This section is about making your dream “of having an online business” come true…
Starting an online business is much more affordable than starting a brick and mortar type business…

Compared to a retail business, an Internet business start-up and overhead are so low. At the beginning you only need some cash for hosting, domain name and advertisement. In contrast a retail business or a franchise needs lots of up-front & on-going cash that the average person cannot afford.

So here is an updated list of online business ideas you can investigate and see if it fit your taste & lifestyle…

I will list every business I try or search here…(Updated Weekly)

1) Online Tutor

With the advanced software & hardware today, it’s easy to communicate better online with audio & video.
If you have a special skill in anything ( & I mean anything…) you can start an online tutoring business. Many people will happily pay for a service like this to teach them something they need to know badly. If you know math, languages, or even any hobby you can show people how by a step by step tutoring course.

What you need is a website, with some free info that shows that you know the subject well, and you can offer several levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced) at different prices.

You can communicate using email, web cams or recorded videos…
Take some time to learn the technology first, and may be you can offer a free service for the first couple of customers and learn from your mistakes…

2) Online Antique Dealer

This is a simple idea, you buy old stuff (it’s better to be very old) and sell them online. When it comes to selling “old stuff”, there is no better way than using “EBay”. You can use EBay not only to sell your antiques but also to find antiques and then either keep them for a while or just flip them right away.

You should know a little about antiques but you can always learn a lot from other people, one trick you can do is to check as many antique ads in your area and go chat with the antique owner, believe me you will learn a lot. You can also build your own antiques inventory by going to garage sales and flea markets, you’ll be surprised by finding many valuable stuff that their owner don’t know their value.

You can also specialize in just 1 or couple of popular antiques, you should learn this from inspecting popular antiques sold on EBay.

3) Niche E-Zine Publisher

This is a great online business, I’ve seen several Internet Entrepreneurs switched from selling their own products to focusing on their E-Zine list. You’ll have a higher degree of success if you focus on a subject that you are familiar with and above all it is not covered by many other E-Zines. Your E-Zine can by either weekly or bi-weekly.

The subscription should be completely Free and supported by few advertisement. The other monetization is by having joint venture with other similar products companies that you can recommend to your readers.

To get readers to your list you need an opt-in page where reader sign-in to your E-zine and you should direct all your online marketing effort to this opt-in page. To encourage people to sign-in, you should offer them a bribe like a free special report or a software that is related to the niche.

4) Affiliate Marketer

Online affiliate marketing is a huge business. Affiliates are the power of online sales, as a proof, look how many big companies had included affiliate programs into their online sales strategy.

If you’ve a background on direct marketing you’ll find good success with affiliate marketing. Selling online is definitely a skill that can be learned. You don’t have to learn the technical side of the business like web design and programming, but you should know the basic like setting up blogs, PPC advertising and how the process of sales works. It’s a rewarding business and sometimes your share is higher than the merchant himself.

Diversification is the secret to stay in business as general, this is also true when it comes to an affiliate business. It’s better to focus on a niche that can be expanded vertically which means a niche that have many sub-niches (ex: Finance has many sub-niches like home loan, car loan, credit cards, investment, family budget, forex, online trading, student loan and hundreds other sub-niches…)

5) Web Content Writer

As a web content writer you can work as an online freelance writer. Online companies understand that content is king and they are willing to hire lots of help to build their sites with interesting articles and news. You don’t have to be tied with any specific company and you can work with several companies at the same time. You can also choose the job that fits your time and skills.
The Internet makes the freelance jobs easy to find. There are popular websites dedicated to just matching website owners with freelance writers. Elance.com, Scriptlance.com and Guru.com are some of the popular places to find freelance jobs. These websites work on project bidding which means the website owners submit projects and writers bid on these projects. It’a great Internet business ideas if you like writing.

6) Web Marketing Specialist

As a Web marketer your job is to help organizations by marketing their websites either in organic search or paid search marketing. Online marketing is a new field that most marketing directors don’t know much about and most small and medium companies are trying to get a presence online. SEO or PPC marketing is a skill that you can learn easily. Some of the tasks that you will be doing are building links, keyword research, testing & tracking, meta tag optimisation and writing ads. You can start by marketing your own blog or website as a practice and once you’re confident enough you can start offering your service to other companies.