Nowadays, a home-based business is considered a venture that anyone can start in their comfort zone. Especially with the advancements of technology and a faster way of dealing with things, home-businesses aren’t treated the traditional way anymore.
Online-based businesses are becoming increasingly the standard. A business that isn’t online, isn’t taking advantage of the opportunities available online.
Whether you’re a business-savvy individual or an amateur that’s thrilled to know more about businesses, this article is for you. It will give you a glimpse of some of the ins and outs of small online businesses. This can help you with how to start a small business at home online.
Table of Contents
How to Start an Online Business
1. Choose a Niche.
Look at possible niches. You will want to choose a niche that you are interested in. This will have an impact on what products and services you will offer. It’s also important to know what type of following you want to get.
Read: 200 Different Niches You Can Build a Business Around
2. Find a Problem within the Niche.
Focus on the problem. What do people have questions about? It’s important to figure out the problem. You can check forums and groups to see what other people are talking about.
3. Find the traffic or start getting your own following.
You can find the traffic and pay for it. This traffic can be purchased through Google Ads, Facebooks Ads, other Social Media platforms, Listing Websites, and Influencers.
You can build your own followers by focusing on publishing. You can get use traffic from social media, YouTube, blogs, and podcasts to encourage people to check out your products and services.
4. Sell Products and Services.
Look at selling your own products and services. This is where you can get your largest profit margins. If you have a reliable traffic source, this can make a lot of money for you.
The Perks of Having a Home-based Online Business
The pandemic and personal factors make the corporate world become extended at the four corners of homes. More individuals are looking forward to experiencing the perks of working on their home-based online businesses.
Here are some of the things that await those who want to indulge in online businesses at home:
Having More Opportunitiess: Land Investing As A Home Business
Cramming to get into the office, traffic, deadlines, office stresses-these are corporates issues professionals are facing every single day. You are able to build a business that you love and within the comforts of your home.
With the work that can be done at home, there’s more opportunity to have more time for personal stuff. You have no boss, corporate schedule, and office politics to handle. There is time to do the things you want to do.
I’ve found one of the best business models is to flip real estate. Specifically, I’ve done it with land. My wife was able to quit her job because of the owner financing deals we started focusing on. It’s been a good way to build up recurring revenue.
Read: Land Flipping: Land Investing 101
Better opportunities
With the problems in the economy and the pandemic, the corporate world is slowing down. Yet there are home-based businesses that have higher opportunities for more income.
For instance, the rise of digital technologies paved way for more demand in different skills related to digital marketing.
Read: The Goal: How to Get to $10,000 per Month
Opportunities both for personal and professional growth
If you think that working with no boss makes you less professional, then think again. Being your boss can make you more flexible, as a salesperson, marketer, manager, secretary, among others. With the challenges and lessons from these roles, it will shape you not only for the betterment as a person but as a professional too.
More time for family
Most of the business owners prefer to have a home-based venture because it allows them to stay with their family.
Home based business allows business owners to work from home. This means that there isn’t any travel time and they can be present.
A way to unleash the creativity
A home-based online business also starts with identifying the hobby and passion because working on something you love makes you more inspired and motivated.
Choosing your passion for the business idea can also help you become more creative on how you can put it up, for instance. Also, by creating a personalized approach in branding and set-up, the creativity in you shows from within.
Read: 200 Niches You Can Build a Business Around
Some Home-Based Online Business Ideas with Little to no Money Involved
The mentioned advantages of having an online home-based business can make you want to know more. So, here are some ventures that you can start to consider and establish, which will not require you to have a huger start-up cost:
Read: What Business Can I Start With No Money
Web designing business
Reaching out to clients to provide website services can be a good start. You can propose to them more ways to make their websites more visually appealing. You can also offer your expertise to create their websites itself.
For those who even have basic knowledge about web designing and some technicalities like web development, this business is for you. Various platforms can help you learn more about its technicalities, and with a great organizational attitude, this can be a success.
Virtual Assistance Business
With the hectic schedules of business owners nowadays, most of them are looking for people that they can be reliable to handle their digital networks. This makes virtual assistance businesses another booming home-based online business nowadays.
A virtual assistant is someone who gives technical, creative, or administrative services to a particular client or organization. Some of its offered services are:
- Scheduling management
- Administrative tasks
- Data encoding
- Booking and other travel arrangements
- Content creation and proofreading
Social media management
While these are the basic foundation of virtual assistance, some know advanced skills like the project and financial management. Furthermore, a VA business consists of either single or multiple assistants that work together to perform preferred tasks by the client.
Affiliate Marketing
Love leaving reviews on eCommerce sites like Amazon and eBay? This can be a good foundation in the affiliate marketing business.
If you have a social media account with a large following, you can recommend products and services. If one of your followers buys, you can get a commission.
There are two kinds of affiliate marketing programs you can consider:
- Networks: You can join affiliate networks. Clickbanks and CJ Affiliate are different affiliates that you can market.
- Companies: Companies will usually have an affiliate program for their products and services.
Online technical writer
The internet is full of freelance content writers and editors. But very few of them can produce more professional and strongly research-related articles. If you have a background experience in making technical and research papers, you can use this for those who want scientific or technical results.
Compared to the website and other online writers, technical writers create high-leveled articles. These write-ups also intend to a more digestible content for a particular audience. Some fields that usually require technical articles are manufacturing, nursing and medicine, engineering, information technology (IT), energy, and consultancy.
Some Things to Remember in Starting a Home-Based Online Business
Just because it is home-based and online doesn’t mean there’s no need to study and plan the preferred business you want to pursue.
While your passion and interest are your stepping stones in getting started, knowing your next steps can take give you a glimpse of where your business will go through.
Start from a business that strives to meet a particular need.
One reason why online home-based businesses fail is that most businesses are looking for a product before the market.
If the product or service doesn’t cater to the demands of the market, you can’t sell anything.
When you focus on looking for products that can solve a person’s problem or need, you can have a sustainable business. Promoting the product will never be complicated because it matches a particular need.
Fortunately, the Internet provides various ways to do this:
- Take time to check online forums to see what people are usually looking for and the problems they want to resolve.
- Consider doing keyword research to find clues or ideas of what people are usually searching for whenever they browse in search engine pages.
- If you’re already eyeing for a product, look for potential competitors and check how they are promoting their brands.
Start designing your website.
Once that you identified your brand and market, it’s time to build up the place where to place or post your products on your website.
Since you are a starter, you can start with free website design tools like WordPress. Look at WordPress.org and not WordPress.com. It doesn’t have to have various pictures, glamorous texts, and lengthy words in the beginning. Look at creating content and a simple design.
The general rule of the thumb is to always make it simple. It’s challenging to catch your audience’s attention, so we should maximize the time they allotted to check our site. You can worry about design later.
Here are some tips to setting up your website:
- Use only one to two fonts on the website background.
- Make sure that the navigation tools are easy to use. It should also be consistent on other pages of the site.
- Use pictures or videos if it can enhance your message.
- Make sure to make your website customer-friendly.
Make sure that you create a reputable image. You can use stock images in the beginning. Look at using your own images and creating different info graphics.
Provide relevant and informative content for free. Look at SEO and optimize your posts so you can be found on search engines.
Place a “send to a friend” link on contents that are valuable to the website. You can make your content sharable. If you want to build up a social media following, it can be big for your business.
Exert time and effort in joining industry forums and social media platforms where your target audience can be usually seen. You can look at prospecting on these platforms for potential sales.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Will it work for me even if I do not have anything to sell?
Fortunately, the Internet provides more opportunities to sell other products and services. This is a type of affiliate marketing. You can get a commission for selling the product or service.
Can I still build an online business even if I am not a techie?
There is no need to become an expert in business or even computer-related matters to start up the business. As long as you can do the basics you can make a viable business.
Where can I explore more information about online businesses?
There are different platforms. You can check YouTube and other articles to give you more ideas.
Fortunately, there are countless motivational speakers and business coaches who use social media networks to share their expertise in various businesses.
Read: Ultimate 50 Different Business Niches You Can Make a Profit
