/365 generating traffic and commissions. As you start building traffic you can also sell ads on your website, or join ad networks like Google Adsense, for additional revenue.
Blogging can actually be a very enjoyable online business if you build it around one of your interests, hobbies or passions. Writing content will come much easier and won’t seem like so much work when you have a genuine interest in the topic or “niche”.
15.) Build Niche Websites
Very similar to blogging, niche websites are built around very specific and narrow topics and essentially a blog site on that topic.
Each site then starts building traffic and generating revenue providing you a monthly income stream. You can add as many niche sites as you are capable of managing and keep adding more streams of income.
As you get enough revenue coming in, you can hire Virtual Assistants to handle some of the tasks of managing the sites.
Content writing for one can be hired out to freelancers on fiverr, upwork, iwriter and others to free you up for other tasks or just free you up period.
| For More on Niche Selection |
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| Read: How to Find the Best Niche for Affiliate Marketing |
All of these websites, blog, niche, ecommerce are your digital real estate. You own them and, believe it or not, can sell them to others. There are websites that market and sell websites.
Some people would rather buy a website that already has some traffic and is generating revenue than take the time and effort to build one from scratch.
So not only can you generate affiliate marketing and ad revenue, but you can make money in your online business selling websites, flipping digital real estate.
| Info on How to Make Money Online Without Money |
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| Read: Making Money Online Without Spending Money |
So, What are the Best Online Business Opportunities?
This is by no means a complete list of online business opportunities. It is a list of what are, in my opinion, some of the best and most lucrative. Ultimately, it will depend on you and what your skills, talents, interests and passions are. Hence, the lists at the beginning. Find what works best for you and your life situation.
Starting a Virtual Assistant, Graphic Design, Writing Services or Online Tutoring business are good if you have those skills. And, are not overly expensive to get up and running.
You will need to market yourself on the various freelancing platforms to get clients for your services and your income will depend on your time and work. When you can’t work, you won’t generate any income.
The Website and SEO related businesses are in very high demand and can produce a tremendous income. You will need those specialized skills however. Web design, social media management and SEO services pay well because most smaller businesses lack the time or knowledge to do it themselves. And, so many don’t even know how important they are for building a brand and increasing sales.
Again, your income will depend on how much time you can devote to building websites, managing social media posts and engagement, researching keywords and producing Google ad campaigns. But of all the online business opportunities we’ve discussed, these consulting services are the most profitable.
Ecommerce can generate a very nice income but will depend on how well you can select and source products, how much competition you have and how much money you can afford to spend on inventory and advertising. Drop Shipping eliminates the inventory cost but you still have to deal with competition and advertising which can get expensive.
Affiliate Marketing is, in my opinion, one of the best opportunities. It has very low cost to start, and the skills needed are easy to learn. You can tailor your blog, niche website and business around anything that interests you. And, more importantly, once your business is up and running bringing in traffic (customers) it can generate revenue 24/7/365 whether you have time to work on it or not.
| How to Build an Online Business from Your Hobbies |
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| Read: 5 Steps to Make Extra Money From Your Hobbies |
The platform I use for my online affiliate marketing businesses is called Wealthy Affiliate. It has all the training, tools, support and website hosting needed to run a successful online business. If you’re interested, I have a review of my 3+ years with the platform.
I hope you found this helpful in your search for an online business opportunity. Making those lists of skills, talents, experience, interests and passions will be the most valuable thing you can do as you begin your search.
To become one of the 5% who are successful long term, you will need to match the opportunity to you and your personal situation and interests.
If you have any questions, ideas, comments or concerns, I would be happy to discuss them with you. Just leave them in the comment section below and I will get back to you ASAP.
In the mean time, I wish you all the success in the world. You can do it. Make up your mind to: never quit, and then there is no way you can fail!
I’m Looking forward to working with you,
- onlinebenjamins.com
- thebeachangler.com
- thesinnerinthemirror.com
- my.wealthyaffiliate.com/rex10
- Facebook: Online Benjamins
- Twitter: @onlinebenjamin1
- Instagram: dotcomdinero
Rex
P.S. Again, Wealthy Affiliate is COMPLETELY FREE to get started. No catch, no obligation, no bait and switch. I will personally be in touch with you upon joining to offer my support and guidance to help you get up and running online.
P.P.S. If you have any questions or are unsure of anything, I am here and I promise I will get back to you on all of your questions and comments. Just leave them below in the comment section. Follow me on Twitter: @onlinebenjamin1, Instagram: dotcomdinero, and Facebook: Online Benjamins
Hi,
Thanks for stopping by and congratulations for taking the first steps to building your own online business. I’ve been in business both offline and online since 1997. I would consider it an honor to help you build your business. Father of 3, life long outdoorsman with an education in Genetics and Economics. This site is about cutting through the BS and finding the real opportunities in the online world. I look forward to working with you.
