Published on 15 April 2015. Updated on 24 March 2025.
If you plan to be an online entrepreneur, then you’ll need to think of something. That is part of the challenge; thinking of an idea. Whilst that is difficult, that is probably the easiest part of getting online. I’ll talk further down re some of the things you need to do, but first here are some ideas of how to get online.
Online Business Ideas
1. Niche Selling
Internet allows you to reach customers all over the world, so you can easily set up an online store for a specialised product like organic food or herbal face products and sell it directly to customers in their homes. To start online business you only need to take web hosting along with integrated e-commerce software. Many wholesalers ship the product for retailers at the given addresses. So, you may not even have to keep inventory. Simply collect orders online, inform the wholesaler, and the product will be shipped to buyer. Well, not so simple; you do have to have a very engaging website, e-commerce platform and send traffic to your website. People won’t just find you because you think you’re great. If you’re selling something not so niche, then be aware of your competition; there will be a lot out there as more and more businesses move to online sales – even if they are still operating in a bricks and mortar premises; they are seeing the move to online.
2. Information, Education & Service Provision Offerings
Many small businesses need support of agencies to manage their social media accounts as part of the online marketing strategy. You can offer such services by writing content for their websites and running their X or Facebook accounts. You can also sell your expertise to improve on their online marketing efforts.
3. Web Designing
If you are good with HTML and have knack for web designing, there is lot of business available for web site designers, especially for small businesses. You can also provide your expertise to help businesses improve on their existing websites. Naturally, make sure your own website looks exceptional as people will judge you by the quality of your own site.
4. Award Applications / Resume / CV Writing
If you are good at Resume and CV writing there will be good demand online for such work. You can online offer your services to help people perfect their resume or cover letters. Most people (unless they are in business) ultimately will need a great resume as most of us need a job. Not everyone is good at this, so great writing skills and an understanding of HR will be of help.
5. Multiple Online Freelancing
There are some sites like freelance.com, fiverr.com, UpWork etc that give opportunities to both freelancers and clients to do and seek work online. There is good work available in the fields of content creation, web designing and technological services like app creation as well as graphic design, building databases – well pretty much anything which can be done remotely. If you are good in any of the field, or wish to become one, then create an account either as a freelancer or as a company and start taking and doing work. You can even form an agency and hire freelancers with different skill sets and then offer services to others as an agency as such.
6. Affiliate Marketing
If you are good in writing product reviews, then there are companies ready to pay for these services to write product reviews on Amazon, eBay etc. If you already have a website with huge fan following, then posting ads on the platform and soliciting business can give you handsome margin as an affiliate.
7. Health and Nutrition Expert Counseling
If you are a doctor, nutritionist or a legal professional, there is good demand for online professional counseling. As your reputation grows, there will be more and more online business. The good side of working online is that the whole world is your playing field. Naturally, of course, ensure how you operate is legal and within the parametres of your profession. Some are required to have met their ‘patients’ in person before offering services or products.
8. eBook Writing
If you have good knowledge about a subject or have valuable information to share about your experiences in any area, you can write and self publish books online. Gone are the days when many good writing talents used to be lost to unaccommodating publishers. Now you can write eBooks and publish them on platforms such as Kindle.
These are just eight simple ideas; really the sky is almost the limit. What you do need to do however is:
- Research your market, industry and competitors; know who else is out there. Are you intending on joining an already saturated market? Is this market likely to grow, shrink or change in the near to medium future?
- Plan how you will offer your products or services; often even completing a business plan is a great first step.
- Work out your budget. Whilst online often means no rent and few overheads, there are still expenses. You’ll need to pay someone to build a website, you’ll need to pay for likely associated apps, or perhaps e-commerce and banking fees, hosting and more.
- Have you got the time AND the passion to do this? It’s all very well to have a great idea, but you need to follow through and often that follow through will encompass a tonne of time and energy and passion to make it happen.
- Have you got the skills necessary? If you’re going to engage someone else to be performing certain functions, then you’ll need to factor their wages into your budget.
- Once all this is done – you will absolutely have to market your new venture. People won’t just find you because you’re online, or because you think you’re great. A whole lot of effort needs to go into marketing, social media and general promotion.
This is just the tip of the iceberg; if you need any help with your business (online, bricks and mortar or traditional), just reach out to me via my Contact Page.
Read Pushing Beyond Your Comfort Zone.
