Right now, hundreds of thousands of people out there around the world are doing what you’re doing – sitting on their computers.
But you want to know a very important difference? They are making money while doing it!
Starting an online business has become the new frontier for riches. Very few people understand how websites can make them rich and so they choose to ignore them – which creates a great opportunity for you!
Within a few months, an able-minded person with entrepreneurial ambitions could easily nurture any number of internet business ideas and develop them into a series of passive income streams. And those passive income streams could equal out to thousands of dollars per month!
Fortunately there are a number of ways to accomplish this goal.
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Where All Good Internet Business Ideas Start:
Could the next great internet business come from you? It’s certainly possible. Lots of everyday people like you and I have figured out how to take a simple idea, develop it, and then monetize it.
Just like in real life, wherever people choose to direct their attention, that’s where there’s opportunity. There’s opportunity to sell them something directly, or to sell them something indirectly through advertising.
On the computer, the foundation of our internet business ideas starts with helping others to solve a need. Every day, people from all over the world flock to the internet to:
- Solve a problem
- Learn
- Be entertained
- Interact
- Etc.
And just like in our physical lives, those who figure out how to capitalize on their attention by presenting them with useful and valuable tools will find themselves plenty of residual income opportunities.
Here are a few great online business ideas that you can start developing right now.
Blogging:
Most people who think of a blog as nothing more than a public diary have got the wrong idea about its full potential. The reason a blog is regarded as one of the best internet business models you can use is because it is very easy to make “soft sales” to your audience without them even realizing that you are marketing a particular product or service.
A blog’s potential for making money grows when it increases any combination of:
- Traffic
- Content
- Email signup
- Internet rankings
- Advertising efforts
For example, if you have a high volume of traffic and you promote a product, you could make several sales all at once with significant commissions. Or if you have a large email signup list, you could email out a letter describing a new product that could also result in sizeable sales.
Niche Sites:
Niche sites have become very popular and one of the best internet business models to implement. Essentially the webmaster builds a website around a group of very specific keywords. Then when someone searches these keywords in a search engine, they find this site and start reading the content.
Money is made when the visitor will click on one of the ads placed within the website. For example, if your niche website is “the best vacuum cleaner”, someone might land on your page and click one of your affiliate links to a particular vacuum cleaner. If enough people do this over the course of a month, then a sizeable commission could be made – day or night without your involvement!
Niche sites can either be developed manually or bought outright from a place like Flippa or Empire Flippers. If the site is created manually, the owner still usually does all their keyword research with a product such as Long Tail Pro from the creator of Niche Pursuits. Once the keywords are identified, the owner may then write all the content themselves or outsource it to qualified freelance writers or virtual assistants (VA’s) on oDesk or Elance.
Beyond content creation, the owner is also tasked with the sometimes challenging task of getting their site to rank and stay relevant within the search engines. Again, VA’s can be a big help in this process.
Authority Sites:
Authority sites are very similar to Niche sites, but they are generally very large (50 to 100 posts minimum) and cover a wide variety of topics related to the topic. One of the trending internet business ideas among website developers is to take their Niche sites one step further and develop them into full blown authority sites. Not only will the visitor find more value in the wealth of material there, but they will also but a much higher opportunity for revenue to the owner.
Advertising:
Take any of the different website ideas up above (blog, niche, or authority site). As long as you’ve got traffic and decent rankings, then advertisers will be willing to pay you well to “rent” some of that real estate on your blog for their own promotions.
Often called “direct advertising”, you can command anywhere from $100 per year for a mention in a post to a few $100 per month for displaying a banner on the side of your site. Just make sure you follow the Google Webmaster rules and add the “nofollow” attribute to your code for the ad. Otherwise it could compromise the stats for your blog or possibility get you de-indexed.
Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing is among the best of best when it comes to internet business ideas that you can really grow to something special. Basically you are helping out the actual owner or retailer of the product or service by extending their promotion to your realm of traffic and audience. A good way to think of it is like getting a fee for making a referral. Only these fees are no joke. Depending on the size of your potential audience and how well the item coverts, you could end up making hundreds of thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions.
For example: Say you get $50 for each person that signs up for a credit card. If you advertise this on your website which gets 100,000 visitors per month, and at least 1% of your audience decides to take you up on that offer, that means you could earn $50 x 1,000 = $50,000 in one month! And that’s all without you having to do anything with the product except promote it!
There are a few internet business models where affiliate marketing can be used:
- Email distribution
- Niche websites / Authority sties
- Promotion on your regular blog
Membership Sites:
If you’ve really got a lot of valuable content on your website, then you could potentially turn that advice into reoccurring income. Most paid or memberships sites are ones that have a lot of lessons or instructional videos. Sometimes they have special one-on-one services. Sometimes they even consist of a strong community of professionals who can provide you with some helpful insight or much needed critique. There are lots of models to choose from.
The trick is to make sure that your site is not simply offering something that can be found for free on the Internet someplace else. Whatever you offer, it should be unique and customized to the users in a way that provides the most benefit possible.
Website Flipping:
Suppose your opportunity to generate revenue from a site has passed its peak. Or you simply just want to unload it while it still has value. There are plenty of people who create, groom, and then flip websites for this sole purpose. They build it up with content, increase its stats, and then sell it to the highest bidder while the site is still hot. Usually they are able to sell it at approximately 12 times its earnings. But depending on several other factors, they could command even more return. Flippa is probably one of the most popular sites where this occurs.
Etsy Shop:
One of the newer and trending way for people to sell their creations is to start an eCommerce shop on Etsy. Not only is it easy, but it reaches the entire scope of people who search Etsy everyday for ideas or things to buy. Here’s how to setup your Etsy shop.
Information Products / eBooks:
If you truly have something of value to offer to another person, an informational product is still a great way to sell your services. Items such as eBooks or paid tutorial videos have been one of the best internet business product movements in the past decade. Rather than actually publish and ship a physical item, you can simply send someone a digital copy of the goods for them to keep and review at their leisure. As you can imagine, there are far less overhead costs and higher profit margins to be gained for those who successfully utilize this strategy.
Web Design:
Even if you don’t enjoy developing websites and attracting readers, website owners still need help creating and building their site. If you have the ability to work with code and tweak sites the way your clients want, then you could command several hundred or thousand dollars per project you take on.
Freelance Writing:
The great thing about freelancing is that you don’t just make money by writing content for blogs, but it can also be done for people who need content for publications, resumes, cover letters, marketing flyers, etc. Even though oDesk and eLance are great starting points, there are lots of other resources on the web for people who want to take their internet business ideas to the next level.
Get Your Business Started Right Away:
Though it doesn’t necessarily cost very much to start a website or online business, some business models may require a little more funding than others. When that happens, you can go online and find lots of great options for installment loans that you can pay off in installments over time. Depending on how quickly you start to make an income from your online ventures, you will be able to pay back this debt in short time.
Images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Don’t forget Direct Sales/Network Marketing. It is very similar to Affiliate Marketing except that you can also do the business offline. With large online communities and social networking sites, it is easy to get online customer sales. The key is to choose the right product.