Starting up a business is by no means an easy task. If you want to make
money online, you need to have an idea, but you also need a great
marketing plan. Each of the 18 internet business ideas below are
competitive niches, so make sure you go in with all guns blazing!
1. Blogging
The blogger-sphere is huge and you can capitalise on that fact. To
make money from a blog you need to gain large amounts of traffic from a
specific niche. You can then make money using:
- AdSense
- Selling banner advertisements
- Affiliating to sites such as Amazon & eBay
- Offer premium services or member areas
Example – TechCrunch
TechCrunch is a popular Web 2.0 blog and makes a reported $200,000
per month. Originally started by Michael Arrington, it was eventually
acquired by AOL for a reported $25,000,000. There is money to be made by blogging!
2. Create an affiliate store
Affiliate stores are web stores where people purchase items on the
site, but through a third party. Amazon is one of the most popular
affiliate programs in the world. It’s not just Amazon that you can
affiliate with; there are 1,000 affiliate programs to choose from.
Expecting commissions of 5-25% is realistic.
Example – Associate-O-Matic
There are some great examples
here of stores that affiliate with Amazon.
3. Train and mentor
Perhaps you have a specific skill set that you could teach. There are
hundreds of skills that can be taught over the internet, especially due
to the fact that services like Skype are free. You might have to offer a
free service now and build a
freemium model for the future in order to make some large amounts of cash.
You could:
- Teach a language
- Offer marketing training
- Help improve writing skills
- And more!
Example – Code Academy
Although it is only in the early stages
Code Academy
is going to be one of those online training centres that really stands
out from the crowd. More than one investor has seen the potential that
is has with the Academy getting over $12.5m in investment within the
first 12 months, including investments from Richard Branson and Yuri
Milner.
4. Sell on eBay
Selling on eBay successfully is not easy. You need to be able to able
to target a niche where the profit margins are high and competition is
low. If you pick the right product (particularly unbranded products) you
have a chance to import items and make huge profit margins.
Example – Linda’s Stuff
There are some extremely large sellers on eBay. Take “Linda’s Stuff”
as an example, with around 150,000 items online and nearly 350,000
confirmed sales.
5. Become a drop shipper
Drop shipping is fairly similar to running an affiliate store. You
act as the mediator without ever touching the product. The difference
between a drop shipper and affiliate is that the sale with drop shipping
websites is not completely managed. You might have to set up systems to
automatically make a purchase with your drop shipping company, in order
for it to be sent directly to the end consumer.
Example – iPhoneStore
There was a sale confirmed on Flippa a few years ago for
iPhoneStore.com. It was producing nearly $30,000 in revenue every month and sold for $90,000.
6. Paid blogging
With over 350,000,000 websites on the internet, there is a huge
demand for content. If you have experience or skills relating to
writing, offering a
blog posting service
could be for you. Lower paid projects might start at around £1 per 100
words, with quality focused projects being in the £2.50-10 per 100 words
range. Sites like People Per Hour and Elance are great for picking up
paid writing gigs, without actually having a website.
Example – Vibe Tech Media
Content writing services are a huge part of our work. It has made up a huge portion of our income for last few years.
73% of people prefer to get information about an organization in a
collection of articles rather than in a traditional advertisement – (
Source)
7. Become a virtual assistant
A virtual assistant is a great job to have if you want flexibility.
You’ll be able to maintain multiple clients at once which mean you can
easily fill gaps in your week or work overtime if you need to. A virtual
assistant will generally charge £15-20 depending on the specifics of
their job role. Expect to be assisting with tasks such as blogger
outreach, product listings, research and responding to emails.
Example – HM Virtual Assistant
Check out the story of a Mother that managed to fit her work around being a parent
here.
8. Start an ecommerce store
At the forefront of the internet revolution has been ecommerce
stores. Nowadays you can get an easy to use, fully functional ecommerce
store online for as little as £500.
Of course, how much you profit depends on your methods and effectiveness of marketing which might include:
- Print media
- PPC (pay-per-click)
- SEO (search engine optimisation)
- Networking
- Event sponsorship
- The list goes on…!
Example – Zappos
You might not have even heard of Zappos, an online shoe store. Well,
that goes to show how big the internet really is and how big your
business could be. Maybe it might even come to close to the
acquisition of Zappos by Amazon for a reported $900,000,000.
9. Offer web design
Nearly every business is now looking to build a website. In fact,
even those companies that have a website are looking to make sure that
theirs looks bigger and better than the competition.
You can learn the basics of coding on CodeAcademy and do specific
online web design courses to build up your skill set. Sign up to
freelance sites such as People Per Hour and start building up your
portfolio! This portfolio might even lead you into a high paid job!
Example – City College Brighton
Many of the students from
City College Brighton have gone on to be successful freelance web designers, and you could do the same!
10. Deal in domains
You’ve heard of antique dealers and even car dealers, but what about
dealing in domains? Domains are internet real estate and like real
estate they could be considered as an investment. Don’t just buy any
domains, spread your risk with a portfolio and make sure you hold out
for the highest price possible. Learning how to connect with the end
consumer, rather than other domain dealers, will enable you to get the
highest price possible for your domains.
Example – Domaining.com
If you are not familiar with some of the prices that domains have been sold for, then the
all time list here is worth looking out. Checkout hotels.com, which went for $9,500,000! One of the highest
domain sales back in 2012 was silver.com which sold for $875,000.
11. Outsource
How about setting up a business that focuses on outsourcing? Most
successful service providers on the internet find that they need
external help at some point. They might have a blogging client that
requires logo design. They might have a
guest posting service client that needs web design .
Instead of actually providing the services personally, you could
outsource and take a profit margin of your choice! Make sure you learn
how to outsource first!
Example – Copify.com
Copify is an example of a company that uses outsourcing. They source
writers and they source clients. They connect the dots to create a
business deal and take their profit margin.
12. Trade currencies
Every day, there is a huge fluctuation in FX markets. If you have a
combination of technical and fundamental analytical skills and some cash
flow, you can become an online currency trader.
Places like
www.forexfactory.com
are great for learning the basics. Remember, this is leveraged cash, so
if you make the right decisions, you have a chance to profit big! At
the same time, the risks can be high if you don’t have a money
management strategy in place.
Example – Bill Lipschutz
Bill Lipschutz is considered to be one of the best FX investors of all time.
13. Build apps
Again, CodeAcademy will give you good grounding in coding languages.
Expect to train for 12 months before being able to build apps that are
going to achieve lots of sales. There are a few options when it comes to
building apps…
- Bespoke basis for clients
- Sell based on a fixed fee (multiple licenses)
- Charge a monthly fee
Example – Summly
Looking to hit the jackpot? Checkout this recent acquisition by Yahoo! to
buyout Summly for $30,000,000…from a 17 year old!
14. Offer telemarketing
Telemarketing services are great for appointment setting as well as
creating warm leads. More and more companies are looking to outsource
their marketing efforts and this is where you could fit in.
Telemarketers charge £15-30 per hour depending on the size and type of
operation.
Example – DM Concepts
DM Concepts
is a telemarketing company that has managed to achieve some fantastic
statistics. The higher quality the service you offer, the more you are
going to be able to charge!
15. Create videos
UK spend on online
video has seen 13.5% year on year growth, and now exceeds spend on TV advertising. (PriceWaterhouseCoopers)
Hundreds of statistics like this have meant that businesses have to
produce videos. Well, they don’t have to, but if they don’t, they are
going to be missing out. Video platforms are just another avenue to
acquire potential consumers.
You can offer video packages from £50-5,000 and beyond. Select your target market and market to them effectively.
Example – Old Spice
If you can couple video production with the ability to be creative,
you can make videos go viral. If you can do that, your £500 video is
going to be worth £5,000 or even £50,000 to a client. Checkout the
results from the
Old Spice video campaign!
16. Manage social media profiles
Social media is an important part of any online business. The
problem? Time! Most business owners simply don’t have the time to be
involved with Twitter, LinkedIn, Face Book and other sites, in a
pro-active way.
That is where you can help. If you can engage clients and build up
attractive social media profiles, then you will be able to attract
clients, which makes this a service with value.
Again, these projects are posted on freelance sites such as People
Per Hour and Elance on a regular basis, so you can start building up
clients straight away!
Check out these amazing
statistics for LinkedIn!
Example – Clorox Bleach
If you can consistently provide companies with successful social media campaigns and improve their profiles, they will pay.
Clorox Bleach had some huge success with one of their recent social media campaigns.
17. Create valuable resources
The sites that hold the most value on the web hold the most valuable
content. Face Book holds information about what hundreds of millions of
users. YouTube possess millions of funny, educational and controversial
videos. If you can create a website that focuses on offering valuable
resources, then you just might be onto a winner. Remember, you can offer
the
freemium model mentioned previously if there is no scope to achieve high advertising revenue.
Example – Shopify
Shopify
is a great example of the freemium model. By offering some applications
for free, they get exposure for their whole business. Since the company
was founded in 2004, they have acquired 30,000 customers, including
Pixar and the Foo Fighters. Their revolutionary “build-a-business”
competitions in the past have produced over $70,000,000 in revenue for
over 14,000 entrants.
18. Translate
There are over 300,000 translators in the world for a reason; they
are needed. In a world where more and more companies are using
outsourcing, those that speak other languages are indispensable. Whether
you are negotiating deals for an import-export agent or replying to
company emails, there is work out there. There are opportunities to work
part time with small companies by networking on freelance sites, or to
set up professional translation services using remote call centres and
Skype.
Example – Cloudwords
Cloudwords is one of the many companies that is taking advantage of the
$30billion
that is spent worldwide on translation related products or services.
The market it is there, now you just need to find your niche.
