Best Online Business Models for Beginners to Start Earning Money On The Internet

Are you searching for the top online business models to start making money on the internet? In this article, we will show you some of the best internet marketing businesses to start today as a newbie.

Most of these internet businesses are easy to set up and can be highly profitable if done right. As you may already be knowing, to a major extent success or failure in the online business depends on the choice of your online business model.

You need to choose something that suits your personality, passion, and knowledge. Randomly starting an online business without doing any homework will most probably end up in failure.

Choosing the right kind of online business model takes a great deal of work and requires you to do a lot of research and gather a ton of information. To make that task easier for you we have simplified some of the important concepts of online business and given below. Let’s get started.

What is an Online Business?

Broadly speaking, online business otherwise called internet marketing, is any kind of business that is performed through the medium of internet to earn money.

In recent years the internet marketing industry has exploded to the point where it looks like everyone and their grandmother has an online business. Here’s why internet marketing is such a wonderful business model to get into.

Vast Income Potential

The online business model has produced quite a few internet millionaires in recent years. And there are thousands of people generating six-figure income with an internet marketing enterprise.

Can Be Passive

It is possible to make your internet business passive to the most extent once it is established. Nowadays, the majority of online work can be outsourced. Your online business can earn you money even when you sleep, thanks to the nature of the business.

Because of the passive nature of internet business model, you can even have a full-time job or do something fun, when running your online business enterprise on the side. Your business will keep earning money for you.

Types of Online Business Models

Internet marketing has numerous business models. When we say business models, here we are referring to the method of making money on the internet.

When we look at the history of internet marketing we can see that there are a few methods that have proven more effective for internet marketers than others. Let’s have a closer look at these online business models and see how each of these actually work.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is by far the best online business model to get started as a beginner. Also, this is our favourite method of generating revenue online, because it simply works. The barrier for entry is really low and getting started with affiliate marketing is absolutely free.

Don’t get us wrong. We are not saying that it is easy to make money with affiliate marketing, we are just saying that it is easy to get started with this business model.

Having said that, if you follow a solid technique of generating leads and traffic, you can even make a ton of money fast with affiliate marketing. But how exactly does affiliate marketing work?

We have already explained how affiliate marketing works in detail several times on this website. You can have a look at this article about how to start affiliate marketing as a beginner to get an idea of how things work.

In simple terms, the process of affiliate marketing involves you (the affiliate marketer), to send visitors to the product’s/merchant’s website. If the visitor you sent makes a purchase you earn an affiliate commission. To send the visitor to the merchant’s website you need to use a unique clickable link called the ‘affiliate link’.

ClickBank

Have you heard of a website called ‘ClickBank’? It is by far one of the most popular affiliate platforms for digital products. If you want to get started with affiliate marketing ClickBank can be a great place to do that. Read our ClickBank affiliate marketing guide to learn how to get started with ClickBank affiliate marketing today.

Amazon Affiliate Program

Amazon associates program is another popular affiliate marketing platform where most beginners start their online business. Although the commission rates are low, the conversions can be higher on Amazon.

No matter what product you are trying to promote Amazon most certainly has it. The best part is that when you send someone to Amazon who was already looking to buy a product, you earn a commission. We presently don’t actively promote Amazon’s products but it can be a great start for newbies.

Blogging and Content Marketing

Whatever kind of business you do online, having a blog or website is mandatory nowadays. We have written a detailed, step by step guide that teaches everything about making money with blogging a beginner should know. Read this article titled how to start a blog from scratch.

Now coming to content marketing, content marketing and blogging are not the same.

Content marketing simply means creating information-packed content with the intent of promoting a product or service and making a sale. It can be done through any medium or platform and not necessarily through a blog.

Blogging is a form of content marketing but content marketing isn’t necessarily blogging. You can do content marketing through videos, social media posts, pictures and more.

Dropshipping

The next online business model we will discuss is ‘Dropshipping’. This business model is quite similar to retail business, in the way the whole thing operates.

And this is how it works.

In the case of a retail business, your role as a retailer is to buy the product at a wholesale price, then mark it up and sell it to your customer. In this case, you have to pay from your pocket upfront to purchase a product and then try to sell it to your customer. If you are not able to sell the product, you will have to suffer losses.

And that’s where Dropshipping differs from retail business and it is also why Dropshipping is a much better business model than retail. Unlike retail business, in Dropshipping you don’t need to pay upfront for the product until someone actually orders it.

A perfect example of that would be ‘CreateSpace’ which is now owned by Amazon. If you are a writer you may already know about this platform. CreateSpace is a self-publishing platform at Amazon. This is an on-demand publishing service.

For example, if you write a book and upload it to CreateSpace your book will be printed and shipped out only when a customer orders a paperback copy of your book.

E-Commerce Websites

Ecommerce website in simple terms means a website that sells products and/or services. Since everyone shops online these days, the concept of eCommerce isn’t foreign to anyone. The term e-commerce nowadays is being used broadly as an umbrella term to refer to different business models such as affiliate marketing websites, dropshipping websites and more.

However, the perfect examples of eCommerce websites would be platforms like Etsy, Shopify, eBay, Amazon etc. where you can sell products that you have purchased from somewhere else or have created yourself.

Starting an eCommerce business as a beginner can take a bit more work than the other online business models mentioned here. However, if done right, it can be the most profitable of all.

Info Publishing Business

Info publishing or information marketing is an online business model where you earn money packaging and selling informational products. A perfect example of that would be creating an eBook and selling it on your website or on a platform like Amazon.

Info publishing can be the best internet business model for you if you like to create and sell your own products rather than promoting someone else’s. You could create digital products like eBook, special reports, video presentations, screen capture video series etc and start selling it.

This business model gives you total control over your business. You can decide your own pricing. Best of all, in this internet business, the customer is yours to keep unlike in an affiliate business where the customer you refer will be a lifetime lead for the merchant and you lose him/her forever after referral.

App Development

Until recent years this wasn’t considered a mainstream internet business model. Not anymore. Currently, the app development industry is booming and is worth millions of dollars. If you don’t know what an app is, its a mobile software application that is designed to perform a specific task.

Apps can be broadly classified into three categories. Free apps, freemium apps where you can use the app for free and then perform in-app purchases for additional features, and the premium apps, which need you to pay for using them. The premium apps can have one-time fees or recurring monthly fees.

If you are a software developer, this can be the best online business model for you to start. Even if you are not a developer you can hire someone to develop an app for you.

Many people we know are doing great with app development business even without knowing a single line of code. All you need to succeed in this business is a great idea and perfect execution.

Lead Generation Business

Lead generation is undoubtedly the best skill to have if you want to build a thriving business and succeed online. However, this may not be the perfect online business to start as a beginner if you don’t have prior skills in the field.

Having said that, there is always a growing demand for people with specialised lead generation skills who can generate traffic and customers to online businesses.

Many online businesses fail because they don’t know how to bring in traffic or convert visitors into buyers. If you are someone who can help businesses in that aspect, there will be no stopping you from earning six figures or more online.

Software as a Service or Saas

This is the most recent entry into the list of online business models. As the name suggests this internet business involves offering Software as a service. You as a software owner charge your customer monthly, yearly, or onetime, to use your software services.

We don’t have to tell you that you need to have Software worth selling to start this online business. Some of the best examples of Saas would be cloud-based Mircosoft Office 365, Amazon web services, Dropbox etc.

How to Choose the Best Online Business Model?

As we already mentioned in the beginning, choose something you are passionate about and what you are good at. Just having a passion may not be enough if you don’t have the required skill set.

Another factor to consider while starting an online business is demand. If there are not enough people willing to pay for the online business you are starting, you better do something else.

For example, you are passionate about eating pizzas and you are very good at eating them. This fulfils our first two criteria for starting a successful online business, which is passion and skill.

But that doesn’t mean that easting Pizzas is a good internet marketing business idea. In fact, it is a terrible online business idea because no one is going to pay you for watching you eat pizzas.

That’s why it is important to take consideration of your passion, skillset, the existing demand and also the profitability potential while starting an online business.