The idea of a “job for life” is now a thing of the past. That’s why around 30 million Americans operate a home-based business, many of them pursuing an online business model of one type or another.
Wanting to start your own internet business is a smart move for a lot of reasons. But the biggest mental hurdle most of you face right now is figuring out what the best online businesses to start are. Maybe you’ve heard about affiliate marketing, but somebody mentioned Shopify during lunch. Plus…you’ve always wanted to write a book, and you’ve read stories about indie authors earning millions.
So, how can you possibly choose the right online business idea for you?
But there’s good news! You see, you’re alive at the best possible time in human history to start your own business. Never before has the barrier to entry been so low, startup costs so minimal, or the income potential so vast. You have access to resources and tools that didn’t exist a decade ago, social media being just one key example.
BEST ONLINE BUSINESS IDEAS
In this article, we’re going to take you on a journey through our top online businesses, any of which are perfect for a home-based internet business.
And if you are reading this you can take heart you getting advice from someone that has actually started a successful online business. I’ve been a full-time internet entrepreneur since 2011! So, not only is this “online business” stuff possible…but I hope to provide you some good advice to get you started with your next venture.
Now that you have more insight into why owning an online business is such a great idea, it’s time to look at exactly which are the best online businesses to start in 2019, and beyond.
1. BECOME A BLOGGER
Now, here’s an online business model that has unfortunately become the butt of far too many jokes. This is because a certain segment of society (that’s you, hipster!) went around loudly telling anyone willing to listen that they were full-time bloggers. The net result of all this misplaced enthusiasm is that if you tell any of your friends or family you’re going to start a blogging business, they’ll wrinkle their collective noses at you, while coughing politely.
Don’t let that stop you from starting a blogging business. There are lots of very successful bloggers out there – we’re talking 5 and 6-figure-a-month levels of success. What you absolutely must avoid doing is starting a blog about “how to be a successful blogger.” How can you do that when you haven’t achieved any success yet yourself? Faking it until you make it is not a business model we’d advise anyone to follow.
Blogging is still a viable online business idea, and one with as much potential as ever. Just make sure that you start a blog on something that people actually want to read about. If that happens to be something you’re passionate about that’s great. But you need to understand that it’s way easier to monetize a blog about organic dog food than it is to make money from a blog about obscure literary fiction.
Learning how to start a blog isn’t all that difficult either. You can choose to use a free WordPress or Blogger.com account to get started. Or if you can afford to invest about $20, then you can register a domain name, get a cheap web hosting account, and install WordPress from there.
READ OUR FULL GUIDE ON HOW TO START A BLOG HERE
One of the biggest misperceptions about blogging is that you need to write these long, thought-provoking posts that make people stop and think about their life. Your blog doesn’t need to be life-changing. In fact, you’ll make more money if you focus on helping your readers solve whatever problems they’re facing.
Or even just help them find a cool new product or service they didn’t know they needed. The truth is that blogging can be as visual as you like too – there are plenty of photo and craft bloggers out there with massive audiences.
If you’re wondering how to make money from your blog, then stop. You can’t monetize a blog without an audience, and you can’t get an audience without creating content. Build your audience first, and then start looking at options like AdSense, Amazon affiliate selling, adding Repixel to your site, or paid guest posts.
Repixel is one of the newer ways to monetize your website. It doesn’t cost you anything, doesn’t slow down your site, and it helps your visitors get the things they want. It’s a great new monetization option in an age when everyone hates ads. You can read all about Repixel here.
If you want to get your own blog started, you can check out Spencer’s guide on how to start a blog that makes you money.
Start-up costs: You can start out with a free WordPress account and then upgrade to a paid account later. Registering a domain name plus cheap web hosting will cost you about $20. You used to have to buy premium themes for your site, but now you can get an awesome and fast website for free with Astra.
Income potential: Blogs with a huge audience can earn anywhere from US$10,000 to US$100,000 per month.
Success story: Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income is one of the most successful, and dare we say likeable, success stories in the blogging industry.
We recommend trying out Bluehost if you’re wanting to get in on this lucrative business. Spencer (the owner of this blog) has used it for tons of his sites and still uses it today. They make blog building cheap, easy, and flexible. Try out Bluehost now.
START YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WITH BLUEHOST2. YOUR AFFILIATE MARKETING EMPIRE
This model gives me warm fuzzies because it’s a simple online business that’s also enjoyable and has the potential for almost 100% passive income.
Affiliate marketing, in a nutshell, is about selling products on a commission basis for a range of companies, including major brand names. There’s no need to buy stock, you don’t handle packing or shipping, and you never have to deal with customer service issues.
The cornerstone of your affiliate business is about setting up a website that’s focused on a specific niche. You research low competition keywords for that niche, with the aim of ranking on page one of Google for those keywords. People visiting your site then click on a referral link, and if they make a purchase at the destination store, then you get paid a commission. That’s why some people call it “referral marketing”.
As internet-based businesses go, affiliate marketing has huge income potential. And as mentioned earlier, once it’s set up properly the income from it can be almost 100% passive. In fact, this is how I quit my job originally. I built lots of little niche sites that eventually were bringing in income of over $10,000 a month! So, I say “Adios!” to my day job and I’ve never looked back.
**Want to learn how to fire your boss, develop passive income, and run a niche site empire?** Join the Authority Site System to get online business “blueprints” as well as gaining access to an active group of other people building a new online business right alongside you.
Get access to all the training + ongoing live webinars + a private Facebook group to make sure all your questions are answered.
JOIN THE AUTHORITY SITE SYSTEM
You have two choices when creating a site to sell products or services via affiliate marketing – a niche site or an authority site.
Niche sites are smaller and focused on a specific type of product or service, featuring several dozen pages of content. Authority sites, on the other hand, tend to have hundreds of articles, completely covering all known keywords for a given topic.
If you hate the idea of writing you can always outsource that work to somebody else. But writing great content for an affiliate site really isn’t that difficult. It just takes a bit of practice, and once you see those first commission checks you’ll be up writing articles for your site before work, during your lunch break, and when you should be sound asleep in bed.
Successful affiliate marketers can be real gluttons for punishment.
I like to start new niche sites with affiliate marketing. It offers a high revenue per visitor (much higher than ads) and gives you a chance to snag some great long tail keywords. Here are some of the best affiliate marketing programs today:
- Amazon Associates
- Walmart
- Wayfair
- eBay
- Jet
- VigLink
- SkimLinks
- CJ
- ShareASale
- Rakuten
If you’re just getting started, Amazon is by far the easiest program to use and the one I recommend.
You can learn more about building affiliate sites by reading Spencer’s guide on how to build a niche site that makes $2,985 per month.
Start up costs: $10 for web hosting, and $10 for a domain name.
Spencer has used Bluehost for tons of his niche sites. If you’re starting an online business, Bluehost helps you get started with cheap hosting and a .com domain name. Try them out to get your online business going.
START YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS WITH BLUEHOST
Income potential: Anywhere from $50 to $100,000 per month.
Success story: TheWireCutter.com – this affiliate site recently sold to The New York Times for US$30 million.
3. BRAINSTORM AN E-COMMERCE BUSINESS
Some people still shy away from the idea of having an e-commerce store because of the dotcom crash of 2001. It left a lasting impression on anyone who knows anything about it. But modern e-commerce businesses are as far removed from those days as Google is from Yahoo in terms of dominating the search market.
Back then you had to worry about paying web developers vast amounts of money to build an e-commerce site for you. After that it was time to pay an SEO agency to rank your site, or you had to resort to paid (PPC) traffic. Then you had to deal with inventory, staff, deliveries and managing customer service issues.
Modern e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify, provide you with an easier and more cost-effective way to set up an online store. You can choose to sell your own products directly to customers, which will involve packing and shipping products.
Another option is to again set up a Shopify store. But instead, you have customer orders drop-shipped to them by the manufacturer, or distributor. You know those super-cheap items you see on Facebook that seem too good to be true? The catch is always that it can take 30 – 45 days for your order to arrive – that’s the drop-shipping model in operation right there.
2 BROTHERS – $30K PER MONTH
In fact, we know a couple of brother’s doing over $30,000 a month (in profit) with their own eCommerce store. You can hear their entire story right here. Or you can see the training they offer on starting an eCommerce store here.
GET DROPSHIPPING TRAINING FROM 2 BROTHERS MAKING $30K PER MONTH HERE!
A particularly hot e-commerce market right now is selling monthly subscription boxes. One of the most famous examples of this business model is the Dollar Shave Club. These guys started out in 2012 selling affordable men’s grooming boxes each month. By the time 2015 rolled around the Dollar Shave Club was acquired by UniLever for US$1 billion.
Shopify has become very popular in the online store industry because it offers a stable e-commerce platform, with secure payment options.
Start-up costs: $29 per month for a basic Shopify store. You then need to choose from either the drop-shipping model, or to sell your own products directly from your store.
Success story: The Dollar Shave Club.
Income potential: Umm around US$1 billion dollars, if you do things right. On a more serious note, an e-commerce business, selling in-demand products, can make 5-figures per month.
If you want to get started with Shopify, it won’t cost you a dollar. They have a 14 day free trial so you can get a feel for the business before starting.
START YOUR ONLINE STORE WITH SHOPIFY4. START SELLING SNEAKERS
Sneaker reselling is the monster market that you’ve never heard of. And unlike some monster markets, it doesn’t require a monster investment.
The principle here is simple: you buy a limited edition sneakers that are undervalued and sell them for a profit. Since limited edition sneakers sell out so fast, the price almost always takes an immediate spike. I recommend getting started by selling shoes that are already available.
Once you’re experienced, start buying new releases. If you can be one of the few to buy a pair of sneakers before they’re sold out, you stand to make some crazy money by reselling.
Reselling shoes can be tough to master, but it’s very easy to start.
First, head to eBay and search “limited edition sneakers”. Then head over to StockX. Find a pair of sneakers you like on eBay and then search for them on StockX.
StockX shows you a graph of the value of different sneakers. This will help give you an idea if a certain pair’s worth over time and will help you predict where that price is going in the future. If StockX is showing you that a pair is worth more than what you’re seeing it for on eBay, that might be a pair you could flip for profit.
Over time, you’ll get a feel for what shoes tend to sell well and what shoes don’t. Use this knowledge to play the riskier game of buying and selling brand new shoes.
The profit potential here is massive.
Start-up costs: Can be as low as $20
Income potential: Up to $100,000+ per year
Success story: JV Ortiz makes 6 figures per year reselling shoes. He started while in college and now does it full time.
And just like anything, you can learn on your own or you can learn from the experiences of others. I always recommend saving yourself time and energy by learning from the experiences of others.
One guy who’s done crazy good at reselling sneakers is JV Ortiz. And he has a whole guide about how you can get started. His guide will help you find the best pairs, make the biggest profit, and make it easy to get started.
LEARN HOW TO RESELL SNEAKERS IN YOUR FREE TIME FOR UP TO 6 FIGURES
Use code NICHEMONEY for an additional 10% off!
5. BECOME AN INDIE PUBLISHER
They say that everyone has at least one book in them. While that’s true, the traditional publishing industry (or trad pub, for short) didn’t support everyone’s dream of seeing their novel on the shelves of their local bookstore.
Traditional publishing had settled into a comfortable rut of turning down aspiring authors left, right and center. They could do this because a trad publishing deal was the only option available to authors. Their only other choice was vanity publishing, which is expensive and a waste of time.
Jeff Bezos completely disrupted that industry way back in 2007 when Amazon launched the first Kindle. Industry experts (cough) were quick to dismiss the Kindle, saying it was a fad. They had an equally dim view of the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform, which allows people to upload their own books to the Amazon marketplace.
But instead of failure, something wonderful happened – a legitimate self-publishing industry was born. Now people from all walks of life with an idea for a book could become an independent author. Not that Indy…and we’re never going to talk about that movie.
There are now more than 3.4 million self-published indie books on the KDP platform. And both new and established authors release hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books every single day.
Although non-fiction books are extremely popular on Amazon, the real money is in publishing fiction. The indie publishing industry has hundreds of success stories of authors earning tens of thousands of dollars per month. In fact, there are so many of them it was difficult to pick one success story to feature.
If nothing else, the indie publishing scene proved that dismissing business opportunities without fully understanding them can be a big mistake. Just ask Barnes & Noble.
Startup costs: Zero, but ideally you’ll need at least $100 for a great cover for your book. You would then ideally have another $100 for an editor and $100 to market your book once it’s finished. That’s a total investment of $300 to write and publish a novel that could make back 10x – 20x what you invested in it.
Income potential: A single successful book can earn you anywhere from $100 – $500 per month. A successful series of books could earn you up to $50,000 per month within your first year as an indie author.
Success story: Dave Chesson is a successful publisher with several books under his belt. He blogs regularly with tips for self-publishing books and has also created Publisher Rocket that will help you find the best idea for your first (or next) book.
If you would like an easier way to get started, you can take the short cut. We think that Chandler Bolt does an awesome job of being a mentor to up and coming authors. He has a really cool course that you can check out at Self Publishing School.
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