6 Online Businesses You Can Start to Make Money Online with No Money
The internet provides a great opportunity. Particularly, in business, it has advanced the playing field. Anyone can start a profitable money-making online business, literally anyone with a laptop and an internet connection. That’s it.
And most importantly, essentially no technical experience is required. In the present day, there are lots of tools you can use to create and build an online business that makes the technical work effortless and a lot easier than it was before.
The best part of it is, you can work and live anywhere in the world, set your own schedule, and work as you like or want depending on your needs. It’s a haven for a person who wants financial and location freedom.
The good news is, you don’t need huge startup capital to start an online business, unlike a brick-and-mortar business. In reality, you can start a number of internet businesses with no money at all as there are many free services that facilitate the possibility.
For instance, you can set up a website or blog for free using GrooveFunnels. Or you can take advantage of a third-party site like Amazon or eBay and sell goods without inventory costs. You use their selling platform and in return, you give them a cut of your sales.
And this is just the beginning of the many at hand no-money e-commerce startup solutions. Let's consider six of the top ways you can start an online business and make money online with no cost at all.
1. Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing is the most lucrative online business that has made people millions of dollars. With the rise of Covid-19, its scope is increasing. It is a billion-dollar industry with a bright and profitable future.
You start affiliate marketing by following the following steps:
1. You start affiliate marketing by selecting a profitable niche (Big three are: Make money online, Fitness & Weight loss, and Relationship niche.)
2. Then you have to find an affiliate partner program with products related to your niche (popular affiliate sites are Clickbank.com, Amazon.com, JVzoo, Warriorplus, Groove affiliate marketplace.)
Tip: Prefer to promote digital products as an affiliate to get big commission share.
3. You get your affiliate link to promote the product.
4. You drive traffic to it your product (the only thing you have to do in affiliate marketing is running traffic to your affiliate product, it can either be free traffic or paid traffic. In the beginning, I would recommend you to use free traffic, you can do this by creating a blog post, video review or social media post).
5. Once your target audience buys the product through your affiliate link, you get paid.
Point to Remember:
Always build your email list via a bridge page and an auto-responder like GetResponse. This will help you have your audience on tap, so that you can sell them in future as well. This is called traffic on tap. When you build an email list, you have a successful online business.
Note: Auto-responders charge you monthly $15 on basic plan. If you use GetResponse then it is all-in-one solution for you where you can make unlimited bridge pages, capture unlimited emails and set automated email sequences and it covers hosting as well in $15/month. This is a good deal because if you buy these separately then you have to pay for website hosting, domain name, auto-responder individually which will cost you money.
But we will tell you how you can have all this for free for life. GrooveFunnels is in beta and as a launch giveaway, it is giving 3 websites and hosting for free. Plus, it captures emails for you when you promote it as an affiliate. Then it also allows you to email 10,000 contacts for free for life with unlimited emails. This is by far the grandest opportunity to start your online business for free. By using GrooveFunnels you do not have to create a bridge page, you can join its affiliate program and immediately you can start promoting it because it captures emails that you can use in the future.
Hence, you can start affiliate marketing today with zero investment. There is no risk involved.
then you build your online affiliate marketing business around it.
Pros:
Low or no risk at all: it can be started with zero investment.
Cons:
You need to constantly work on traffic for you are solely responsible for driving web traffic to your affiliate product (no traffic leads to no sales and unfortunately it means no money)
You must allocate a certain amount of money to spend on advertising and marketing to scale your affiliate marketing business.
2. Drop Shipping:
Online dropshipping business operates on the principle that you do not have to keep a large inventory (or any at all whatsoever) of products or handle any delivery to the customer. This way you do not have to have a warehouse full of products you might not sell. So, practically you face no financial loss and no hassle of arrangement of orders to deliver all over the globe. Therefore, you do not have to produce or store any products at all.
The only work you have to do and focus on is reaching the targeted audience with effective marketing and advertising to make sales. You only have to spend on marketing to get customers and close sales. Once the sale is made the vendor takes care of the rest.
You search for a vendor with quality products and good reviews, then you work in alliance with that vendor.
Here is how it functions:
1. You create your store where you display the products you want to sell. In simple words, you can list products on your website (create your free website) or you can use platforms like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy (Now you can have your own Shopify or Etsy store for free, no monthly subscriptions. Click here)
2. After your customer purchases a product from your store or website, you purchase that product from the drop shipper (third-party aka manufacturer or wholesaler) for a lower price.
The process is simple as you forward the order from your customer to the third-party. This process can be completely automated. And yes, keep in mind, you do not have any risk of buying inventory as the product has already been purchased.
The third-party then sends the product to the customer.
Sounds straightforward and easy to do, right? Drop shipping allows you to offer a wide range of products, so the operating cost for your business is amazingly low.
Point to Note: As by now you can see that there is no risk involved. As you only purchase the product when you make a sale.
Are there any downsides to drop shipping model?
Well, you have to research well and find a reliable and reputable drop shipper who can be trustworthy in terms of quality product and on time delivery to your customers. Unfortunately, if an order is delayed or fails to deliver or if the product turns out to be of poor quality then it has a negative impact on your business. You as a representative of the product and customer experience get bad rating and negative review.
How to stand out from the competition?
The market is highly competitive and you need to stand out from your competition in order to succeed.
One of the best moves to outsmart your competition is to private label the products you are selling. This means, you put your own brand name/label on the products. This way your products stand out and appear unique. By doing this you can face less competition.
Point to Note: Once done properly, drop shipping can be a profitable online business and can generate serious income.
It is similar when you go for shopping and the brand names sell for higher prices and people think they are different and of top-quality than the generic products even through the material or ingredients are the same. This is the sales psychology.
It is paramount to consider some important aspects when looking for an up-standing drop shipping product.
Anyone serious about having a real drop shipping business should consider leveraging Amazon.com to grow and expand their online business and keep on learning more about becoming a profitable Amazon seller, the most important reason for doing so is that Amazon is an established marketplace that people already trust. It has an existing customer base. But ultimately you should consider having your own online store as well. By having your own online store, you can have more control over various things.
Pros & Cons of Drop Shipping:
Pros:
Requires very small startup capital
No need to keep inventory
You can leverage by using already established marketplaces with existing customer bases
Cons:
You have to be careful when it comes to quality and delivery as you can be blamed for your drop shipper’s errors.
The market is over-populated, meaning you will face competition
You must sell a lot to generate a significant income.
3. Blogging:
Blogging is the key to unlock the power of your expertise or passion. By choosing a subject of your interest and creating a blog, you are on your way to make money online. Your blog can be about anything. From literature to automotive, from recipes to traveling, it is completely a new yet vast horizon.
You can start with a free blog, completely for free. Best options to consider are GrooveBlog and WordPress.
Advantage with starting GrooveBlog is you do not have to pay for hosting, it is totally free and comes with free unlimited domain names and hosting.
Tip: We recommend you to get domain name and your own hosting in order to avoid restrictions on your actions like make money, advertising and to get more control over your site.
Namecheap serves best when it comes to buy domain name and hosting.
Blogging gives an impression of only written content but you can also share photos, videos and links to other websites. You can also repost news, articles on trending yet viral niche related topics. You win big when the content is viral and super targeted to your niche.
Point to Note:
Always share original and unique content that is aimed to help your audience. Post regularly to rank in Google search and get yourself familiar with your audience. So that they take action and buy from you.
What type of content should you post?
You can post anything that engages your audience. How-to articles, listicles i.e. top-10 lists, discussions on trends in your niche, tips and tricks — the entire concept is to provide useful and valuable content. There's no limitation to ideas for your blog.
While blogging you can make money online in a number of different ways.
1. Google AdSense.
Have you ever visited a website and seen an ad on it? Such advertisements are run through the Google advertising network.
These ads that appear on your blog or other blogs are called pay-per-click. Every time somebody clicks on pay-per-click ad (that is related to your niche), you make a few cents or even more. These are small amounts but it adds up. All you have to do is get a code from Google, place it on your blog or website. The ads automatically appear on your blog. Google show ads that are relevant to your blog. Therefore, it provides a good experience to your visitors and increases the number of clicks you get which means you make more income.
2. Blog ad networks:
Like Google, you can also have a partnership with other ad networks, such as Blogads, and you can run banner ads on your blog. Just like Google Adsense ads, you place the code on your website for once and when your visitors click on these ads, you get paid. Along with banner ads, you can also run video ads on your blog or website.
There are chances that you could make more money with blog ad networks but it only works when your blog gets tens of thousands of visitors a month or more. While with Google ads you can start right away no matter what amount of traffic you get on your blog or website.
3. Affiliate Marketing:
Affiliate marketing makes your blog a good revenue source. By creating a blog review about your affiliate product is a great strategy to get free traffic.
One of the advantage of writing an affiliate blog is that it generates organic traffic and it brings you traffic for years to come. You do it once and it brings you sales every time a customer buys from your link. This is the value of building a blog in a profitable niche. All you have to do is create content in an engaging manner, revealing the benefits or change that the buyer will get when he purchases the product you are promoting. Sprinkle your personality over your content to make it unique.
Important: Consistency is the key and being genuine makes you appear trustworthy.
Post regularly to stay in the game. People like to get new information first. So, write articles, post videos consistently.
Timeframe: You could post per day or even three times a week would be a good start. Keep the same schedule. Otherwise, you could lose your readers. In the beginning posting content once a week would be a good start.
Remember: by providing valuable content, you create know, like and trust factor with your audience. When you create this, your followers and visitors will naturally click on your advertising and would be more likely to buy from you. During these times, people only care about authenticity.
When you provide original, unique, and in detail information, search engines like Google will start showing your site on top of the search results. This is how content marketing works.
It only takes an hour to start a blog. But it takes some time to build readership.
Pros
Extremely low start-up costs
You can work as it suits you (on your own schedule)
Cons:
Might take some time to begin making money online
Creating unique content can be time-consuming
4. Online Video:
How often do you watch a YouTube video? Or when was the last time your friend shared a YouTube video? I am sure you have watched tons of YouTube videos! This is one of the most popular search engine after Google. People often go to YouTube when they have to search about certain topic. YouTube has more than 2 billion users who spend hundreds of millions of hours watching videos each day.
By all means you can leverage YouTube’s reach to make money online. It is a great way to get niche-targeted traffic for free.
It is similar to blogging but here you will be creating a video based on useful and interesting content that people want to watch. This is a proven strategy for maximizing video views on a regular basis. It works well in a number of different niches. It could be simply a how-to video or a talking-head video on a topic that captures peoples’ attention in your niche. With this, the sky is the limit.
By creating YouTube videos, you can make money online with ad revenue.
First things first, you have to create a YouTube channel then you have to upload videos consistently. Then you enable YouTube monetization. This gives Google AdSense a green light to run ads on your YouTube channel the way you would do on your blog or website. When a viewer clicks on the ad, you get paid.
The second way you can make money with your YouTube Channel is via paid sponsorships. In this case, you build a huge following and companies pay you to promote their services or products in your vidoes.
Tips to Create Pro YouTube Videos:
You can simply use your smartphone or a simple video camera to record videos. You have to pay attention to proper lighting to make a clear and presentable video. Work on clear audio. If your video has disturbing noise or your voice is not clear, people would immediately stop watching your videos.
Use free editing software like filmora to enhance the quality and place titles to your video.
Do not over-complicate things, keep it simple. Convey useful message in a clear and interesting manner.
To get more views on your videos, share them on social media like Facebook (share in your niche-related groups and pages), Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, your blog or website.
Let people know your business exists.
Pro Tip to make money with YouTube:
If for any reason you do not want to appear on the camera, do not let this obstacle stop you from succeeding. We will show you a great tool that makes videos for you in minutes, literally in minutes. It might sound super hyped but it is not. All you have to do is copy and paste your script in this tool and it creates video for you in minutes. Its artificial intelligence selects accurate images and clips related to your script. You can add voiceover and music as well and you are good to go. With this tool you can convert your blog post into videos. You can make unlimited videos. You can create YouTube channels in two or three in demand niches and generate substantial income. You can check out this tool HERE and see if it is a good fit for you
Along with ad revenue from YouTube videos, you can also use your YouTube channel to drive traffic back to your website or blog, where visitors or potential buyers can read your product reviews or click on the ads on your website, and even get onto your email list (Remember having an email list is having traffic on tap which can make you multiple sales).
Pros
You can use your smartphone or tab to create videos.
It makes you money in several different niches
Cons
Creating content and posting videos can be time-consuming. However, this TOOL can make your life easier and roll in big revenue.
It may take some time to begin making revenue. Remember, nothing happens overnight, you have to be realistic. Once you do everything properly then nothing can stop you from making money online.
5. Information Products
Having an internet business doesn’t mean you can only sell physical products. In fact, digital products that are informative are one of the easiest and fastest ways to make money online.
There are unlimited ways to create information products, most popular formats include the following:
1. Audio: it can be in the form of a recorded teleconference, interview, course, or podcast.
2. Video: it can be a recorded or live webinar, or a how-to, and an interview. It can be in the form of coaching as well.
3. Text: it can be an ebook, an instructional booklet, or a travel guide.
You can be creative, and create engaging and interesting content in any of the above formats. It generates passive income. This means you can earn money while you sleep, jog or even attend parties. It is all set automatically. No matter what time of the day it is, once the products are placed on your website, people buy and you get paid.
Tip: Keep an eye on what products sell more, so you can create more of those.
Pros:
Once you introduce your products it generates passive income for you.
Can make you money fast
Cons:
It is little time-consuming to create a product.
You have to spend money on creating the product.
6. Freelancing:
Freelancing aka as remote working. You monetize your skills such as writing, designing, tutoring, coaching, etc.
You can go on freelance marketplaces like Fiverr or PeoplePerHour and start offering your gig. These websites have millions of visitors seeking to recruit freelancers every month.
Always remember: it takes some time to get yourself noticed as a freelancer and build credibility on these sites. Do not get disappointed if you do not get a client in the first week or two. Consistently and patience is the key to succeed as a freelancer. You need to get positive reviews to secure more projects.
How to become a remote freelancer and earn as much as you want?
1. Create your profile on Fiverr or PeoplePerHour. Why join only one platform when you can actually leverage your freelance income by joining both platforms. (recommended: create your account on both)
2. Create your gig. The gig is your service. For example, you are good at writing you can create your gig by describing your services such as ‘I will write a 500-word article for $30 or so’
3. Then you have to share your gig on social media.
4. Get clients and keep working.
Freelancing has made people millions of dollars. It is a great opportunity you can take advantage of and make money online from home.
You can work with international companies as well.
If you are a graphic designer or if you are an SEO expert, you can monetize this skill and earn as a freelancer.
Tip: Always research other freelancers like what they are offering, how they get ranked. What words they use in their description to get a fair idea of what’s going on in the market. What are in-demand services that people are paying for? Look at who is getting tons of reviews What words they use in their description to get a fair idea of what’s going on in the market.
Start by making a list of the skills you have and you think you can monetize as a freelancer.
If you have no in-demand skills, then it is perfectly fine. You can take a quick course and learn that skill.
For example, you can learn graphic designing, copywriting, influencer marketing. Most successful freelancers are the ones who actually learned the skill they are offering as a freelancer.
Once you figure out your skill. Now it’s time to find out your customers. You can use marketplaces and you can also pitch businesses and companies yourself.
How to get your first client?
You have to create a list comprising of 5-10 business owners that you know or you know people who can introduce you to the businesses. Pitching is extremely important. Pitch 10 people a day. If you do not get a response do not lose confidence. It is a numbers game; you have to pitch 10 or one person a day. As a freelancer when you pitch people you do ask for a favor rather you are providing business owners with favor because they do not have to buy you a laptop or any other thing that they provide to regular employees. It is very cost-effective for them to hire you as a freelancer.
How to set a price as a freelancer?
You can set your price depending upon your experience or the nature of the project. Do not get discouraged if your first project does not pay you your desired income. With time you can always increase your rate.
For example: if you are a content writer, you can charge per word it could be from .08 cents to .20 cents per word. You can charge for revisions as well. You can charge per project or on an hourly basis. It is up to you and how you negotiate with your client.
Once you do your first project, things become easy and get more clear. So, do not hesitate. Start your freelance career for it has ample opportunities for you to grow and earn. It gives you the freedom lifestyle you want to live.
Pros:
You are your own boss. You decide when you work (when those hours are), where you work from, what your rates are. When you go on vacation.
You also have the flexibility to work on lots of different projects. You do not need anyone’s permission because you are not bound by one team or company.
You are an independent contractor (self-employed), giving your services.
You can work with multiple businesses and companies.
Con:
Your contract can be terminated at any time.
You have to be constantly hunting work.
It can be sometimes isolating because you are on your own.
In a nutshell:
The technique to have a successful online business that generates substantial income is to make sure you opt for a profitable niche market. Follow the trends, stay up to date, be a part of discussions on different forums like Quora, Warrior Forum.
Never restrict yourself to only one business model. Always remember you limit your income when you limit yourself. Have a positive and welcoming attitude. Never hesitate to try new things.
Initially start with one income stream, develop it and then add new income streams. This will grow your revenue and ensures your financial stability. If one niche gets in crisis, you have a backup.
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