20 Online Business Ideas You Can Start Today

business ideas

If you are looking for a bit of inspiration and wanting to start up your own online business, we have put together 20 ideas to get you motivated. These range from digital products to starting your own YouTube channel.

Ecommerce store

One of the most common answers you would expect to hear when selling goods or services online is to create your own Ecommerce store. The best way we find you can accomplish this is by using a WordPress web hosting provider and installing the Woocommerce plugin.

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world, you may also be surprised to hear that it's open source and created back in 2003, making it a strong competitor against other content management systems.

WordPress includes a vast amount of popular plugins and themes to integrate into your website including the popular Woocommerce plugin allowing you to sell goods and services.

Simply install the plugin in the plugins section and activate which will take you to a step-by-step setup guide to add shipping and payment integration options to your website.

Affiliate marketing

Becoming an affiliate gives you an advantage of having no setup fees and a company that is already established, allowing you to start making some extra cash straight away.

There is many reasons someone may want to become an affiliate:

  1. Low cost of start-up
  2. Low ongoing costs
  3. Low risk
  4. Targeted traffic
  5. Flexibility
  6. High return of income (ROI)

Companies generally give around 5-20% per sale depending on the type business.

Digital products

Digital products has the option of providing all goods online, saving on shipping costs.

Some examples of digital products include:

  1. PDF's
  2. Music
  3. Business cards
  4. Flyers
  5. CV templates

You can produce a template for almost anything and with very little information. Brainstorming ideas and a bit of creative flare can get you a long way – the right people will pay a lot of money for a professional look.

YouTube channel

Many YouTubers have had great success pitching their ideas or just generally vlogging about their own day-to-day life, make it clear who you are and what you offer to those watching you.

There is nothing worse than boring content as this will put people off your vlog! People will make a decision if it's worth watching within the first 10 seconds when they hit the play button, outline what they will be watching and put an interesting title to pull them in.

To get your ideas flowing we've added the top 10 ideas for YouTubers:

  1. Personal vlogging
  2. Gaming
  3. Cooking and recipes
  4. Product reviews
  5. Health and fitness tips
  6. Travelling
  7. Gadgets and technology
  8. Restaurant and food reviews
  9. Lifehacks
  10. Humour

Content is king when it comes to vlogging so try and keep it around 20 minutes plus if you are able to do so, this can also help with ranking and traffic along with other algorithms.

Why not also enable commenting on your videos to get feedback and what your follows like to give you ideas for future vlogs.

Vlog regularly to gain more followers and don't forget to monetise your vlogs or you won't earn a penny!

Start a blog

If you enjoy writing blogs then this might just be for you! Set out clearly the topics you want to write about and keep them easy to read.

How can you make money for blogging I hear you saying? - Well, one option is to add adverts onto your pages using Google Adsense

Another option is adding a membership area or subscription service to read premium content.

Top 10 blogging options include:

  1. Fashion blogs
  2. Food blogs
  3. Travel blogs
  4. Music blogs
  5. Lifestyle blogs
  6. Fitness blogs
  7. DIY blogs
  8. Sports blogs
  9. Finance blogs
  10. Political blogs

We recommend using WordPress as it provides some great themes and plugins to adapt into a great blogging site!

Buy and sell domains

Buying and selling domains can be big business, domains can sell anywhere from £10 up to nearly £36M if you play your cards right.

Here are a list of the 8 most expensive domains sold in US dollars:

  1. CarInsurance.com — $49.7 million
  2. Insurance.com — $35.6 million
  3. VacationRentals.com — $35 million
  4. PrivateJet.com — $30.18 million
  5. Voice.com — $30 million
  6. Internet.com — $18 million
  7. 360.com — $17 million
  8. Insure.com — $16 million

Domains can also be sold at domain auctions or approaching companies directly if you think they will benefit.

Become a copywriter

Copywriters spend their days writing prose for the purpose of advertising to promote and sell goods and services. For example, a copywriter might write a new jingle for a cereal commercial, or come up with a new company slogan.

Promotional copywriting is designed to generate and increase interest in a product or idea using persuasive language. The aim of the copy is to persuade the viewer, listener or reader to act, i.e. to buy a product or adopt a different viewpoint.

Create and sell online courses

Selling online courses can be anything where you think a customer has the potential to buy your course.

The top 10 most popular courses are:

  1. Computers and technology
  2. Business and entrepreneurship
  3. Arts and crafts
  4. Health
  5. Fitness
  6. Education
  7. Writing and content creation
  8. Personal development
  9. Coming of age and career
  10. Entertainment

The advantage with online courses is no shipping fees so however much you make the majority goes in your pocket.

Facebook groups

Start by creating your own group within a specific business genre and start building followers, once you get plenty of followers offer them advertising on the page for a set amount that you think is negotiable.

Here are 9 other ideas you could make money:

  1. Buy and sell
  2. Propose service
  3. Drive traffic
  4. Get paid per post click
  5. Collect donations
  6. Sponsoring and advertising
  7. Charge membership fee
  8. Sell merchandise
  9. Sell ad space within group

Remember to keep engagement high and post regularly to keep visitors and get more follows!

Ebay

Ebay needs no introduction when it comes to selling goods, the downside is that Ebay will take percentage of what you make and also PayPal for processing the fees.

Here are the top 7 most popular items on Ebay by category:

  1. Mobile phones and accessories
  2. Video games
  3. Health and beauty
  4. Home and garden
  5. Computers and tablets
  6. Fashion
  7. Crafts

Remember to consider pricing, shipping and packaging within your costs so you don't make a loss. Check other related listings so you can compare pricing and how much it will sell so you can guess your estimated profit of each item.

Sell logos and designs

New and established businesses are always looking for a logo for their brand, logos and designs can go into £100's making it quite rewarding to the potential seller.

Here are 10 types of different logos:

  1. Letter marks or monogram logos
  2. Logotypes or wordmarks
  3. Logo symbols
  4. Abstract logos
  5. Mascot logos
  6. Combination marks
  7. Letterforms
  8. Emblem logos
  9. Slime logos
  10. Fonts inside a shape

Remember a logo doesn't have to be complicated, some of the biggest companies have a very simple logo.

Produce and sell music

If you are a music producer wanting to sell your own music, you can do this either by using website such as Bandcamp and uploading your music to sell, or more professionally by having your own website.

Having a distributor can also make you stand out more by using companies such as Symphonic which are a digital music distributor with global reach providing:

  1. Digital distribution
  2. Music video distribution
  3. Catalog optimisation
  4. Physical distribution

Here are 21 of the many music outlets they send your music to, saving you the hassle of having to upload and manage yourself:

  1. Spotify
  2. Beatport
  3. Deezer
  4. Pandora
  5. Apple music
  6. YouTube
  7. Triller
  8. SnapChat
  9. Automack
  10. Saavn
  11. Soundcloud
  12. Tencent
  13. TikTok
  14. Amazon music
  15. Instagram
  16. Facebook
  17. Juno download

We recommend having a good back catalogue of music you have created first before signing up with any distributor. Your music will also potentially sell better if it is properly mastered by an audio engineer prior to release.

Facebook advertising

Businesses are looking to advertise on popular social media platforms such as Facebook which is very popular.

Here are 10 reasons why you should be advertising on Facebook:

  1. Facebook ads are affordable
  2. Facebook ads work
  3. Your audience is on Facebook
  4. You can target specific users and groups
  5. You can target specific locations
  6. Ads are easy to set up
  7. Facebook provides useful analytics
  8. You can add a custom button
  9. Facebook offers video ads
  10. Facebook offers retargeting

You can also link your businesses with your Facebook page for more followers and potential sales.

SEO consultant

We all want to be at the top of page one on Google, right? If you have got the knowledge and are familiar with the algorithms that Google uses many companies want your knowledge to improve both their brand and sales.

Here are 10 reasons you should hire an SEO consultant:

  1. Years of SEO experience
  2. Understanding of different SEO levels
  3. A portfolio of SEO success
  4. Understands your business aims
  5. Passionate about SEO
  6. Saves money and time
  7. SEO consultants can produce better results
  8. Implementation of latest SEO techniques
  9. You gain organic traffic
  10. You get a return on investment

SEO consultants are responsible for planning, implementing and managing the companies clients overall SEO strategy. They usually cover a wide variety of duties such as web marketing, web analytics, content strategy planning, link building, and keyword strategy.

Video editor

Companies are always looking for video editor's to show what their business is all about, videos are more engaging in comparison to text.

Video editors often use specialized software tools with features such as timeline-based editing, transitions, video downloader, audio converter, and text overlays, enabling them to arrange clips with precision and creativity.

6 Advantages of hiring a video editor:

  1. Saves your time
  2. Quality matters
  3. More experience, better quality
  4. Visibility of your brand
  5. Professional work
  6. Customise services

Video Editors are generally responsible for editing and assembling recorded raw material into a suitable, finished product ready for broadcasting. The material may include camera footage, dialogue, sound effects, graphics and special effects.

Social media management

Literally all businesses have some form of social media including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to name a few. Trying to manage all of them at once everyday can be quite a task, which is why more business are hiring someone to manage their social media pages.

7 Reasons employers hire a social media manager

  1. Have time to focus on other initiatives
  2. Consistent social content
  3. Someone to respond to social messages
  4. Boost brand engagement
  5. A new avenue to generate new customers
  6. Recruit new employees

Social media management is the process of analysing social media audiences and developing a strategy that’s tailored to them, creating and distributing content for social media profiles, monitoring online conversations, collaborating with influencers, providing community service, and monitoring, measuring, and reporting on social media performance and return of investment (ROI).

Membership site

If you want to create a membership website, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself before getting started:

  1. Who is your audience?
  2. What kind of content will you be creating?
  3. What kind of memberships will you offer?
  4. What platform will you be using?
  5. How much will you be charging?

A membership site can be created for anything you are passionate about to provide training, quizzes, content or downloads.

Business directory

Businesses are always looking for ways they can promote themselves online to give them more exposure.

Here are the top 10 business directories in the UK:

  1. UK Small Business Directory - also known as UK SBD
  2. UK Business Forums - Business Forum + Directory
  3. Britain Business Directory
  4. Best of the Web UK - BOTW
  5. ABC Business Directory
  6. Yell UK
  7. Google My Business
  8. Business Directory UK
  9. Scoot UK
  10. Yelp UK

Submitting your website to local business directories is important, as it helps Google to understand your business much better. Not only this, listing your business in a local directory means more exposure to the business, and eventually more website traffic and more revenue.

Online editor

Hiring a professional editor saves you the frustration of revising your work alone. The job of an editing service is to correct and improve your document and quickly rectify grammar, style, word choice, or flow issues.

Five advantages of hiring an online editor:

  1. An unbiased critique
  2. A professional, easy to read document
  3. A chance for better reviews
  4. No grammar and spelling mistakes
  5. It sets you apart from the rest

Editors don't come cheap, this can be an advantage if you decide to become an online editor.

Daily deals site

Everyone wants to bag a great deal because we all love a bargain!

These deal sites typically fall into one of four categories:

  1. Local deals
  2. Product deals
  3. Speciality deals
  4. Daily deal collector website

Many of the best deals for local and online retail, restaurants and services are the websites that offer daily steals, flash sales and hourly rock-bottom prices.

If you are looking to start making some revenue check out our web hosting affiliate page, sign up is free and no starter costs involved!