Best Online Business Ideas For Absolute Beginners

Are you searching for profitable online business ideas? I am sure most of them do. Today when it is very hard to get a decent paying job even with fancy educational degrees and certificates, it is only smart to look for other alternatives. And what better way than earning some extra income online from the comfort of your home working on your laptop.

That’s the beauty of online business. You can virtually work from wherever you want and whenever you want. There is no boss to answer and there are no strict deadlines to meet. But which business model to choose? Which one is right for you? What are some of the best online business ideas? Let’s find out.

Online Business Ideas – The Top 6

Freelancing

This is the easiest way to get started with making money online as a beginner. At least it was for me. My first significant earning online was through freelancing on a popular site called Fiverr.

If you have any marketable skill like graphic designing, web designing, photography, giving voice-overs, animations, copywriting, video editing, etc. you can join one of the many freelancing platforms available online and start selling your services. There are many freelancing websites out there which you can join for free such as Fiverr, Upwork, freelancer.com, guru.com, etc.

Pros:

• It is easy to get started.
• It is free to get started.
• You can make money really fast, depending on the type of service you are planning to sell.

Cons:

• It may start feeling like an offline real-world job we usually do in the offices. You will have time commitments and deadlines (according to your choice).
• This isn’t an online passive income opportunity at all. You will have to actively work and complete the projects for a timely delivery. If not, you will end up earning nothing.
• You may need specialized skills to start making money online as a freelancer. This online business idea may not be for you if you don’t have any specialized skill which can be sold as a service.
• Scaling this business model can be difficult.

Blogging

Blogging has become a great online business option in recent times. Thousands of people are starting new blogs every day with the dream of earning money online, thanks to the success stories and income reports shared by popular bloggers like Pat Flynn.

You can start a blog on any topic you like. If you like traveling, start a travel blog. If you are a great cook and love cooking, start a cooking blog. If you are a health enthusiast, start a fitness blog. There is money to be made in every niche and market.

You can make money from blogging by selling advertisements, promoting affiliate offers and CPA offers, selling your own products and services and many other ways.

Here are some ideas for you to start your new blog.

• Weight loss blog
• Travel blog
• Photography blog
• Cooking blog
• Dating blog
• Finance blog
• Parenting blog
• Mom blog
• Web designing blog
• Language learning blog etc.

There are literally millions of topics around which you can start your blog today and make money in due time. Blogging is one of my favorite online business ideas and is the one I am currently working on. Let me give you the pros and cons of starting a blog for money.

Pros

• Starting a blog is easy. With the rise of WordPress as a CMS, it has become even easier today. You can get started with your new blog within minutes.
• It is relatively cheap. There are basically two types of blogs you can start online. One is free and the other is paid. Free blogs are hosted on third-party servers like blogger.com or wordpress.com. The paid blogs are self-hosted ones which are hosted on the servers of our choice. These may cost you less than $10 per month.
• Once established your blog can become a great source of passive income. It can even make you money when you are asleep.
  You are your own boss. You are not answerable to anyone but yourself.

Cons

• Starting a blog is easy but making money from it, isn’t. It can take you a long time to start making money with your blog. If your niche is too competitive it may take even longer.
• Most bloggers don’t make life-changing income from their blogs. Yes, it’s the harsh truth of blogging. It happens because most newbie bloggers are either not committed to their online business or quit too soon.
• It may become boring. Yes, blogging may become a monotonous activity if you are not interested in writing or the topic you chose for blogging doesn’t interest you.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the online business model where you can make money promoting other people’s product online. Yes, you don’t have to create your own products or services or manage customer support.

Everything is taken care of by the product vendor. All you need to do is present the product in front of the buyer. This is done by using a unique link which is given to you by the vendor. This unique link is called the affiliate link.

Whenever a person online clicks your affiliate link, visits the vendor’s website and makes a purchase, you earn a commission. This commission amount may range from anywhere between 2-4% to 75-100%, depending on the type of product you decide to promote. Digital products fetch you more commissions than physical products, but physical products convert better.

Pros:

• It is free to get started.
• The barrier for entry is very low and no technical skills required.
• If done properly affiliate marketing can fetch you a load of money.
• You can literally make money online when you sleep.

Cons:

• As is the case with blogging, getting started with affiliate marketing too is easy but making money from it is difficult.
• Affiliate marketing may be considered a secondary way of making money online. Meaning, you always need another primary platform to share your affiliate link with your audience. That platform may be a blog, a website, a YouTube channel, an eBook, etc. And building an audience and making money from them using affiliate marketing takes a lot of work and time.
• Chances of failure are higher, if not done properly. Yes, most beginners trying to make a living with affiliate marketing fail. That’s because they just start pushing their links in front of their audience from day one without providing them with good content or value. Trust me, people don’t like being sold to. The best way to earn your first affiliate commission online is by starting with providing great value to your readers and then referring them to your affiliate product.

Starting a YouTube Channel

I am sure you already know how popular YouTube is. According to statistics published by YouTube itself, there are over 1.9 Billion logged in users each month. More than a billion hours of videos are watched on YouTube every day.

But did you know, you can earn a living online by publishing videos on YouTube? Yes, there are thousands of YouTubers who make a living on the net by creating and publishing videos on a regular basis.

They earn income from YouTube through advertisements, affiliate marketing, sponsored videos and more. Even if English isn’t your primary language, YouTube can be a great online business idea for you. Why? Because YouTube currently supports a total of 80 different languages which accounts for more than 95% of the total internet population.

Pros:

• You can make a lot of money with YouTube if you survive the competition. It has been estimated that there is a whopping increase of more than 40% in the number of YouTube channels earning six figures every year.
• If you like being on camera this is the perfect online business model for you.
• It’s an interesting online business idea, at least that’s what I believe.
• You can get a large following in a short period of time. If you are after fame and name, there’s no better platform online than YouTube.
• This is the best way to become a social media influencer.

Cons:

• Because it’s such a lucrative online business model, the competition is really high on YouTube.
• If you don’t find your own unique angle while creating content for YouTube, you may gradually get lost in the crowd.
• If you are camera shy, this may not be for you.

Start an Ecommerce Store

If you choose your niche/market wisely, starting an eCommerce store may be the best decision you have ever made in your career.

Some of the most popular online platforms to build your first eCommerce store are Shopify, Big Commerce, Woo Commerce, Wix, Big Cartel, etc. You can choose any one of those and start building your eCommerce site.

Pros:

• Can be really profitable.
• The conversion rates can be much higher than in blogging or affiliate marketing.
• The feeling of running a real business online, if that’s what you are looking for.
• As most eCommerce store owners like spending money on advertisements to bring visitors to their online shops, they don’t have to wait for days or even months to get visitors. The traffic is instant.

Cons:

• Choosing the wrong niche/market can make it difficult for you to successfully run your eCommerce store.
• Getting free traffic/visitors to your blogs may be difficult.
• You may need to spend money on advertisements to bring visitors to your eCommerce stores.
• This online business idea may not be passive.

Other Popular Online Business Ideas for Beginners

Publishing Ebooks

Ebook publishing can be a great source of income online if done right. But making money online with eBooks may not be as easy as in the case of other online business ideas mentioned above.

Being said that, there are many successful writers who have made life-changing money writing and selling eBooks. People like Hugh Howey and Amanda Hocking are two such names. Both of them made money publishing eBooks on Amazon Kindle platform. At one point Hugh Howey generated $150,000 per month selling eBooks while Amanda Hocking generated over $2 million in sales from her novels.

Other than Amazon there are platforms like Smashwords, Kobo, Nook Press, etc. where you can publish your ebooks and earn money.

Freelance Writing

If you love writing, this can be great for you. The best way to go about making money from writing (if you don’t want to start a blog) is by writing for online writing services. There are many online writing platforms which pay quite well.

Also, the amount you get paid for an article may depend on facts such as whether or not you are a native English speaker and whether or not your niche is in demand. Here are a few platforms where you can try selling your writing services. Upwork.com, Onlinewritingjobs.com, Writerbay.com, Iwriter.com, etc. You can also sell your writing services to content sites like HubPages, babble, etc.

Amazon FBA

Amazon FBA, otherwise known as Fulfilled by Amazon is a service for people who want to start selling online. With this service, you can store your goods in the Amazon’s Fulfillment Centers from where people from Amazon will pick up, pack and ship to the customers, whenever there is an order. They also handle customer support. This is great for you if you want to make money selling online but don’t want to handle the other nuisances that come along with it.

Make Money Online Selling Apps

App development industry is a million-dollar industry right now. There is an app for even the silliest of tasks you can imagine. If you are a coder and if you have a great idea you can turn it into an app for smartphones and tablets.

Even if you don’t know to code, you can hire someone to do it or outsource the complete app development process to one of the many app development companies/people online. But please remember that this a very highly competed online business model.