The secret to starting a profitable and successful small business
online is to get customers and clients as quickly as
possible.
Like seedlings in a forest have to grow quickly to compete for
limited sunlight, so online small business startups have to aggressively find
new customers and clients to compete for sales and revenue.
This article will share 5 great small business ideas that can make
money online and, hopefully, become profitable as quickly as possible.
Top 5 small business ideas to make money online
While all businesses need a flow of income to sustain them,
initially, your small business idea will need to make money online quickly –
just to survive.
Once you have picked a startup idea, it is important that you:
· get up and running quickly
· create focused, high converting content and landing pages
· advertise and market aggressively
For each of the small business ideas presented below, I’ll also
provide you with some background reading, advice and links to the products,
tools and services you will need in order to get started.
You might want to learn a bit more about starting an online
business by reading:
1. Hyper niche eCommerce store
Setting up and running an online store is easier than you think.
If you know a lot about a focused niche (it could be anything from nail
clippers to fighter jets), then you stand a good chance of being
able to dominate the search engines, and market intelligently to your audience.
Not only are there great online store builders available, but
there are also drop-shipping companies that can manage logistics and delivery
on your behalf. All you have to do is sell.
Get started
To learn more about how drop-shipping works, read How to start a small business with
drop shipping eCommerce.
Next:
1.
Choose your niche market
and products
2.
Choose a quality
drop-shipper like WorldWideBrands, or
3.
Quickly build an
eCommerce store using a well known, high quality shopping cart builder
2. Mobile payment collector
Almost any business owner will regale you of stories of how
difficult it is to collect payments from customers, clients and other
businesses. A lot of the time, payments aren’t forthcoming simply because it is
inconvenient for people to get it done – it’s not a priority.
There’s now technology that allows you to accept mobile payments
on your iPhone, or other mobile device. Why not start a payment collection agency in your town?
Alternatively, offer businesses the facility to handle mobile
payments if, as and when they have occasion to do so.
To make money, take a cut of each transaction, or charge a
membership fee.
Get started
There’s not much to this small business in terms of setup. Your
main obstacle will be meeting business owners and establishing your service. A
blog, and online marketing should form an integral part of your overall
marketing (i.e. door to door, flyers, etc):
1.
Get mobile eCommerce
facilities using Intuit’s Gopayment
2.
Build a website to market your business online
3. Free software trials and promotions
There are a lot of software companies that need to generate new
business. They are often happy to offer promotions and discounts in order to
generate buzz for their products and services.
In addition, many software companies are moving their software to
the cloud and offering it as SaaS (Software as a Service). Why not start a blog
or website that tracks and promotes great deals, free trials and free software?
Get started
1.
Pick a niche (i.e. games, accounting software, small business software, etc)
2.
Create a professional blog and write plenty of great content
What’s nice about this business is that often there are free
trials for the software you are about to review – this makes life a lot easier
than having to buy it first.
Check out Top free trials, software &
services for business for ideas on how to get
started.
4. Local listings directory & service
Many businesses do not make an effort to ensure that their local
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and local data are properly implemented.
But, rather than trying to compete directly with Google Places for business, why not offer a directory
service that also provides a local SEO boost by completing
business listings in all applicable directories, as well as your
own.
Charge businesses for a listing in your directory and the SEO service of updating and managing their
local listing and SEO. This is a great way to earn a sustained income as you
can charge an annual amount for maintaining clients’ listings.
Get started
2.
Research all local
listing options such as Google places, yellow pages, local directories
3.
Market your business
offering online and offline
5. Guest blog & convert
There are a lot of guest bloggers looking to place their content
on other websites. By offering guest bloggers a link back to their website, and
possibly some other social backlinks (Hint: check out the author bio
at the bottom of this page), you can encourage people to write
original content for your blog.
Creating content is one of the hardest parts about building an
online business, so using guest bloggers is a great way to build it up. Your
job then becomes editing for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and working out
the best way to generate revenue from that content (i.e.
Google AdWords, direct advertising, affiliate links, etc).
While, it’s not hard to set up your blog, it is a bit harder to
learn SEO and how to make money from online content.
Get started
2.
Advertise for guest
posts on your blog, and on sites like Craigslist
3.
Learn about SEO and Internet marketing
There are my top 5 small business ideas to make money online. Are
you going to try one? If so, tell us how it goes. Alternatively, add your own
ideas and suggestions for small business startups with an online focus in the
comments.
By David Mercer. Article source:
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