If you’re planning to own a brick-and-mortar business, you might have to start thinking about things like renting commercial real estate, employing people, and managing them, not to mention having to endure the pain of commuting – losing in the process hundreds of hours a year. With the rising of home offices, this doesn’t have to be your case.
People are coming with ways to make it work from the comfort of their homes everyday; and with the technology that exists today, work has never been more flexible. Home businesses come in different forms and online businesses are booming.
Here are the top 10 online business ideas that you could start doing today from the comfort of your home.
- Create a blog and write content
Can blobs of text tied together with visuals work marvels? The answer is yes! This is one of those incredibly simple online business ideas that wouldn’t take up more than 4 hours a week of your time and about US$20-40 in costs.
Blogs like Gizmodo and CopyBlogger create incredibly useful content about design and marketing respectively and make hundreds of thousands of dollars every month. Granted you won’t be able to make as much money as that (at least not as fast), but with a bit of promotion on social media and monetizing your site, you’ll be able to generate a decent amount of revenue to cover costs of hosting your website.
There are many ways to launch your site. I would recommend checking them before you opt for one. One of the strongest web-hosting platforms is Bluehost – you can get started for as little as $2.95 per month.
- Affiliate Marketing
Anyone who’s been in the eCommerce business even for a short while must have heard of “Affiliate Marketing.” However, most people aren’t sure of what it means or how it works. Simply put, affiliate marketing is a marketing model that is based on performance. It rewards affiliate partners for achieving a certain task, i.e. site visits, completion of a lead form, converting sales – just to name a few.
What’s cool about affiliate marketing is that it’s a mind-numbingly useful way to promote your products and services at a low-risk.
- Merch By Amazon
Merch By Amazon (MBA) is a T-shirt service that the titanic digital store Amazon provides. Merch By Amazon will open a virtual space for you where you could generate a big revenue out of designing t-shirts and merchandise such as phone cases and popsockets. You only craft the designs and Amazon will handle the manufacturing and shipment of the products.
There is absolutely no risk because you won’t have to pay for anything. All you need to do is set up your Merch By Amazon account and start uploading your designs. Done.
- Buy and Sell Domain Names
Buying and selling domain names can be a great online business to generate an interesting cash inflow. If you’re not familiar with flipping domain names, you’ll need to know the top places where you can buy domain names from, then figure out where you can sell them, and finally how you can transfer those domains to the target buyers. You should also figure out how much you should price those domains at, and if there are any trademark technicalities that should be taken care of before you proceed.
- Trading Stock and Forex
Some people think that investing your money in trading stocks and forex is a waste of money. You’d be better off throwing your money, because the risk is incredibly high. While that may be true, you don’t have to start big.
The main thing to keep in mind is being well-educated and starting small until you know the tricks of the trade is what may be the radical shift you’ve been seeking your entire life.
Knowing who to reach out to find the right information or receive the right education is critical. What I would advise is to find a successful trader who’s been doing this for a long time and shadow him. You could also take online courses and get certified for trading. There are so many platforms that you could find.
- Doing Freelance Jobs
No one could deny that the idea of freelancing is frowned upon, because it seems unreliable to live on a paycheck-to-paycheck basis. After all, freelancing only started as an option for workers to get some extra cash to make ends meet. However, the past 10 years or so have witnessed a radical change as Millennials have entered the workforce.
If you’re someone who is looking for flexibility, work-life balance, working from home, being your own boss, the freedom to select your own clients, then you should definitely consider freelance. The transition might be scary, but with the right skills (productivity, project management…), you could secure the financial freedom you’ve always dreamed of.
If this is something you’re interested in, there are several websites at your disposal to find gigs. Khamsat, Nabbesh, Fiverr, Upwork, LinkedIn, and what search Google doesn’t find, right?
- Become an Influencer on Social Media
Influencer marketing is and still continues to reach mass social media markets by the millions and the amount of revenue they generate has generated a lot of buzz inspiring millions of young people and grown-ups alike to at least consider the option to become a social media influencer.
Although Huda Kattan started her social media endeavor only a couple of years ago, her Instagram and Youtube accounts witnessed massive growth as an influencer in make-up art, currently having over 29.3 Million followers on Instagram and almost 3 million YouTube subscribers. She was ranked #1 on the “2017 Influencer Instagram Rich List,” earning an astonishing $18k per post with a sponsored ad.
- Buy products in bulk and sell them on eBay
Becoming a successful online retailer is no easy task. It takes guts, and it takes time. However, once you get your business workflow, run effective campaigns, and promote your content via multiple channels, then this can shower you with massive cash inflow. This means, buying products in bulk from websites that sell them for cheaps or hiring someone who can deliver to your store, then selling them on marketplaces like eBay is an opportunity you don’t want to miss.
- Teach Online and Record Webinars
Communication technology has advanced so much so that it radically improved access to information for many people around the world. Internet-based education has made access to education to a wider population through real-time online classes.
As for students who aren’t available during the sessions you schedule, then webinars are the way to go. Webinars are web-based multimedia lessons, seminars, discussions, and demonstrations that offer the same advantages as online classes.
- Become a Virtual Assistant
If you’re one of those who want to turn their passion for organization into a home-based business, then working as a virtual assistant might be the right online business idea for you.
A virtual assistant is a person tasked with providing support to other businesses and business owners from a remote location. You’ll be asked to do office and administrative-related tasks on a day-to-day basis; this includes but is not limited to content creation, graphic design, bookkeeping, general admin stuff, social media management, and email management,
Not all virtual assistants are alike, and some only offer to manage, for example, emails and social media messages. The best course of action, when you’re starting out, is to specialize in one niche only and take it from there
