Types of Legitimate Online Businesses
There are several types of online businesses you can choose from to get started. You will want to check out each option and see which one suits your needs before proceeding. Here are some of the more popular online businesses people get into and what each one entails:
A service based business is one where you offer some type of service to potential clients. Some of these include:
Other small business owners have a tough time getting all of their business tasks done by themsleves, so they outsource those projects to someone else. They look for people who offer the services they need done for them.
If you have experience in some of these areas, you could offer it as a service by starting your own business selling yourself. For example, if you have some writing experience and can write well, you can offer that as a service to others who need writing done for their sites.
What skills are needed?
Depending on the type of service you choose to provide your potential clients, you should have some amount of skill under your belt. It’s not necessary to have educational degrees to perform these services, but clients like to see that you have some kind of experience to complete the tasks they need done.
Working online doesn’t provide the face to face contact that brick and mortar companies have when they hire employees. Trust comes a little harder online, so people do like to know the person they’re hiring has skills and knowledge in a particular field.
While it’s not necessary to have 10+ years experience performing a service, the fact that you have done it before and have some testimonials to back that claim up helps tremendously.
What tools are needed?
The tools you need will depend on the type of services you plan to provide. The more common ones that most service based businesses should have are:
There will probably be some software programs to obtain as well. Each service uses some different ones, but most need a word processing program, excel program, and some use a web designing program.
You should consider an Instant Messaging program for those clients who like to be able to contact you instantly without having to use the phone to call or wait for an e-mail response.
How do you get started?
First thing you want to do is decide on the type of service you plan to offer your clients. Jot down everything you can think of that shows you have some experience or knowledge in that particular field.
Next, get your website created. Showcase your skills or experience on your site and provide clients with testimonials from other people who have used your skills and were pleased with the results. Place your rates and any other information about how you run your business.
Market your site on various places on the internet to get your online business out there for potential clients to find and check out. When clients contact you to hire you for whatever service they need, reiterate to them how things will go. For example, let them know how they be invoiced for the work done and how much it will cost etc.
It will take awhile to build a list of regular clients, so don’t expect to be making tons of money right away. Give it time and keep marketing your service based business until you get to the point where you’re practically turning away clients because you’re too busy.
Running a service based business is a perfect option for those who already are performing that service at another job. In most cases, you could make more money offering those services online than you can by working a brick and mortar position.
This is an online business where you use your selling and marketing expertise to get consumers to buy other people’s products and earn income from the sale you made. Typically, you would earn a pre-determined amount of money based on the sales you make of those products, but in some cases, you could make money from the clicks from your site that get the consumers to the affiliate websites.
Sometimes you can earn money by getting customers to sign up for things on the affiliate sites, such as newsletters etc. Each affiliate program will discuss this further on how they work, so when you sign up for their program, be sure to check out how their process works. This will be kept track of through an affiliate link that you’re provided with to place on your site.
What skills are helpful?
You don’t have to be a salesman or a marketer to be an affiliate marketer. Knowledge on how to do these things will be important though. Learn everything you can about how online marketing works and learn how to be a successful affiliate marketer from other top marketers.
It will take hard work and much dedication to get your affiliate marketing business to be a successful one. If you don’t have the time nor the gumption to work hard, don’t consider this to be your online business.
What tools are needed?
The tools needed will be minimal. Besides the usual computer with reliable internet access, you will need a website to sell the affiliate products from. You won’t have to stock up on the products, just to sell them.
Your website will need fresh content on a regular basis, so be prepared to either write some articles yourself or hire someone to do them for you. A blog to link to your site will be helpful as well to make the search engines happy with you.
How do you get started?
You will need to determine what niche you have for your affiliate marketing website. This helps you to stand out from your competitors. For example, you could use nutrition as your niche. Then create a website based on the niche you chose for your business.
Then find affiliate products to sell from that site. Make sure that the products you decide to sell for your business are related in some way to the niche you have chosen for your affiliate marketing business.
So, if your niche is in the nutritional field, you will want to offer affiliate products that are related in some way to nutrition. If you don’t offer related products in your business, you run the risk of appearing as unprofessional and the search engines won’t be too pleased with you as well.
There are many people who make quite a bit of money running this type of business. It’s important to remember that the most work you will have in this type of business will be marketing your website to get consumers to find you. When they find you, your site should be able to get them interested in your products to the point where they will buy using your links.
This is another popular online business that a lot of people usually start out with. E-Bay is a popular online auction website that millions of people use every day to find good deals on items they are looking for.
You can sell anything you have at home as well as selling items using a drop ship method. If you do a search on the e-bay site, you will see a whole variety of items that people are selling. They could be used items or brand new items that come from wholesalers. Either way, people will pay good money if you provide them with what they’re looking for.
Some people go so far as to buy items from flea markets and garage sales for the sole purpose of reselling them on e-bay for a profit.
What skills are helpful?
There aren’t a lot of skills you would need to sell items on e-bay. The ability to market your items will be the most important one to have. People can do a search on the site for the items you’re selling, but if you want to make money in this type of business, you will want to market those items elsewhere to get people to find them.
If you’re selling items from your home, you should be able to take a good photo of the item so people can see what shape the item is in.
What tools are needed?
Really, the only tools you should need to start this type of business is an account with e-bay to sell your items. If you plan to use a drop ship method, you would have to find a wholesaler that will ship the items direct to the customers.
An access to a computer with a reliable internet access will be necessary to keep track of your sales. You will also need an online account like PayPal to receive money from your customers.
How do you get started?
Sign up for an account with E-Bay that allows you to sell from them. Plan to purchase items from the site as well to help build your user ratings, so people will have a little more confidence in buying from you.
Place photos, if possible, of the items that you want to sell. Items that have a photo of items sell much faster than those that don’t. People like to see what it is they’re buying, so provide them with the best quality photo possible.
Review all informational materials as well as the rules on the E-Bay website, to get tips on making more sales and how the process of selling on the site works.
Selling on E-Bay is an excellent way to start your own online business. This gives you your first taste of an online business without having to have a lot of equipment to get you started. Plus, you get the benefit of getting rid of items that are cluttering up your home while you make a little money on the side.
Making money from Membership Sites
Some online business owners make money from selling memberships to their websites. People purchase memberships to gain access to content that the website owner provides them on a regular basis.
For example, you may offer memberships to internet users who are need of articles for their websites. The memberships would need to be renewed every few months or so depending on how long your memberships are good for. Every time someone renews their membership, you make more money.
The profit potential for this kind of business is pretty high. It won’t cost much to provide your members with informational items, but you could charge them a nice amount to access them, giving you a profit that keeps on giving.
What skills are helpful?
Marketing skills will be the most helpful. Getting those internet users to your site to purchase your memberships is what will make you the money. Having some knowledge of running a website could be useful as well to keep your site running smoothly for your members.
You may want to have some knowledge of the products you’re offering. For example, if you’re offering articles to your members, you should know what makes a good article and how they work for the different purposes.
What tools are needed?
You will need a high quality website to handle the demands that membership site will bring. There should provide excellent service should something go wrong with the site. There are some membership site management software programs that can help you get one set up and running for less than $100.
Content for the site is another tool you will need. You need to provide your paying members with fresh content to use regularly. It could be in the form of written articles, software programs or even online games, depending on what you plan to give your members.
How do you get started?
You will need to plan your membership site beforehand. What do you plan to offer your members? Will it be content, software etc? When you have made your decision, then come up with a new and different angle to provide your consumers.
You could provide content in a specific niche, like nutrition or you could offer a certain kind of written content-whatever it takes to get provide internet users with a fresh angle. This helps you stand out from the crowd of competitors out there.
Next, get your membership site created with a shopping cart feature to handle the payments for the memberships. The membership management software programs should come with all you need to accomplish your business. All you would then need is the content to give to your members.
The most important step will be to market your membership site to get people to find you. Marketing techniques will be discussed later on in this report.
Membership sites can offer you a means of earning residual type income. If people are satisfied with what you give them, they will have no problems handing you their money to keep renewing their access to your site’s content.
Making Money From Selling Products
This type of business can be done in a few different ways. One way is to create and sell your own products. Crafters often get into this type of business to sell their own creations to the internet public. Scrapbook creators also choose this path for their business.
Another way to sell products is by using an online store selling other products. There would be no inventory of items to stock in your home, nor do you have to ship anything directly from your own location. The products are ordered through the ‘store’ you have set up and the wholesaler providing the products will ship the items direct to the customers for you.
What skills are helpful?
The skills you should have are the ability for hard work and good customer service skills. A lot of your time will be spent marketing your websites, so potential customers will find you. Having a good website set up will be necessary to provide the customers will everything they need when deciding whether or not to buy your products.
Customers will have questions about the products and may have some problems that you will need to address, so good customer service skills will be a must. Establishing good rapport with your customer will start the cycle going of them coming back to buy more from you. Providing them with top notch customer service will help you gain that.
What tools are needed?
If you have chosen to sell products that you create yourself; you will need to stock up on an inventory of items to create them. Check with some vendors to find good deals on items that are purchased in bulk to help you save some money.
Of course a website will be necessary as well as your customers will need to find your products, see what they are and have a way to order what you’re offering. Make sure the site has the shopping cart feature to make the purchasing process easier for your business.
How do you get started?
The first thing you will want to do is to decide what you’re going to sell. Are you creating your own products to offer or are you planning to sell other products through the use of drop shippers?
If you’re planning to sell items you create yourself, then you will need to research vendors for the inventory you will need to make those products. Have some made up ahead of time, so that when consumers start to order your product, you can ship them out right away and not make them wait another day or two while you make them up.
When the planning stage is done, you will need to get your website created to sell them from. Make sure the site is easy to navigate and isn’t so distracting that they get turned off from your business within a few seconds.
Of course, the last step in getting started in this business will be marketing your products, which will be discussed further on in this report. This step is the most important one if you want your business to be a success, so don’t skimp on this one.
Selling products is an excellent way to make some money online. If you already create products to give away as gifts to friends and family, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take the product to the internet and start selling them.
If you like the idea of selling products, but don’t want to create one to make yourself or if you just don’t feel you are creative then you can still achieve this kind of business by having someone else ship products for you. Getting started this way online gives you the flexibility to spend the time needed with your family, but still earn a living.
Making money the PLR way
PLR stands for Paid Label Rights. Its written content that can be sold to others to use for whatever they want to use it for. Website owners search these out to get content for their sites for a smaller fee.
It doesn’t sound like a money making opportunity when put that way. The thing is, the same package of written content can be sold numerous times to other people. Here’s how it works.
For example, let’s say you are selling a package of 10 articles- all about a certain topic like pet care. Typically, these packages are sold at about $1 an article. Someone who has a website about pet care needs articles to place on their site, so they buy a package from you. You just made $10.
Now, that same package of 10 articles can be sold again and again and again. In the end, you can sell the same 10 articles 50 times bringing you the grand total of $500 just for that one package. You can sell more than one package of PLR articles at the same time increasing your profit potential.
Everyone charges something different and offers different types of PLR content as well as different article topics. You can sell E-