15 Easy Business Ideas You Can Start Online in 2024
One of the greatest beauties of the digital age is that anyone can start their online business without needing to have any particular business experience. We live in the age of ideas – the internet has made so many different resources available for so many people that anyone can learn anything and the only thing that really makes a difference is a good idea.
There are many reasons why starting an online business may be good for you. Nowadays, employers are rarely capable of providing you with the sense of stability and permanence you may wish for, so having your own business can compensate for that feeling of uncertainty. Maybe you have a passion or hobby that you want to invest yourself more in, maybe your job doesn’t provide enough room for your creativity or maybe you want to have some kind of side hustle just to see where it will take you. Setting up your own online business provides you with two precious advantages – you can literally invent your own job, and you can earn money from doing something you like.
Whatever motivates you to think about starting an online business is fine, and there’s no need to wait for something to happen to push you to do it, you can start right now. You can easily learn all you need to know about setting an online store, a website, or a blog on the way.
Stay tuned as we guide you through some of the best online business ideas you can start in 2024. In this article you’ll read more about how to:
Many successful bloggers who now earn significant income from their blogs started out with no clear plan about what they wanted to achieve with their blogs. They simply wrote about what matters to them and managed to build a community over the years. To be honest, nowadays it probably wouldn’t be enough to start a blog with no clear plan, just by following your inspiration. The competition in this field is incredible and you would need to create a good content strategy from the very start. You would also need some basic SEO knowledge and familiarity with digital marketing but that’s not something that requires ages to learn.
The good thing about blogging is that you really can let your creativity run wild – there are no limits to what kind of content you can produce as long as it is consistent with your values and standards. There’s also a common misconception that only talented writers can run successful blogs but unless you want to start a literature blog, being able to communicate clearly can be just enough. There are many food and fashion blogs out there that attract a very wide audience and don’t rely too much on textual content but rather focus on visuals. As long as you can offer authentic, quality content, you have a fair chance of turning your blog into an online business.
A blog based on something you are passionate about is an excellent base that can easily grow into a variety of different businesses. One thing is sure though, a blog can become your source of revenue but it is not a quick way to make money. It takes some time to establish yourself as an authority, brand, or expert. The most common way bloggers earn is through ads placed on their websites, sponsorships, paid content, and similar.
Online learning has never been more popular than throughout the last few years. The offer of skills and knowledge you can earn online is also incredible – from practical self-defense courses to programming and everything in between, anyone can learn almost anything. If you have any skill or knowledge you believe others could benefit from, you can easily design your own online course with WordPress and sell it via your own website or some other popular online learning platform.
You can also get very creative here, the knowledge you sell can be the kind of knowledge that comes from experience, not from education. People who changed their eating or exercising habits often sell their experience through specifically designed coaching courses. If you are good at interior decoration, that can also be a skill you can sell online. Make a list of the things you are really good at and think about how others could benefit from it.
The trickiest part about selling your knowledge online is to find your audience. Therefore you should think about promoting your course even before you create it. If you already have a blog or a website, this shouldn’t be much of a challenge – there are many LMS WordPress plugins that allow you to easily turn your website into an online learning platform. You also always have the possibility to publish on Amazon and similar already established platforms.
If you have some specific skill, experience, or knowledge that can help others achieve their own professional or personal goals and you genuinely love helping people, you may have just what it takes to become a business or life coach. Setting an online coaching business allows you to reach a very wide audience and find clients all around the world. Nowadays there are couches for just about everything – dating, losing weight, gaming, parenting, etc… It is much easier to start if you already established an online presence on some platform, but that’s not an absolute prerequisite. As long as you get recommended by your clients you’ll do good.
As content marketing has already proved to be very efficient and often more useful than traditional marketing, copywriting and content writing have become some of the most sought out skills. If you have always been good at writing and are naturally inclined to it, mastering the art of copy and content writing will probably be easy for you. But, also bear in mind that the best copywriters often come from completely atypical backgrounds – talent for writing is not the key to success in this niche. What actually matters is creativity, willingness to learn, and the ability to understand the needs of both the audience and the brand you are writing for. It is often said that a copywriter is a salesman behind the typing machine and that explains well the skill needed for this job.
Content writing, on the other hand, requires a bit of a different set of skills. If you are good at researching topics and writing about stuff in a more in-depth manner, then content writing may be your ticket to starting an online business. Many content writers specialize in writing for a specific niche. You can start by publishing your articles on Medium or similar platforms and then, after you create a solid portfolio of your articles, set up your own website to advertise your services. To master and perfect your writing style, you can take advantage of the popular writing tools that are proven to help you write more effective blog posts. As you dig into this field you may discover you are particularly good at writing resumes, product descriptions, or what have you, and that’s how you will eventually find your niche.
If you have always wanted to run your own online store but never wanted to deal with the manufacturing or warehousing of any kind of product, dropshipping may be just the perfect way for you to start an online business doing what you love. Dropshipping is running an online store where you sell other people’s products and earn by getting a commission for each sale. Setting up a dropshipping website using WordPress is not rocket science and you can surely do it all by yourself.
The great thing about dropshipping is that it requires zero capital from your side, and since you are not manufacturing any products, there’s no risk of losing money if you don’t manage to sell. If you have experience in online marketing and advertising or run your own blog related to the type of products you want to sell this way, you may be able to generate revenue faster than you think.
The fact is that the internet relies heavily on visual content. Quality photos are precious goods. Many bloggers, social media marketers, and companies don’t have the time to organize shootings and make the photos they need themselves so they resort to paid or free photo and image libraries. If photography is your hobby or even a main profession, the online world provides you with many different ways to monetize it. You can license your photos via third-party picture libraries or create your own stock packages and sell them via your website.
There’s a wide array of WordPress tools for photographers as well as amazing photography WordPress themes that will help you create an impressive photography website like a professional. If you are not sure where to start from, you can go with a freemium photography WordPress theme and see where it takes you. From commercial to artistic photos and everything in between, you can easily make money from whichever type of photos you make.
If your main motivation for setting up an online business is to generate passive income, affiliate marketing may be your thing. In case you are already a fan of a specific brand or product and have established some kind of online presence via social media, blog, or some other type of website, that would be an excellent base for starting an affiliate marketing business.
Affiliate marketing lets you earn some income by promoting a product, service, or brand in exchange for commissions on sales or sign-ups. The three most commonly used models for running affiliate marketing business include:
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Pay-per-sale where you earn commission based on the number of sales you’ve accomplished on the part of the brand you are cooperating with
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Pay-per-lead where you earn based on the number of conversions you managed to generate from prospective buyers e.g. leads
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Pay-per-click that allows you to earn commission based on the number of clicks you drive to the merchant’s site.
Make sure you have a good understanding of how affiliate marketing works before you embark on this journey.
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Thanks to WooCommerce, you can easily start an online store and sell all kinds of products online. In case WooCommerce is entirely new for you, our comprehensive tutorial on WooCommerce is an excellent place to learn more about it. But bear in mind that running an online store regardless of the type of products you sell requires your long-term effort and dedication. In case you want to sell physical products, you will also have to take care of stock, shipping, and many other practical aspects of selling on a daily basis.
If you have enough room in your life to take on this type of responsibility, an online store can be a great source of income. Before embarking on this adventure, make sure you research your niche, target audience, and their needs as well as your product benefits. It is a good idea to use an eCommerce pre-launch checklist to ensure you got it all covered. If all your findings confirm you can offer useful products that will easily find a way to customers, why not give it a try.
A membership website can be an excellent source of income especially if you already have an online community gathered around your blog or social media. All you need to have is some kind of exclusive content that you do not want to be available for everyone. You can produce podcasts that cover special topics, video lessons, or interviews with celebrities that only paid members and subscribers can have access to. This may take some time if you are starting from zero, but if you were already planning on setting up your website, adding membership plans is easy especially since there are so many WordPress membership plugins that make this process simple and smooth.
Podcasts have been enjoying huge popularity for the last few years. This simple concept allows you to make a profit in pretty much the same way YouTube does. If you are worried that starting a podcast website is too complicated, we assure you you’ll find setting up a podcast website with WordPress very easy.
Although podcasts can be about anything, it is good if you find your field of interest and stick to it as that will make attracting the right audience much easier. If the audience never knows what they can expect from your podcast, it will be very hard to keep them interested. Finding interesting guests and exploring interesting issues from new angles can be very rewarding both for you and your audience.
Your addiction to shopping and great deals can also be turned into a lucrative business venture, all you need is a bit of creativity. If you enjoy hitting up second-hand stores and making your own vintage fashion combos, you can easily use your passion to set up an online second-hand shop where you will sell unique fashion items. What you will charge for is not the items that were a bargain to buy, but your skill to reinvent them and present them as fashionable and unique. People love exclusivity, especially in fashion so if you have a knack for style and fashion you may be able to earn considerable sums this way.
Long gone are the times when you had to wait for someone to validate your book to get it published. Nowadays you can write about anything in any way you want to and still have a fair chance of finding the audience that your work will resonate with. In this case, too, it will be much easier to monetize your book if you already have an audience built around your site or blog or if you already established yourself as an influencer in a particular niche. If you don’t, you can still make a profit by selling your book via Amazon and similar platforms.
One of the biggest changes on the market nowadays is that consumers are prone to trust other consumers way more than any commercial, however cool it was. No wonder that reviews are such a strong sales tool. Many brands would go to extra lengths to earn a review so sharing your honest experience and impression about the products you used could easily bring you many benefits. Plus, setting up a review website with WordPress does not require any special technical knowledge.
Brands may send you their products for you to try and test them and then write about them on your site, or they could pay to advertise on your pages or even sponsor you to write for them.
Handmade goods have always had a special status and if you are one of those talented, crafty individuals selling your handmade items can be a great online side hustle. There are platforms like Etsy and Craiglist where you can sell your goods, but having your own online store for handmade goods may provide you with more control and make it easier for you to manage orders. You can also easily sell your items online using WordPress, a couple of plugins, and a good WordPress theme.
Who would refuse a discount? People love special offers, sales, and discounts and sites of this kind usually easily attract a very wide audience. They are also popular places for ads. So if you can manage to regularly find the best deals and coupons and share them on one site in an organized manner, it could generate a significant amount of passive income.
Wrapping It All Up
Although the competition in the online world is fierce, we are offered so much freedom and opportunities to express our creativity and monetize even those skills and talents that at first glance seem completely impractical. May this list of ideas serve you only as a starting point, the possibilities are endless and it all depends on how much time and effort you want to invest. Bear in mind that besides a great idea, you are surely going to need some knowledge about social media, online marketing, SEO, and sales. It is also mandatory that you perform detailed market research before you start any kind of online business. To be able to stand out, you will have to be willing and open to constantly learn and develop as the digital trends are ever-changing and it is incredible how easily you can fall off the pace and get left behind.
