Start an Online Money Making Business with These 6 Ideas

Over the years, making money online has become more and more commonplace. It empowers you to become your own boss, control your business, and work from nearly anywhere — an appealing proposition, to say the least.

But where do you begin? How do you establish an online money-making business that isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme? Here are six ideas that will require creativity and hard work, but can set you up to make money online.

1. Create a niche website

This business idea is an excellent choice if you’re already a specialist, or are knowledgeable about a particular subject matter. Here’s the idea:

First, start a website about a relatively niche topic.

Publish content covering various challenges that are common within its industry to build an audience.

Monetize your brand by offering a service or selling a related product to your new readers.

For example, let’s look at two professions: home decor and home stagers. Specialists in either line of business can benefit from building websites that are focused on teaching people how to do the job by themselves. Various blog posts on decor or staging methods might become incredibly popular among the right audience. After generating a following, the author can build a business around helping people execute or expand upon the methods described within their content.

2. Start a YouTube channel

Cisco projects that by 2021, video will account for 82 percent of all internet traffic. This makes YouTube and other video streaming services great places to build your brand and earn money online.

The standard business model on YouTube relies on displaying contextual advertisements before and during videos, but you can expand on that revenue by adding your own affiliate links or working with sponsors.

3. Record a podcast

Podcasts are rising in popularity and have a unique advantage over other content types: they can be listened to anywhere. Like starting a YouTube channel or building a niche website, you’ll need to be entertaining, knowledgeable in a particular field, and able to present a unique perspective on a given subject.

Generally speaking, the podcast business model involves creating a podcast that people are interested in and then monetizing it with brand sponsorships. Unlike YouTube, podcasts are decentralized. This can make things a little confusing when getting started. Fortunately, tools and platforms like Anchor can help launch your first podcast.

4. Offer freelance services

A handful of websites help to pair up freelancers with prospective clients:

All of them let you list (and pitch) the services you offer. Alternatively, clients can submit what they need, and you can bid over the assignment alongside other freelancers.

5. Become a professional blogger

Blogs are an increasingly important part of brand marketing, even for Fortune 500 companies. Many of these companies struggle to come up with good, consistent content for their blogs.

This is where you can help out (and earn money) by offering writing services. Of course, you should be familiar with the topic that’s covered on the company’s blog.

6. Drop-ship products

Drop-shipping is about selling products without keeping them in stock. When an order comes in, it’s fulfilled by another company. Here are two examples:

T-shirts: With a service like Teespring, you can design and sell your own t-shirts without needing to touch any fabric. Instead, Teespring takes care of the order once it comes in, and only charges you the cost of the shirt. You keep the rest.

eBooks: The challenge posed by this online money-making business is that you need to write an eBook in the first place. Once that’s done, you can upload it to Amazon and have the distribution process handled by its team from start to finish.

These six online business ideas have relatively low barriers for entry. You can combine them to formulate a business that works for you, or use them as a jumping-off point and pivot your brand as opportunities present themselves.