SIX Online Business Ideas You Can Start Today

 

Working from home is all the rage now, whether you’ve been forced to create a home office after your job shifted to remote work or you’re a freelance writer getting paid by the hour for every word you type. Maybe you need some extra cash to help cover your rent and buy groceries. Or maybe you just want to get back into blogging, content creation, video marketing and more without having to do any of the above? Here are eight top strategies that can be used to start making money online with no investment.

1. Start A Blog

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

Starting a blog can be done free of charge. It doesn’t take much time to set it up and there’s almost always something new to share on the site. You could even try out affiliate marketing programs like Amazon Associates and Google AdSense to promote products or services on your website. This is one of several different methods that many bloggers are implementing to increase their income. But let me say upfront, not all sites are created equal. Some bloggers will use plugins to add content to sites like WordPress to give them easy access to information about how to earn money creating contents. Others, like this post, are using tools such as HubPages, Yoast SEO, Jekyll as well as others to build websites. (You should also check out my posts on building web pages)

2.Create Your First Social Media Presence

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

Social media is important and it goes beyond Facebook and Twitter. If you can’t find anyone to contact from Instagram, you can reach out to your local community groups there. Many people will contact you to collaborate on projects and provide feedback on what works and what doesn’t. So if you want to start social media presence (and I mean really serious ones), check out these articles to learn everything you need. There are plenty you can adapt to start. When someone asks you what topics would you like to talk about, write down the ideas you’d like to discuss. Don’t forget to ask questions, too! (What is another way to think about the same topic?)

3.Offer Freelance Services

Freelancing is one of the most popular jobs around. And in addition to offering services to clients, you can even offer freelance services. I’ve got hundreds of pieces here on Medium that I wrote last year for people who want to sell stuff they no longer need. The truth is that we all need things that we can no longer fit into our current budget. In my case it was writing on Medium, which I started when I went broke selling t-shirts online. These days I’m trying to get more customers since I’m promoting other people’s stuff and doing lots of advertising through Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. I even did an article a few months ago about this so read it before going looking for advice. Another thing is that you can easily advertise your own work on social media as long as you have a few thousand followers and enough quality comments. Like this piece I wrote in early January called “How To Get My Head In The Game Of Gigs” (I’ve gotten only 5 views) and it got many thousands of likes. That is good feedback from genuine sources, which means that future work will bring new opportunities and money or that the market will continue to grow and find new people. As for finding gigs, there are a lot of places to look. I would like to point out that many writers will take part in contests to see who has the most readers. Just go to your favorite platform and find where your audience hangs out. How much time do you devote to reading and writing the articles? Which niches do you focus on? Do follow the accounts to see if you get any email newsletters or updates? Finally, find out what platforms you prefer to post your content and see if they have a specific publication. Then, find those publications on the platforms that are relevant to what you are promoting. It’s also great to know that if you are promoting anything related to coding or graphic design, it’s nice to see what kind of coding skills or visual designs they favor. Remember not to hype yourself up. This is not the place to show what you are amazing at. We want to hear from real users. Don’t waste peoples’ time. Instead, figure out what is best for them and what they are going to pay to see what you have to tell them. What can you think they like about your past work? Can you think of anything else you could have written that would be interesting? Could you write about the hottest languages on the planet? Is there something that you’d like people to watch? People love reading things that show off what they have and then sharing what they have instead of repeating what you’ve said in the past. They aren’t looking for tricks. Hype is a dime a dozen. Try to be sincere, keep it short and to the point. People will remember it.

4. Write for Other Platforms Too

Besides blogging or providing other service, there are many additional social media sites and microblogging sites that could easily accept pitches. It’s never been easier to start a blog and for some folks, they even host blogs for self-employed individuals. By the way, if you get some experience in marketing, this is an ideal job to take on. This is because social media platforms are becoming bigger more powerful than ever. Not only are there more audiences but also better products. And this is especially true for small businesses, so I think that you could spend almost half your salary on advertising. One thing to point out is that you will have to learn a bit more advanced and research to improve your writing capabilities. At least this makes sense but you wouldn’t expect this from a guy whose entire career has revolved around writing. Don’t worry, though. Just like with freelancing, you won’t make huge money immediately. But in the beginning, you might start seeing a steady stream of visitors coming in to your profile and it’s all about being consistent.

5. Sell Creative Products

Sometimes creative products make an acceptable cut but sometimes they don’t. Either way, these days they’re worth spending a fair little amount of money. Because creative products are not limited to apps, photography, or videos, you could sell books, videos, graphics, etc. Also, you can go on social media and make links to where you can start searching. Even if you aren’t able to publish any work directly on your site, posting photos about life hacks, productivity tips, or tutorials on how to become successful on a particular niche could be a surefire way to make money on the side. Think about this; whenever you google “how to draw cartoons,” more than likely your phone will show results for drawing cartoons on Picasso or Van Gogh. However, once you decide you want to do something, you find enough inspiration that you realize you should start learning to draw cartoons right away. Maybe you have a skill and you thought there wasn’t any talent left for cartoonists? Well, you’re wrong. Now you have the chance to master a great skill on your fingertips and make at least some profit. Plus, social media has made it easy to start a Patreon, which allows your subscribers to support your work without paying any fees. That is a whole other level of income that some people may want to consider.

6. Become An Influencer

You can already call what I’m discussing influencers. Influencer

or influencer has two meanings and both seem to apply to certain subjects. I mean to say influence and to make money. You cannot tell the difference between an artist and an influencer unless someone says so themselves. Basically, they’re both artists who make their own way. And usually if you are an artist and you want to put your name behind an image, you will use either Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator to turn the images into digital artworks. On the other hand, an influencer is usually considered to be someone that has influence on some key figures that is influential enough to be remembered. Those influential people need to be big names like Elon Musk and Oprah Winfrey. Someone who isn’t the household name, but can still bring large amounts of money to a company. Basically, both influencers and authors have a high degree of influence and they make a decent living by linking readers to content that is of interest to them. Yes, this is similar to a blogger but to have a greater impact.