4 Lucrative Home Based Online Business Ideas You Can Start Today

Earlier I shared 18 small business ideas you can start with little or no money. If you are thinking of starting not just an #online business, then check out that post.

In this post I want to share with you 4 online business ideas that you can start right now. While the earlier post dealt mainly with businesses you can run offline, these ideas are geared towards those who would rather start an online business.

In recent times, online businesses have become very popular as more and more people are looking online to beat the economic meltdown. Unfortunately, many who want to go this way are finding it difficult to make a headway because of the various business opportunities out there.

Truth is, many of what is being laundered online as #home business opportunities are nothing but scams perfected by con-artists. This article is therefore a simple guide to help you with the different online home business models out there.

Online Home Business Categories

After about 10 years online, I can say the different types of online businesses can be divided into three broad categories. These are:

1. Selling products or services to retail customers
2. #Selling on eBay; and
3. Business-to-business selling.

When you are looking at creating and #starting an online business therefore, you’ll want to look at what your specialty is and then create your business around one of these three broad categories.

If you decide on selling to retail customers, you will have to find a way to sell your products or services in a different manner than many of the other retail websites out there. If it is selling on eBay, then you’ll have to find a wholesale distributor of products from whom you can procure your products at a great discount. If you already work within the business-to-business forum, this will be an easy transition for you.

Suggested Home Based Online Business Ideas

The following home based online business opportunities all fall into these three categories. Any of them will help you start and build your own online home business.

1. Freelance Writing

The first one that we will look at is to become a freelance writer. This is a very good way for you to #make money if you need some part-time income. While you can make it a full-time venture, I wouldn’t advise that. This is because it is not only tedious but also time consuming. However, it can be a great way to start and get your feet wet working online. The experience gained can come handy in creating something bigger

2. Building Niche Sites

Another way you can work in creating a home-based online business opportunity is to work on building a website around a particular theme or niche. Your source of income for these types of websites is mainly affiliate products and maybe selling advertising.

These types of websites do not require a great deal of money upfront. If you commit to doing this, it can build up into a very nice part-time or full-time income in no time. Of course, you may not see instantaneous results but if you take time every day to work on developing your websites you’ll be pleased with the end result.

One of the keys to succeeding with this business is in finding cheap keywords and creating your website content around them. Also you will need to build backlinks from other similar sites. By doing this you’ll be setting yourself up to have a high page rank, which is critical to ranking on the search engines.

Sites built this way can easily drive organic traffic from the search engines. Google adWords is another great way of driving traffic to your niche websites. This is another powerful way of creating an online business.

3. Selling on eBay

Another way you can build and create an online business is through eBay. This is an area which was particularly hot several years ago and still remains a solid business proposition. Many over the years have been able to make a full-time income on eBay.

You will need to find a wholesaler where you can get products at a discount to sell on eBay. The general idea when selling on eBay is to find a drop-shipper. A drop-shipper is either a manufacturer, a retailer, or a wholesaler to whom you can transfer customer orders and shipment details so that they can ship the goods directly to the customer. You will simply need to buy the product at the wholesale price and then make money on the difference between the amount you bought the product and what you sell the product for on eBay.

Using a wholesaler allows you to focus on selling the product without worrying about inventory. You do not need to worry about any sort of shipping or back-end but you will want to make sure that everything gets sent out. If there are problems with shipments, the customer will be coming back to you and not to the wholesaler.

For the best wholesale shipping directory on the Internet go to worldwidebrands.com.

4. #Affiliate Marketing

This is another good way of building a lucrative online business. One quick way to find affiliate programs is by visiting www.affiliateprograms.com. There are different categories for you to choose from. Some of the categories you would want to focus on are finance and investment, food and beverage, automotive, and health and fitness.

Ensure you read and understand the listed sites because each affiliate program have their own terms.  You will want to visit the website to learn more about what they do since you will be spending a great deal of your time promoting them.

Also, with each of these affiliate programs, you should consider how much you would be making by selling each of these. You’ll probably find several programs that seem interesting to you so see which one peaks your interest and pays well and head for that opportunity.

Conclusion

The internet has given us unimaginable options of making money doing what we love. With the right knowledge and guidance you can turn any of these options into a lucrative business. Research any of these online business ideas and with some creativity you can profit with the one of your choice.