Mitrobe StaffHave you been thinking of starting an online business for years but hardly come around to take the most important first steps, or you are just looking for an extra source of income to survive the impending recession that we all know is around the corner?
In this guide, I’ll focus on a few internet-driven businesses that can be scaled. I have put together 6 online business ideas (that are out of the box) but can pay the bills for you.
Online Business Ideas that pays
1. SEO
What is SEO? SEO means Search Engine optimization. Every business, especially during the pandemic is looking for how best they can get attention and make more sales online; this is the only way any business can outdo the heated-up online competition and let the world know what we have to offer as a service or products.
The fool-proof and proven method to get the desired result is via search engines, millions of organizations and companies around the world rely on search engines to drive sales to their business, yes you can tell from the fact that the biggest search engine in the world, Google, sees around 63,000 searches every single second, and that amounts to well over 5.5 billion searches daily.
Whatever the industry or sector your business is in, there’s a lot of people who needs your product and services they are potential customers and to gain them you want to make sure that your business is strategically positioned to show up to them as often as possible in order to get to the sweet spot of the market share.
Unfortunately, most small scale businesses don’t realize how to climb ranks on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), it’s less about how popular your brand or business is, it’s possible to have plenty of customers or clients and still find your website buried in the hidden pages of search engine where no one gets to see what you have to offer.
The real secret is search engine optimization, the optimum goal of SEO is to make available online contents that are searchable, searchable is a bit complex in this context. Still, I’ll try to break it down as meaning fitting your I and crossing your Ts, to get your business to the top of the page as fast as possible.
Forty percent of Google search users only limit their clicks to the first page, in fact, most don’t even go further, basically, they believe the best and ideal results for what they are looking for in on the first page.
This is means that, if you’re able to get your business website to the top, you will attract more attention, and this means potential business opportunities for you as an entrepreneur and business owner.
There are thousands of startups sprouting up daily, and the businesses are looking for someone who has an understanding of how things work with search engine and they are willing to work with an expert who can help them scale their business online, but sadly it’s only few of these so-called SEO experts that understand how to navigate the complex world of SEO, so if you think you’ve got what it takes to help companies get their business to the first page, why not fill that void today and make some good money.
Yes! You can set aside a few hours on a weekly basis to learn SEO step by step, there thousands of guides, visors, blogs on YouTube and other places online to start learning for free.
At first when you’re just starting to learn, it may look difficult, but if you can keep going and put in the time upfront you can amass great profit and establish your professionalism down the lane, this is simply because SEO experts are constantly in demand, every business is jostling for a fair share of online attention and make some sales and they are going to definitely need someone like you.
2. Personal consultation
Businesses are looking for people who can help them manage their businesses and wealth, sometimes it’s fitness advice, or health-related, marriage, career-related advice, personal consultation is a lucrative category to start your business in 2021.
Whether you are a motivational speaker, business or fitness, a personal consultation is a very progressive and profitable business this is because in this category you’re using knowledge and experience you already acquired to help others, 9 out of 10 times, you’re tapping into your library of what you already have knowledge about and applying it for the betterment of someone else’s.
Most of the times these people know the facts, some even go as far as memorizing the tips and tricks but they are clueless on real-life application and practice, is this is where your service is required.
It can be a little bit challenging to get your consultation business off the ground but have it in mind that no one is going to pay you unless they are sure that you actually can offer what they need.
So to win them over, you’ve got to have to first prove to them how much you’re worth, to do this, you first need to create as much value as you can, show them that you have something to offer, when you give value, people will not hesitate to pay you for a good job done.
Another strategic way to get your clients interested in your service is by getting results and prices of people you have helped in the past, at first you need to worry less about making a big cheque, first set out to help someone, get as much possible positive testimonials, this you do by analyzing clients situations and hen using your professionalism to get them back on the right track, why you may not be doing it absolutely free of charge, your client doesn’t need to break the bank to pay for your service.
If you do a great job for the clients you meet, they may leave you a great testimonial which may be all that is required to make big success in your consultation business.
3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing remains one of the best ways to make money online in 2021, but only a few people has got a hold of what affiliate marketing entails.
Basically, affiliate marketing is when content marketers promote a service or product to new customers and end up making money on leads and sales from other people buying the products, the earnings from affiliate marketing is usually a piece of the pie called commission.
Each time a sales is generated as a result of the contents of the affiliate marketer they earn a small commission usually in few tens or hundreds of dollars, the big deal happens when they generate thousand of sales from promoting affiliate products, it’s possible to take in thousands if not millions of dollars overnight for promoting other people’s products. Yes! You can be earning a stable income without lifting a finger.
Affiliate marketing can be further divided into three segments, the merchants: this are entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for the quickest possible ways to get their products in front of real customers, they looking for customers and way to get their brands and products recognized and popular in their chosen industry.
Then you have the affiliates, these are online content promoters such as bloggers and webmasters, it can be a single entity or corporate body like a team, basically their own is to amass lots of traffic to the products, online traffic means awareness creation and that means business.
The super interesting thing about affiliate is, you are not limited to a single product you can go ahead and promote hundreds of products, you can move from advertising one product to another week upon week and you earn commission on all of the products you’re promoting, the more your online contents circulate and reach more potential buyers of the product the more money you make as long as the products exist and there’s an existing demand for it.
If you are a smart affiliate marketer, you can be making handsome paycheck months to months just in a short while, and that takes us to the third categorization in affiliate marketing which is the end-user or consumer.
The consumer which is the third piece of the puzzle and also the most important party in affiliate marketing are the product buyers, there’s no commission when no one is ready to buy the product, which is why the tricky thing about affiliate marketing is how well you present your products to the intending buyer, you need to be offering valuable contents that make consumers want to click and buy your affiliate products.
So to get into affiliate marketing and starting earning some good paycheck you need to have it in mind you need to be able to create awareness with quality and well-researched contents around the products you’re promoting, secondly, you need to make sure that your target audience is your biggest consideration, simply because your presentation can earn you money or make you go broke leaving you with no single sales.
If you think, you’ve got what it takes to be an affiliate marketer, why not.
4. Membership programs
Another less popular way to make a monthly stable income online is through the membership model. It works by putting up membership programs around a product or service.
You may be caching or tutoring people online, or it may be that you’re selling a product online, membership can be a brilliant to create an existing community of interested people in your product or service.
The idea is usually to give a tip of the value you’re offering for free and then use that to influence the customer to want to get the full package with more value, hence they have to pay the small membership free before they are granted access to have a peak of what’s behind the curtain, where you have packaged exclusive offers in forms of exclusive merchandise or real-time support on the products or services.
5. Informational contents
This works by turning your area of expertise into a successful business. First, you need to find what you’re good and passionate at: is it a craft, sport, whatever it is you can turn that professionalism into a successful business online, this connotes the reason why information media has been expanding year after year online, there’s no limit on what you can talk about.
If you been to YouTube, you see some of the most obscure subjects amassing huge follower-ship on the platform. Billions of people daily watch videos on niche subjects such as product designs, crafts, skills, etc which means no matter what your passion is about, there’s already a huge community of people who shares like passion, so why not leverage that by starting a YouTube channel or page on social media and start doing what you love best to do online
If entertainment isn’t like it for you, you can start making instructional content on different niches such as blogging, writing, etc.
The best part of these online business ideas is that they are stuff you can do in your spare time, you can in no time build an established fan base, become popular, and use your influence to promote brands and earn some good money.
6. Flipping Goods
Flipping goods is about retailing products, breaking bulks, and reselling to other people at a higher price which makes way for your margin. You can source your products from large markets in Nigeria, where you can get a good discount and then resell them online on Facebook, Instagram has many people now do.
You can make a good profit from this business and you don’t have to wait long to sell your products. But first, you need to carve out a niche for yourself, or at least find one you’re interested in, also you need to look at what’s selling at moment, you want to sell products that are in demand.
To find this, you can do a little research on Jumia, Konga, and other top online stores in Nigeria to uncover some fast-selling products, that can give you an idea of some of the products you can add to your retail business list.
Also, have a solidified knowledge about the product, handling, and the going rate in the market, check with different suppliers to make sure you’re getting the lowest rate possible.
Depending on your startup capital, you can also buy from International shops such as Amazon, ASOS, Aliexpress, Forever 21, and more. You can have them shipped to Nigeria by a good shipping company. For example, I have a friend who buys from the ASOS website and has them shipped to Nigeria for free by a Shipping company in Ikeja- Skynet.
Another market is the smartphone low-cost accessories market. This is a huge market because almost everyone uses a smartphone these days. There are lots of places you buy these accessories in bulk, resell online, and turn in a decent profit. From earbuds to phone covers, it’s a long list of products you can sell in this niche.
With time, as your business grows, you can create your own e-commerce website, where people can buy your products 24/7.
Why wait! Turn your passion into a lucrative business and make 2021 the year you meet online success.
mitrobe
Mitrobe Staff
