If you want to start an online business, this is the right time to start. So here are 15 online business ideas to start today
More and more people aspire to work online and the reasons are clear, first of all, that of not having working hours, of having the total freedom to work when and where we want, and to obtain potentially unlimited earnings.
And if not long ago we freelancers were considered almost mythological figures, now more and more people are following the path of the freelancing lifestyle, the lifestyle of freelancers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly also influenced this turnaround, which forced all of us to spend a lot of time at home and led to new trends in the labor market.
Many have therefore seized the ball and decided to open a new business totally online or to expand their business also on the net.
And the results spoke clearly.
A case among all was that of Mediaworld, forced to close 100 physical stores on national soil but which saw its turnover grow thanks to its online expansion, or that of Cynical Beautician, which recorded a boom in revenues during the lockdown.
Creating your own online business is therefore still an excellent investment. But what are the best online business ideas?
Surely there are millions of them: just find a profitable niche, understand what its problems are, and offer a solution.
In this article, I wanted to collect 28 business ideas to be carried out totally online and highly profitable. Let’s see them together!
15 online business ideas to start today
Here is the list of 15 online business ideas that you can start today at no cost (or almost).
1- Start a blog and make it successful
Yes, I confess: blogging is still alive and well.
Creating a blog is in fact an investment that can still bring a lot of satisfaction, including economic ones.
Whatever type of business you want to focus on, starting with a blog is always a winning move: among many things, it allows you to develop your personal branding or the brand positioning of your company and spontaneously acquire new customers.
But you can also passively monetize directly with your blog. I talked about it in more depth in my article on how to make money with a blog.
If you have an offline business and want to expand online, if you want to become a recognized professional or if you just want to make money online, having a blog is always the right way to success.
2- Create and sell online courses
E-learning, that is the online courses market, is constantly expanding and it seems that it will reach 325 billion dollars by 2025.
If you want to start teaching, online courses are undoubtedly the future for starting an online business as they are one of the most profitable ways to make money online and without the cost of live lessons.
But what can be taught online? Absolutely everything: fitness, yoga, do-it-yourself, guitar lessons, gardening, programming, foreign languages, cooking, drawing …
Creating your course is extremely simple: you create the videos of the lessons, upload them to the platform, and put your school online.
There are numerous platforms to create an online course, with many of which you can get started completely free, such as Thinkific or Udemy.
You will not even have to worry about invoicing and refunds because the e-learning platform will manage everything, then passing on your payments to you.
In addition to the platform, I also recommend that you have the right equipment to make videos:
- a good digital camera.
- a good microphone.
- a light ring, which will illuminate your figure by eliminating all ugly shadows. It is also great for making videos and live for social media.
3- Offer your services and consultancy online
If you are a professional, you know how difficult it can be to find new customers, especially when you are starting out and are not yet well known in your industry.
But what would it be like if customers came directly to look for you?
This is extremely simple by creating a blog and proposing your services and consultancies.
This is what I also do with this blog through my SEO Copywriting consultancy page, which currently brings me 10/15 consultations per month.
4- Start e-commerce (even dropshipping!)
Another online business that you can undertake is that of managing e-commerce.
This type of business is absolutely important if you already have an offline sales business, such as a shop.
By making your products available for online purchase you can in fact guarantee your customers a better service and you can continue earning at any time, even when your physical store is closed.
If you do not have an offline business or do not want to manage a warehouse of physical products that you will need to ship, the solution is dropshipping.
But what is it about? And why don’t you need a warehouse? Very simple.
Through dropshipping you create a store but you will not have to sell the products you offer directly, but to act as a mediator between the supplier and the customer.
5- Start a podcast
Podcasting is a perfect business idea for those who have many things to say and it is a growing market, especially in Italy, where podcasters are not as numerous as in other parts of the world.
Starting a podcast today will therefore ensure you gain a good chunk of the market tomorrow.
There are numerous ways to make money with a podcast. The first is that of sponsored content, which is to establish partnerships with companies to mention their products and services in your podcast.
The other method is to use the podcast as a link between listeners and your products or services. By establishing yourself as an expert on a topic through podcast you can guide your listeners to your website to let them buy what you sell.
6- Write articles online
If how but, you also love to write, another absolutely profitable online business idea is to become a web writer and earn money by writing articles online for other blogs.
This is exactly how I started my career as an SEO copywriter. I already had my projects and my blogs but I was noticed by some companies who asked me to write for them. Again, having a blog to acquire new customers was still a winning move.
If you want to start a career as a web writer, you have many paths. First of all, I really recommend that you have your own blog from which to start and on which you can not only train but also show companies what you can do.
It’s a bit like what I call a blog portfolio. But don’t forget that you can also monetize the blog itself while creating passive income for yourself.
But how to create an online business based on writing?
The first is undoubtedly to turn to companies and online magazines. All major companies that have blogs and online magazines are constantly looking for new web writers.
Often there is a page “Work with us”, “Become a columnist”, “Write for us”. Look for her and apply, always presenting test articles to show your style and language skills.
Another very effective method is to work with Melascrivi. Many companies commission texts on Melascrivi, which they pass on to their web writers.
Getting started is very simple: you just need to create an account, take a trial test, wait for the evaluation and you can start earning by creating the content that Melascrivi customers will entrust to you.
And if you can also write in English, you can also apply on Fiverr where writing jobs are generally paid very well.
7- Making money with affiliate marketing
Affiliate Marketing is another very profitable way to make money online. According to a study by Brandon Gaille, 38% of the revenue of bloggers who earn $ 7,500 / $ 25,000 a month comes from affiliate marketing.
But how does affiliate marketing work? And why is it considered a form of passive monetization?
I’ll explain it to you right away.
In practice, companies that want to sell their products or services online create affiliate programs and allow affiliates, usually bloggers, to promote those products and earn a commission.
Affiliate marketing is also the main method through which I myself make money with my blogs and I can assure you that earning important figures is not that difficult, the important thing is to always recommend products and services that you really know and that we would also recommend to a friend.
Then you just have to promote the products through blog articles, videos on YouTube, on social networks or wherever you prefer. Each sale will bring you commissions, in some cases even very high.
8- Become a virtual assistant
A figure that is becoming increasingly popular among companies and freelancers is that of the virtual assistant, the virtual assistant (VA).
Its role is to support companies and freelancers and can do it in various ways, depending on the client’s needs, such as checking mail and managing communications, organizing travel and business trips, managing company accounts, organizing meetings.
9- Voice-overs and audio/video transcriptions
Numerous foreign companies are looking for native speakers of other nationalities to record audio in a given language or to transcribe audio or video.
If you want to get started, there are tons of announcements on Fiverr. Just create an account, propose yourself as a voice-over or as a transcriber and apply for the numerous offers.
10- Graphic designer
Companies are always looking for graphics to help them with images for their brand, from logos to banner ads but also for graphics to be used for blogs or social networks.
If you already have some skills in the field of graphics, then it will not be difficult for you to find new projects to follow. But you can also start from scratch by following the many online courses that the network offers.
Other great graphics courses can be found on Udemy.
Once you are ready, you can propose your services directly to companies, create a blog portfolio where you can show your work, or apply for offers on marketplaces such as Fiverr.
11- Become a personal trainer or fitness coach
If you are a sports expert and are familiar with training programs, then you might really be able to build a great online business by proposing yourself as a personal trainer or creating classes to teach.
Especially after the pandemic, when people are no longer able to attend gyms and live classes, the world of online sports has exploded.
Are you a yoga teacher? Create your yoga classes online.
Are you a personal trainer? Create training lessons and maybe even personally follow some clients.
I have worked on many projects of this caliber and if you know how to move well, I assure you that they are super profitable businesses.
In any case, the winning formula is blog + online courses + community around the brand, which you can build for example through a Facebook group.
And if you need a hand to build the whole structure on which the business will support, please book a consultation with me.
12- Buying and reselling domains
Domain trading is a type of business as old as the internet itself and with a little luck you can find domains that can bring you a fortune.
The method is simple: you buy a domain at a low price and resell it at a higher price. If you can catch a domain becoming trending, then you’ve hit bingo.
But how much is a domain worth? Well, it depends. According to Wikipedia, these are the most expensive domains we know of:
- Voice.com – $ 30 million
- 360.com – $ 17 million
- Sex.com – $ 13 million
- Fund.com – $ 12 million
- Hotels.com – $ 11 million
- Tesla.com – $ 11 million
- Porn.com – $ 9.5 million
- Porno.com – $ 8.8 million
- Fb.com – $ 8.5 million
- HealthInsurance.com – $ 8.13 million
A little curiosity. The most expensive domain ever sold in the history of the Internet has reached the figure of 872 million dollars and it is Cars.com.
13- Create a YouTube channel
Videos have become one of the most popular content on the web in recent years.
Even the statistics speak for themselves: communication is moving towards video content mainly for two reasons:
- 72% of users prefer to see a video than to read a text
- Video content is 50% more likely than text to drive organic search traffic.
With the rise of live streaming, YouTube has also gone from being a simple video platform to becoming an on-demand content platform.
Although the market is already quite saturated, it is still possible to create a business thanks to YouTube. The secret is not to be able to create completely new content but to renew the existing ones thanks to new formats.
There are many YouTubers who manage to earn important figures thanks to YouTube. To get an idea of the earning possibilities, we are talking about € 2-4 for every 1,000 views.
The greater the number of views you will be able to get, the greater your earnings will be.
Over time, YouTube has also included new forms of monetization in addition to classic advertisements, such as:
- Paid channel subscriptions
- Merchandising present on the channel
- Super chat and super stickers, where users pay to highlight their messages in the chat stream
- Extra income from premium users.
14- Ghost Writing
Another idea for developing an excellent online business is to become a ghostwriter.
But what is a ghostwriter? 👻
Writing in ghostwriting means writing in someone else’s name, for example, a book. Even if you are the actual writer of the text, that book will bear the signature of whoever commissioned it.
In recent years I have been commissioned several books that I have written as a ghostwriter, some of them very famous. So who knows, you’ve probably already read a book I wrote even if you don’t know sai
Ghostwriting pays very well, we are talking about several thousand euros for each book. There are people who have based their entire careers on ghostwriting. An example for all is that of Jeff Haden who has made millions of dollars writing only for famous people.
Finding clients to write ghostwriting isn’t difficult. Very often advertisements are placed online just like for other types of work, for example on Fiverr.
If, on the other hand, you have a blog and have worked well on your personal branding, and have managed to establish yourself as a web writer, it is easy that you will be noticed and contacted directly by your potential customers.
15- Become a guest blogger
Guest blogging is a very common practice among major blogs. It involves writing articles for other blogs and websites, often in exchange for a backlink to your site, to obtain numerous benefits, such as:
- Receive more traffic on our blog
- Increase our authority, both to our audience and to Google
- Create stable and lasting relationships with other bloggers.
Bloggers and companies often delegate the writing of guest posts to people outside their own blog.
Even in this case, you can propose yourself as a guest blogger to the various blogs but if you have worked well on your personal branding, it will probably be the companies that will offer you a job.
Can You Start An Online Business With No Money?
The positive side of online businesses compared to offline “classic” businesses is that you can start with very little.
However, this does not mean that starting with zero euros you will achieve success quickly.
I’m sorry but I finished the courses on how to earn 10 million euros a month without doing anything 😂 (but I’m sure there are still some marketers who sell them, try to take a look. And best wishes! 😂) .
Think carefully. If opening a business with nothing and making it successful, always with nothing, were that simple, everyone would do it, wouldn’t they?
And in fact, there are also many who try their luck, only to fail miserably the project and close the shack and puppets after a few months.
Far be it from me to want to demoralize you even before starting, on the contrary. Try, throw yourself, train, make a mistake, correct the shot. This will be crucial to having a successful online business. But please don’t listen to those who make everything easy.
I myself have tried and failed a thousand times before finding the right assets. Reinvest your first earnings in the development of the project. Do not give up. Try to improve and improve yourself every day.
Only in this way can you really do it even if you start (almost) with no budget available.
Final reflections
Here we are at the end of this journey to discover new business ideas to start today, at almost no cost.
If you are also looking for a new business to start this year, I hope these ideas have been useful for your new adventure.
To your success!
S
