Below you will find a list of online business ideas you can do and work at home. If you’re an employee who wants to earn extra income, a mom who wants to work while being with her children, a college student who needs additional cash, or just an aspiring entrepreneur who wants to achieve big success in venturing into an online business, then these business ideas will be your guide in choosing the best online business for you. Most of them can be started without spending a drop of your money. As long as you have the expertise, skills, passion, a personal computer or laptop, and the connection to the Internet, you can begin trying one or more than just one of these online and home-based business ideas. Enjoy!
1. Blogging. Articles, news, photos, videos and audios, you select what you want to blog and publish on the blogosphere. A good blog that receives a lot of traffic earns a lot of money from PPC advertising, affiliate marketing, paid reviews and many more.
2. Website flipping. Develop a website and you can sell it directly to buyers or at auction sites like Flippa.com. You can also sell your blog, if that is your business.
3. Website design. If you can design your own website professionally, why not sell you skills and design other websites?
4. Website development. If you’re an expert in more than just designing a website, and you know how to build a fully developed and established website, you can offer your expertise to others. Lots of companies are now building their online presence – they need your service.
5. Online tutorial. Be an educator online. If you can do it in a classroom, you can also do it in a chat room.
6. SEO services. Search engine optimization is hot right now. Everybody wants to be on the top of the Google’s search pages. Companies can pay you enough cash if you can increase their SEO ranking.
7. Life coaching. Life is such a precious gift. If you’re good in personal development, then you can share your powerful words to someone online and make a living out of it.
8. Ebook writing. Are you an expert in a certain topic? Do you have unique ideas and concepts in your mind that is not found other authors? Then write an eBook, and sell it to educate people while earning from the sales of your digital book.
9. Content writing. A website, no matter how great the design is, becomes futile when there are no quality contents on it. If you can write useful and unique articles, you can help those website owners by providing them with your writings.
10. Photography. You can blog about your photos in your photo blog or you can sell them if you want. Publishers want to get the right images to represent their contents, such as articles, stories and news. They can be your clients.
11. Social media promotion. Promote business, companies, personalities and products on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other top social media sites. This marketing service is one of the hottest right now.
12. Affiliate marketing. Sell other products in you blog, website, Facebook profiles, Twitter status and or in your Youtube videos. You earn a commission income whenever a sale is made by the person you refer.
13. Auction sale. If you can manufacture your own products (e.g., arts, decors, t-shirts, et cetera), you can sell them online at auction sites like Ebay, Amazon, Sulit.com.ph or Ayosdito.ph. You can even sell your products to your friends at Facebook.
14. Accounting and bookkeeping. If you’re an accounting graduate, you can be an accountant or a bookkeeper online. You can list your services at freelance sites like Guru.com or Odesk.com.
15. Interpreter. In this world full of different languages, interpreters are always in demand by people who want to understand and speak foreign languages.
16. Creating an online forum. Online forums can attract a crowd of people, especially if the forum tackles interesting topics. When there is a crowd, it can give you a good opportunity to earn from online advertising. Moreover, your forum members are the ones who usually create the contents of your website. Your job is to administer and moderate them.
17. Creating an online directory. Many website owners and business owners need to increase their back links to improve their rankings. Thus, you can offer them paid listings of their links in your directory.
18. Building a membership site. If you can create very important information and resources that every person needs; if you can attract a lot of followers, then you might be on the right track to creating a membership site. Your earnings will come from the membership fees of your members who have a private access on your site’s pages and information. Most influential speakers and writers are making a living out of this business.
19. Creating a job portal. Job seekers are always on the job hunt, while employers always look for the right employees. You can earn money from advertising and billing employers for their job listings in your website.
20. Recruitment. If you can’t hunt your own job, you may consider hunting the best personnel for an employer. That will be your job and you will earn for every applicant who will be hired by your client.
21. Domain trading. I’ve done this before. It just needs a lot of brainstorming to grab valuable domains. I earned by buying a $10 domain and selling it at $40. But as I said, it needs a lot of brainstorming and a package of experience to do well in this industry. Some people are making lots of money from this trade. Others lose money from their mistakes in obtaining and keeping low value domains.
22. Encoding. Encoding is a tedious work, but it can give you dollar earnings. US companies and other foreign enterprises look for encoders to accomplish this job. They want to focus on their core business activities. That is why they’re willing to pay you for accomplishing these tasks.
23. Editor. If you’re already good in writing and has mastered the right grammars, you may try offering an editing service for website owners, writers, marketers or publishers.
24. Graphic design. If you’re a graphical artist and possesses an outstanding creativity in your designs, you may consider offering your service online.
25. Video editing. Everybody wants to have a perfect video presentation for their wedding video, marketing video, corporate presentation or even a video to be posted in Facebook or Youtube. If you got a talent to fulfill their desires, then this business idea might shine bright at you.
26. Financial analyst. Most business owners and managers are not really accountant or financial experts who can read their financial statements. If you’re Certified Public Accountant or a Certified Financial Analyst, you may offer your services to them via the Internet.
27. Researcher. Knowledge is power, and everybody needs to have it to reach their goals. Companies and businesses need to be filled with the right information to attain success. You can help them by being their researcher online.
28. Web host reselling. This can be an add-on service to your website design and development services. You can create websites for your clients and at the same time resell web hosting to them. You can pay a domain hosting reseller account at a $100 a month, then divide it into 10 and resell it at $15 or more to your ten clients.
29. Customer service. Customers are now interacting online from a company’s website to its Twitter and Facebook pages. Now, if you have the savvy on the social media world, you can be the one who can serve as their online customer service provider.
30. Reviewer. You can make money from reviewing a website and or products, such as gadgets, games and books. Companies paid someone to promote them through your review. If you have a blog, you can use it to publish paid reviews.
31. Software and script programming. Can you create an online web application (like Facebook applications), games, plugins and other programs and scripts? If you’re good in that, then this idea is for you.
32. Virtual assistant. You can be the virtual assistant of companies who want to delegate some of their administrative tasks online. This service may require specific skills for specific clients. It can include executive tasks, clerical functions and even include managing your client’s social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter.
So… have you chosen the right online business to start? If you have some questions, or if you need more details on any of the business ideas listed above, please feel free to comment.
2013 Update: Do you want to gain more ideas for your new business? Here’s a list of 100 business ideas for 2013.
Victorino Q. Abrugar is a marketing strategist and business consultant from Tacloban City, Philippines. Vic has been in the online marketing industry for more than 7 years, practicing problogging, web development, content marketing, SEO, social media marketing, and consulting.
Hello
I like your post because we need to contribute and help each other as we move forward this life. You got the business ideas, right! Below is how I attempt to put them together to make a decent home business
To start a home based business, I like to prove a hungry market first, get the product and the marketing system.
I do what I’m preaching and share with others.
Conditioning Oneself before Venturing on a Online Work or Business – there’s no such thing as easy way,become a millionaire instantly not unless you won a jackpot for lottery. Pounding for work and dedication to achieve one’s goal is the key for success.
can u give me site/s where i can apply for virtual assistant? thanks and more power to you!
This is a very helpful post. I agree on blogging and content writing, which I have tried for myself. I actually make good money from content writing services from overseas employers since foreigners are very impressed by Filipino talent, especially with grammar and punctuality to deadlines.
Hi! You can try odesk.com, browse through the categories and I think there are plenty of opportunities available for this kind of job. =)
hello sir, i would like to ask. In my case, i have been in the online business for about 3 years but i use ebay & multiply to sell stuff which means i don’t pay tax & license fees. What I plan to do now is to open an independent online shopping site.
Is there a need for me to apply a license from the government?
Thank you in advance
I operate my own company providing writing services to business bloggers and students, I did not apply for any license. Unless you will want to protect your business name then you need to register your name with DTI or establish a corporation then you might need to register with SEC.
But operating a shopping site in itself does not require a license, that is what I think.
This is a great post. I think if you have a talent to do something or a skill, you can write about it and teach others how to do it. You can immediately get followers who are interested to learn about your skill.
A very helpful topic indeed! A lot of people are always looking to get out of the rat race and be financially dependent. This post gives us ideas of the wide possibilities that is available online. We just have to educate ourselves and know our strenghts. Who know, on of the idea above fits you!
Can you please give me site/s where I can apply as encoder? Thanks very much 🙂