The 12 best online business to start 2021

The internet now has thousands of business opportunities, starting a business used to be hard work and expensive to put together, but now with an internet connection, a laptop, a tablet or a smartphone you can start an online business with little capital and less work.

First, let us look at the common questions people ask when starting an online business.

How easy is it to start an online business?

Online businesses are simple and not expensive to start, unlike a traditional business, starting a new business online requires less risky investment and time. We have seen time without numbers where people start their online business with just $100.

Can I start an online business on my own?

Yes, you can start an online business on your own, with the content management system (C.M.S) such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. You can design a fairly excellent website on your own using themes and plugins. You can also start and design your E-commerce store with Shopify on your own. You can get this all done under a few hours.

Do I need to hire staff for my online business?

You need not hire anyone, you can run everything yourself depending on how small you want to keep the business and how much time you want to put into it, but if there are technical or any other skills you need and you are not good at it, you can outsource freelancers on Fiverr and Upwork for a smaller amount to get the job done.

How many hours do I need to spare for my online business to be successful?

You can start by working only on weekends or just spare 40 hours per week, you can work on your online business only on your spare time, but this depends on the online business, if you run a dropshipping business you would be more likely to fulfill the customer’s orders every day or answer customer questions.

Do I need to learn everything before starting my online business?

You need to learn the basics of what you are going into, as the Ceo, you will wear many hats, such as digital marketing, Sales, SEO and many more, but just the basics can set you on the right track, you can learn more while running the business.

What if I have a 9-5, do I need to quit my job before starting an online business?

You need not quit your 9 to 5 job to start an online business, however; We have seen a situation whereby many folks left their 9 to 5 to go full time into their Internet business after making a profit. Note: If you have any more questions we haven’t answered, you can ask them on the comment below, we would be happy to answer them. Here is our list of 12 best online business to start in 2020; that will get you into digital entrepreneurship

1. Blogging

Becoming a blogger is the first best online business to start this year. You can build a blog around a specific topic or niche and people would know you as an expert in that niche. All you need for your blog to be successful is to keep writing quality content constantly, be patient as it would take time before you see the result of blogging. The money from blogging comes when the traffic comes in and when your content ranks on Google’s first page. Starting a blog is easy and less expensive. All you need is a domain and hosting you can get that from Bluehost or Namecheap for under $100. Success from blogging won’t come that easily or quickly unless you are a public figure or a celebrating. Produce a lot of content to generate a steady stream of income from your blog.

How do you make money blogging?

You can make money from your blog in unique ways, these are the 5 common ways to make money blogging.

• Selling ad space – You can make money by selling ad space on your website, you can make $50 to $200 for a single ad, per month, depending on how much traffic your website market.
• Sponsored posts – When your website gets a certain amount of traffic, you will get lots of sponsors offers from businesses that want to target your niche audience. You can make a decent amount of money from sponsored posts.
• Selling your product or services – Selling your product is one of the best ways to make money on your website, you can sell a physical and digital product to your audience, it is your website so why shouldn’t you sell your product.
• Affiliate partnership – You can sign-up for affiliate programs in your target niche and make money from the product or services you recommend. So, if you blog about a smart home product, you can join the Amazon affiliate partnership and refer smart home products to your visitors and earn commissions from every sale.
• Google and other ads network – Google Adsense and other ads network by adding ads to match your site based on your content and visitors. Advertisers pay this ad network to promote their product, those ads networks pay you to promote the advertiser’s product, but you need to have a lot of traffic to make money from this. Google Adsense is the most widely used. You can still find others like Media.net, Bidvertiser, Propeller Ads and many more.

Type of blog you can start

• Tutorial (How-To) Blog – Are you good at something you can start an online tutorial blog and teach people?
• Review Blog – Buy a product and write a full review of that product. 91% of people read reviews before they purchase.
• Entertainment Blog – Are you good at Memes or do you know how to have fun, you can start writing about entertainment kinds of stuff.
• Information Blog – Everyone loves information, this is the most common type of blogging out there, political information, latest news, celebrity news and many more.
• Educational Blog – People love to grow and learn. You can start writing about educational topics, Educate people on religion, books, how to start a business or a specific niche.

• Easy to start
• You can start with a minimum of $100.
• It takes time to make actual money.
• Produce lots of content to generate money.
• You need the traffic to be successful.
• Require a few hours a week to run the online business

Affiliate Marketing

You don’t want to create your products or services. You can earn a commission by promoting other people’s products and services. We divide affiliate marketing into 2 categories.

• Digital / Information Product or Services – Promoting or recommending products like ebooks, online courses, videos, online services, and membership sites, digital products or services, affiliate marketing can earn you up to 75% commission on every sale.
• Physical product – Promoting and recommending a physical product such as smart home devices, clothes, shoes, dentist services, accounting services. The physic product earns little sales commission, but if you can get many people to buy whatever you are promoting, you can make a pleasant stream of income with this.

• Easy to start
• Some affiliate programs might require sign-up fees
• Low commission on physical product
• Need people to buy to earn

Online Coaching/Consulting

Are you an expert in certain areas or topics in life? You can bring all your knowledge online and start a coaching business, for example, Online Yoga coach, life coach, health coach, small business coach, coach people how to become a better speaker, etc.

• High stream of income
• An influencer in your niche or topic
• They might need a testimonial and case study.
• Schedule working hours (set your own time to work with a client)

Selling Online Courses

If you have a blog or a coaching business chance are you can easily sell an online course on your niche, well if you don’t, you can start selling an online course on topics you have experience on, for example, the course on how to teach the single mother how to care for their children all by themselves, How to start a business course, grow your business course, etc. Chances are, you can sell any course you want. Look around you. What do you think you are good at that you can teach others? Why not start today?

• Lots of services or application to put together a course
• Very passive income
• Experience or expertise in the niche and topic is needed

Social Media Influencer

This business is hot! Hot! Hot! Category. Do you have tons of followers on social media? Well, this business is for you, we call it “the get paid for living your life” it comes with lots of free things and sponsorship. You get paid to sponsor other business products and services. You might need to pick a specific niche and grow your social media account, you don’t have to be on all the social networks you can just pick one and grow it. Post nice and quality pictures.

• Get paid to live your life.
• Influencer means more business opportunities.
• You need tons of followers, and that doesn’t come by easily.
• Quality content on your social media network.

Social Media Manager

Lots of business and influencers are busy with other work-related stuff or personal life stuff, and their online presence always matters to them. This is where you come in you can help them manage their social media account while they take care of other things. I always sign an agreement and disclosure is always in this business, which means you don’t steal their content or followers, just post, comment, reply to the messages and engage with their audience.

• Cost nothing to start.
• You will need social media knowledge.
• Requires time to manage

Virtual Assistant

Running a business is not an uncomplicated thing to do, we all need help from time to time. Most startups or small businesses cannot pay a full-time salary so they outsource virtual assistants to help perform some task. As a virtual assistant, you can work with anybody from anywhere, as long as you have an active Wi-Fi connection and a laptop or computer. How much you can make as a VA depends on your experience and expertise. This is one of the fastest growing online businesses out there. People outsource for any task, for example, web designing, paying bills, travel arrangements, accounting services, etc.

• Experience and expertise in the niche are needed.
• Easy to start (registration to VA site are free, they only take commissions per every gig)
• You can work with anybody in the world.
• Set your price.

YouTuber/ Vlogger

If you enjoy being on camera, then becoming a Vlogger is a great online business for you to start. YouTube is the 2nd most search engine in the world and the largest video hosting platform. You can create your YouTube channel and make a steady stream of income from advertising, sponsorship, and deals. Becoming a YouTuber is all about creating quality and meaningful video content. You can create and edit videos yourself with software like Filmora, or you can outsource a freelancer to do it for you. You need a good camera, starting with your phone is a wonderful idea, but you want to make sure the camera quality is good. You need to pick a niche or topic to talk about, for example, gadget review, tech channels, anything you love to talk about.

• Video content.
• Takes time to be an expert in your niche.
• It requires quality equipment and software.
• The cost of equipment to start is expensive.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is one of the best online businesses you can start today. You can create a dropping shipping business today and start earning today too. You just need to bring in traffic with Ads. Create your online e-commerce store and display the product, set your price, and let the dropping company handle the shipping and package. The major benefit of having a dropshipping business is that you need not buy stock and lose money if it doesn’t sell, and the starting rick is less.

• You need not own the product.
• Set your price.
• Worldwide sales.
• Branding and full ownership control.
• Minimum investment.
• It requires time to maintain.

Podcasting

The podcast industry is trending right now in the United States, a recent statistic by Convince and Convert says “32% of Americans Listen to Podcasts Monthly“. Having your podcast show is like having a personal radio channel, and you can make a good stream of income from promoting, partnership, sponsorship, advertisement, and affiliate marketing on your podcast show You need to find a topic that is interesting, making your podcast show unique is very important. You can produce the podcast daily, weekly, or monthly.

• Excellent speaking skills.
• Knowledge in topic or niche.
• Good podcasting equipment can be expensive.
• Gaining trust and authority takes time.

SaaS

SaaS is a hot online business, not as almost every software is moving to the cloud, you need not install the software to use it. While this category requires technical skills if you have the technical skills you can build it yourself or hire a developer, to do it for you or better still you can head on to Flippa and buy an already made business, some of those businesses listed there are already earning money.

• Can generate passive income
• Expensive to build
• Requires time to maintain

Amazon FBA Business

Amazon lets you list your product on its website and does all the hard work for you from sales to product delivery. Millions of people shop on Amazon, so it is an effortless way to get customers to use your product fast. For those who are new to Amazon FBA, the FBA stands for “Fulfillment by Amazon” all you have to do is sign up on the Amazon FBA program and send your product to their warehouse and let them take care of the hassle and bustle of your business.

• High risk in investment if the product doesn’t sell
• Amazon charges both storage fees and fulfillment fees
• You may get returns from customers.
• Multi-channel fulfillment.

Conclusion

The online business is emerging, so it’s time to start your own online business. The most important thing to remember when starting your online business is that the business idea must be well thought out and accompanied by business and market analysis. It doesn’t matter if you have the skills or not. You can learn whatever business you want to start today.

We are curious, leave a comment below. We would love to know what type of online business you have or planning to start.