No doubt the world is going digital, talk about NFTs, blockchain, and web3.0, all these technologies are emerging at a very fast rate it’s only good to be a part of it and start an online business. Elon Musk once said “You have to either make it happen or be a part of it”, and with that said, my advice to you is, you should not watch technologies unfold with you being a spectator, you should capitalize on every opportunity the world throws at you. Here are some of the top easy online business ideas for beginners.
In this article, I will share some online business ideas that you can start right now and start making some side income if not your new full-time income.
All these business ideas are suitable for complete beginners.
Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission and that will help us create more free content for you. Read Full Disclosure here.
Affiliate Disclosure
Start a profitable blog
Now what the heck is a blog, well if you didn’t know what a blog is, what you are reading right now is a very good example of a blog.
A blog can bring passive income every month if done right and it also has the potential to bring in tens of thousands of dollars per month, if not hundreds.
I put it first on the list because blogs have proven themselves to work well if you remain consistent.
A blog can earn money in several different ways and we kinda explained almost all of them in our article on “ways to make money from your blog“
I’ll just summarize them here so you get a general idea of how a blog makes money.
So in blogging, for you to make money, you have to be consistent you have to work day in and day out, writing articles and doing link building for your off-page SEO, as this will help drive traffic to your website and more traffic means more money.
It also increases your domain authority and if you have a new blog, use Ahrefs to check your domain rating and I bet it is probably less than 5.
It’s a numbers game!!
The first and easy way to make money from your website is by joining Advertisement programs like Google AdSense, Ezoic(Not exactly an Ad Network), MediaVine, etc.
With Ads, the money you make is directly proportional to the number of visitors your website gets per month, you can use the Google AdSense calculator to get a rough estimate of the money you can potentially make based on your traffic and blog niche.
To give you guys a glimpse of the possibilities, when your website gets traffic of like 1000 visitors a month you can expect to earn from $20 – $40 with Ad Networks like Media Vine, and way less with Google AdSense.
Another way to make money from your website is through Affiliate Marketing, we will dive into this further in this article because you don’t necessarily have to own a website to do affiliate marketing.
You can also sell a digital product on your website, especially if you now have an audience and a bunch of loyal followers who like your content.
Make giveaways, and freebies, engage with your audience, build a strong community and make your brand visible to the world.
In your website’s first 90 days don’t focus on the money, focus more on writing content.
Some may argue and say also focus on link building, yeah I totally agree that can help tremendously with your SEO, but link building is usually a by-product of well-written content.
People will naturally come to you, you won’t have to hunt for links, but rather the links will build up organically.
You just have to write amazing content, be more personal, connect with your audience don’t be lazy. You can look up our article on how to write killer blog content.
There are AI tools nowadays and people use those to write articles, it is hard to rank using those articles, they don’t have originality, and often use outdated facts to back up your articles.
If you gonna use the AI copywriting tools make sure to edit thoroughly, add some humor to it, and make it human, CopyAI does a decent job in writing these articles but you have to opt for the pro version which increases creativity, Check out CopyAI!
There is also Frase which has some free tools to generate content elements like catchy headings and all other cool stuff. You can find out more here.
If you wanna learn how to start a profitable blog, check out our detailed post on how to do so, it is a step-by-step that has every step from creating the website to writing content.
Online Courses
People learn most of their skills online these days, Are you good at something? why not teach it online?
It can be anything you are good at…Dancing, Singing, Playing an Instrument, Coding, Physics, Trading… it’s very easy to start selling a course on it and you can potentially earn thousands from this.
There are two ways you can sell your course online. The first way you get to keep all the money and the second the marketplace owner gets to keep a certain percentage.
I’ll break down each of the methods with pros and cons.
Selling your Course using your own website
This method is usually good if you are also blogging on your website, because with no existing audience, no one will find your website and people won’t trust the course you are selling.
So if you are gonna go down this road you better start a blog about a topic that will be relatable to what you will be teaching that way people will know that John Doe is really good at Physics his course must be awesome and I’ll buy it.
The biggest con to this is that when you don’t have an existing audience, no one will find your website and it will be a shame after all the hours you put in to release the course.
Selling your course on a Marketplace
This is the easiest way to get started but not the easiest to thrive in. Why is that?
There is a lot of competition in these marketplace websites and you will be competing against giants, people with certifications to show off, I know most of you know a skill but have no evidence to back that up, and its only natural as a person to go for a course with an instructor that a Masters Degree in that particular topic.
For you to grow your audience you must make a course out of this world and your students must throw sweet comments and recommendations, which is, honestly not that good if you’re beginner in this field, launching a course in your own website is a better way and when you blog about that particular topic, people won’t need to see your degree or level of experience to buy the course.
Also another con you all will hate, you don’t get to keep the 100% of your profit some even price the course for you, what if I want to price my blogging masterclass for a thousand bucks, no ideal but with my own website, no one will question my decision.
Marketplace websites for selling courses include Udemy, Skillshare, Cousera and many others, you can even start your own ( maybe another online business idea )
Get your own website at Fiverr now!! If you don’t want to make one yourself.
Start an E-commerce business
Look at Jeff Bezos!!
Not to say you gonna make billions but, millions are quite possible if you put in the work.
There are many ways you can run an online e-commerce store, whether as an Amazon FBA, a Shopify store, and other e-commerce platforms. Zyro is best for small e-commerce stores starting out and it is really cheap.
The good thing nowadays is you don’t have to manually manage shipping yourself there are companies that do that for you all you have to do is sell the products in the store and start getting massive income.
You have to know how to sell though, get a digital marketing course on udemy or something, You can even get it on youtube and learn as much as you can on how to sell.
So Time to learn what Amazon FBA is!
Amazon FBA also known as Fulfillment by Amazon, is a service that helps Amazon sellers outsource shipping to Amazon.
With this fulfillment option, Amazon stores, picks, packs, ships, and delivers the products to customers. Amazon also handles customer service and returns for those orders.
Basically, it’s like running your little baby Amazon inside Amazon.
You can check this article about 12 methods you can use to scale your business.
Start a Podcast
Some of you might not know what a podcast is, so let me break it down for you
A podcast is an audio-only episodic series that features one or more hosts talking about a particular topic and can be hosted on music service providers like Spotify and apple music.
Now, Bheki how da fu#$ can I monetize on that?
Here’s How
Well before we dive into the money part let’s label down the goals you must reach on your podcast to be able to monetize.
- Build Credibility as an Expert in your niche. With a podcast, people sure will throw a lot of burning questions at you and you must be in a position to answer them, or at least how find solutions to them.
- Don’t be too professional, be fun, throw jokes, become a Trevor Noah to your niche, and people might just listen to your podcast for the sake of jokes, never mind the content. Well you don’t really care about that, do you? all we want is some audience to monetize on, the people that listen to the podcast are all we need.
- You Don’t need expensive gear to start a podcast, a simple mic, and your laptop are enough for a start, you’ll upgrade as your following grows larger and when the money starts to kick in.
So to the Money part.
You can make money from podcasts through sponsored adverts, consulting or coaching, affiliate links, accepting donations, selling merchandise, membership content, and so on, we have a detailed article on how to start a podcast.
Graphic Designer on Fiverr
Graphics Designers are you reading this???
Even if you use Canva you’re a graphic designer, well almost, as long as you deliver that flyer a company needs you are a qualified Graphics Designer, how you made it, is not the concern of the client…
Okay so now that you Canva gurus are fired up, here’s how to make money on Fiverr.
Create an account and start getting contracts and making logos, flyers, company profiles, everything that wants ‘designing’ Canva got your back and also, charge a small fee for a start, I mean you don’t wanna be charging insane amounts for something that took you less than an hour to make (with Canva you can’t be charged hourly, because you ain’t gonna take an hour to make something….) I like Canva, who else does..
If you don’t know what Canva is, go ask your friend designers whom you never see designing but have beautiful portfolios.
Besides Canva if you’re interested in learning about more tools we use to run lyncteck check this out.
Web Development
Noo, Nooo I won’t mention WordPress, am talking about real web developers, known as full stack developers, with the ability to take a month to make a website ugly than the one made with WordPress in a day, yep am talking about those developers who know sophisticated tech stacks like MERN, the MEAN, the .NET stack, am talking about those guys who started coding when their hands were strong enough to hold a keyboard.
Jokes aside, let’s talk WordPress
Seems like nowadays you don’t need coding skills to make a really good-looking website, you just drag and drop your imagination to reality using Elementor.
All you have to do is get hosting from good hosting providers like Bluehost.
You need less than a week to become a pro in WordPress, we gonna release a free text course on WordPress, enter your email below to get on the waiting list, and you will get a Lyncteck WordPress WebMaster Certificate when you finish the course. And also you will be able to call yourself spiderman after the course. (web master)
SO…
Once you learn how to develop websites using WordPress, Wix or whatever, drag-and-drop website builder you found, you can then join Freelancer.com or Upwork and start getting projects to work on and ultimately start making money online. You can honestly make a living out of this.
Affiliate Marketing
Most people think of a blog when they hear the phrase ‘affiliate marketing’ what if I told you, you don’t need a blog to start affiliate marketing, all you need is an affiliate link and an audience.
What is an Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a process where publishers earn a commission by promoting a product or service made by another retailer or advertiser using an affiliate link. The affiliate partner is rewarded a payout for providing a specific result to the retailer or advertiser.
There are many Affiliate Networks you can join and these include
- Impact Radius
- CJ affiliates (not CJ from GTA San Andreas)
- ShareASale
- ClickBank
Just to name a few and other companies like brainstorm force offer affiliates by themselves they don’t use any affiliate network.
Now let’s take a look at the advantages of affiliate marketing.
Most affiliate Networks are free to join, there is no high startup cost needed to start affiliate marketing. There is also a low risk since the products you will be promoting don’t belong to you. Last but not least it is easy to scale especially if you have a high existing audience, you have the potential to make staggering amounts of money.
Virtual Assistant
A virtual assistant is really just anyone that can help with tasks from a remote location.
You guessed it, you can use Upwork, and freelancer.com for this one as well. It can be any work you do online, for example, content creation, if you are a good writer you can start writing for other companies for a price and get paid good money.
You can hunt for links for some blogs and also get paid in the process. You can be anything of assistance from a remote location hence a virtual assistant, it’s like you there but not really. Welcome to Zootopia.
Other than Upwork and freelancer and also some other job marketplace sites, you can do some cold email outreach to new blogs and other growing companies telling them about what you offer and why they should hire you.
We call it, fishing for clients, you better be a tasty bait. We used to do that when we wanted quick money and it kinda worked well.
So what we’d do is go to Facebook and look for companies with a @gmail email address and we’d know they don’t have a website, so my co-founder and I we’d pitch and tell them how much they need us. (the website, not us).
This is a true online business idea, you do all the work on the internet from finding the job to doing the job and then getting the payment.
Try it out you will be shocked.
Consultancy
John Doe Financial Advisors, Joe Dohn Web Development Training…..
Can’t find clients to make websites for..
its time!!!
Not just to think outside the box but, to think in a different box entirely. Get clients or students in this case, to teach your skillset. That’s another way of earning money online. You might need a website.
According to HubSpot,
A consultant is a person who’s an expert in a particular field who gives professional advice to individuals and businesses in their area of expertise, usually on a temporary or contract basis until a particular need has been met.
If you got the skill and confidence, I’d Say go for it.
Personal Training
Become Jack Trainer, and accept bitcoin payments, has anyone ever watched the movie “the lost city” Jack trainer was a …… actually he wasn’t exactly what I wanna talk about here.
A trainer is like a life coach, being someone’s support and mentor, teaching him/her whatever skill he/she wants to acquire. It could be working out, dating, karate, or anything anyone could want from you. You can charge the individuals or trainees a certain amount per hour say $20/hour.
It deserved a spot on this list, I mean its one of the online business ideas. If not, what is it?
Start a Youtube Channel
I Should have put this one right at the top. We all know what YouTube is, but am sure not all of us know you can make a six-figure income from your youtube channel.
Yes, thousands and all you need is a camera and some editing skills which take about a month to learn or alternatively use Canva to do some thumbnails in less than 5 mins and they will be good-looking, we’re talking professional-level designs that is how good Canva is.
Choose a niche and become a YouTuber.
There are many ways you can make money from youtube, even affiliate marketing can also be used alongside youtube.
Get as many subscribers as you can and build a strong community. You can also teach a subject or topic on Youtube and then create a pro course you can sell on your website or course marketplace.
The main monetization for youtube videos is those ads you see every time a video starts. Yeah imagine how many Ads you’ve watched, that’s how many people you’ve made richer.
If you think about it, you can be on the other side and receiving the payments. There are no special requirements needed to start a youtube channel, just make sure to site everything, I created an account when I was 15 and posted a video while playing Need For Speed most wanted 2013, and that video was blocked..it had 4 views and am still proud, also the 2 views were from my other accounts confirming that the video is actually there on the internet.
It just amazed me that I can post something everyone can see, although it was copyright struck and then removed and no 1 ever saw it again. I wonder who the other 2 viewers were.
You don’t necessarily have to be in front of the camera when making youtube videos. You can use doodly to make those cartoon animation-like videos, doodly videos.
I know a lot of you will not consider this, but trust me a lot of YouTubers make a lot of money from Ad Revenue, take YouTube as a video blog, you don’t type out all the content, you say it out in front of the Camera, Definitely one of the best online business ideas.
Translator/Transcriber
How many languages do you know, if not just English and you know some of the most popular languages like French, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese, you can translate from one language to another in some websites online.
This is probably the easiest on the list of online business ideas, you don’t need to be good at anything, just a popular language is needed.
If you are so good at English you can start converting speech to text using websites like transcribeme.com and you can make up to $100 per day. On this website, transcribeme.com they pay out using PayPal.
It’s that easy, you can make some good extra cash from this, especially for college students.
e-book Writing
Am planning on writing an e-book myself. This is a great idea of potentially making hundreds of thousands if not millions, all you need is your laptop and Microsoft word or google docs.
HubSpot has some free resources to assist you to write eBooks and any other thing related to marketing.
Pick a topic, you have experience or knowledge in and start writing, Getting to sit down and write something is half the battle, that is how we write these articles.
People read ebooks, in fact, some recent studies show that people are changing from traditional printed books to ebooks, everything is going digital, I heard there are now eToilets I don’t know how those work, but the person deserves a Nobel prize.
Of course, there is no eToilet, but ebooks are now a thing. Start making yours now and sell it for not less than $10 who knows it might be the next best-selling book.
All the books I read the authors mentioned that they were the best-selling, I think it’s now a general thing, write a book, publish it, and it’s best-selling.
Try it out… Go write the next “WordPress for Dummies” or “HTML for babies”, this might be the best of the online business ideas.
Purchase a website
Some of us don’t have time to waste, we like to want to jump to the thing right away. We don’t wanna wait for the growth process of a website, turning it from 0 to 50k monthly page views, we just want to make it work from the word GO, we just want a website with already a huge audience.
You can just go ahead and purchase a website from flippa.com or other deal-sourcing websites on the internet.
The process of growing a website from nothing is quite interesting you all have to try it out.
Not the best of the online business ideas, but if you got the budget, why not try this route?
Dropshipping
Dropshipping is an order fulfillment method where a business doesn’t keep the products it sells in stock. Instead, the seller purchases inventory as needed from a third party usually a wholesaler or manufacturer to fulfill orders.
That’s how Shopify Defines it
The biggest difference between dropshipping and the standard retail model is that the selling merchant doesn’t stock or own the goods they act as the middleman.
You will use an e-commerce platform like Shopify to make your website and start dropshipping. I recommend Shopify, it’s clearly the best in business no questions asked. There are other great platforms for e-commerce such as Nexcess Liquid Web. These guys focus on meeting the needs of growing businesses and e-commerce stores online.
Stock or Foreign Currency Trading
Talk about online business ideas, When the worst comes to the worst you can try out forex trading, am saying the worst because unlike the others if you fail this one you will be losing your money.
Well here you are not guaranteed to make money, there is a very high chance you will lose more than you’ll make
Unless you don’t
We don’t recommend trading, but I included it in the list because some people make money from it, and it’s online…Must be a business idea right?
You can try out different brokers like Deriv, XMGlobal, etc we don’t focus on trading here, you’ll have to do the research yourself.
But what I can guarantee you is, you will have the potential to make a lot of money
Conclusion
There you have it, we can confidently conclude that being broke is a choice with all of these ways to make money online available at your disposal. There are many more online business Ideas that are available, don’t worry, we will keep adding to the list as the online world changes.
Our best overall is to start a blog, it may take time to start making money but it is worth it.
3 Comments