11 Online Business Ideas that works in 2024

✍️ Last modified on April 10, 2023

You’ve probably already heard people talk about the “ online business “This is the new way to make money from your computer. Even though a lot of myths exist around it, it really is possible to make a living with an internet business. 💪

In fact, it’s never been easier to get into online business, but there have never been so many different businesses. If you’re just starting out, you may have a hard time choosing between all these different configurations.

Don’t worry, we’ll show you several online business ideas that work and that you can launch quickly. These activities can either replace your existing salary or become a real empire. The choice is yours! 🔥

What is an online business?

If you hang out on the internet, you’ve probably already seen ads promising you to make easy money with an “online business“. But is this really the case?

We’ll now explain in detail how digital business works and give you some ideas of activities to start online. ⤵️

Definition and example

Online business is a fully digitalized professional activity.

Clearly, it is a company that runs entirely via the Internet. From customers to employees to the manager, all business relationships are made online. The employees are telecommuting, the products are sold on a website, etc.

Let’s take an example. 📝

If you have a website where you sell video training, it’s an online business. All transactions are done through the internet, as well as customer service and other services. And no matter where you are, you can manage this site from a computer.

Whereas if you own a restaurant for example, you will have to be physically present.

So yes, some people who own an online business have premises to house their employees. But as long as they sell only on the internet, their business is considered an online business. 💻

Why create an online business?

With the emergence of the internet, a lot of opportunities have appeared to make money from a computer. The amounts earned are sometimes substantial and the benefits are numerous. Obviously, online business is not a magic way to make money.

Most of the most successful web entrepreneurs had to work very hard. However, it is also possible to create a small business to replace your salary, starting from nothing. Or at least generate additional income online . And even with a small scale online business, you get a lot of benefits. 🤩

The main advantage of a digital business is that it can be entirely managed from a computer. So, no need to go to the office every day. You can literally work anywhere you want. As long as you have a computer and an internet connection, you will be able to earn a living.

In short, you will be geographically free. You can decide to work from home or move toa warm country with a lower cost of living and still work. Or, you can also lead a digital nomad life by traveling all year long from one country to another. 🏝️

Secondly, it is important to know that online business is the most accessible way to get started in entrepreneurship. Little investment is required and it is possible to train quickly.

On the other hand, it is also the way to have a consequent return on investment . Indeed, it is much easier to make a blog or an e-commerce take off than a restaurant for example. With an online business, you can be profitable right away, as little investment is required. Whereas with a physical business, a business usually takes several months or even years to be profitable. 💰

Let’s move on to the different online business ideas that you could implement today…

1/ Publishing of niche sites

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L’ niche site publishing consists in creating one or more websites, then monetizing them in various ways. A niche corresponds to a specific theme. By creating several “niche” sites, it is possible to create a second salary or to build a real empire on the web.

So the strategy is to create sites nested in a theme. But then, how do you get traffic to those sites? 📈

Thanks to natural referencing or SEO in English, we will be able to get qualified visitors every day, in a 100% free way. Through different optimization techniques(which we teach in our free ebook), the pages of your site will be positioned on the search engines.

In a few months, you will be able to start getting visitors. It may seem like a long time compared to advertising or other things. However, it is free traffic, but also long-term traffic. Indeed, once your site is well referenced on Google, it will not move. This way, you will get visitors every day for several years.

Okay, once you have traffic, how do you make money with your site? 🤑

It is possible to monetize your site in different ways, but we will focus on the 3 best:

Affiliation: You will recommend products and services on your site, in exchange for a commission. It’s possible to do affiliate marketing for anything from a drone on Amazon to quotes for outdoor work.

The goal here is to create a site in an affiliation niche without too much competition. To do this, you will create guide and review articles, and place an affiliate link to a product/service.

To learn more, we invite you to read our guide to affiliate marketing .

Advertising: Nothing could be simpler, here you will add advertising to your site. The advertising agency(MediaVine, Ezoic, Google Adsense) takes care of placing ads and pays you according to a cost per click. Obviously, the more visitors you have on your blog, the more money you can earn.

Link selling: In this strategy, you will create sites on competitive SEO topics.

Why? 🤔

Simply because all the actors of these themes will want to buy a link on your site. Thanks to this link, they will increase their popularity and notoriety with Google, in order to rise in the search results ranking.

There are different platforms for selling links such as Nextlevel Rocketlinks, Semjuice and others.

Depending on the power of your site, i.e. its number of visits, referring domains and others, you can sell a link more or less expensive.

If you want to sell links, we invite you to create sites in these bankable themes:

• Casino 🎰
• CBD 🌿
• Psychic 🔮
• Work 🔨
• Insurance / Banking 🏦
• Dating 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👨
• Travel 🏖️

Who is this business for?

The site edition is suitable if you have notions or wish to train yourself in natural referencing. It is also a more passive business and easy to scale. So, you can either create a site to just make a living from it, or repeat the action over and over to have an empire of websites. 🤩

It’s also good if you don’t know what to do on the internet. In fact, with website publishing, you will learn multiple skills that are in demand on the web. In particular the natural referencing and the creation of sites. So, if you want to train in these areas, a stint in website publishing is a must.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Learn several skills(website creation, SEO, digital marketing, etc.)

✅ Passive income in most monetization strategies

✅ Ability to scale very quickly to create a big business

Disadvantages:

❌ Investment needed to create your first site

❌ Quite long results

2/ E-commerce

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The e-commerce sector is becoming an increasingly important part of everyday life. And even though large e-tailers such as Amazon or eBay dominate the market, many consumers like to order from small merchants.

Today, launching an e-commerce is within everyone’s reach. With a CMS like Shopify or WordPress, you will be able to create an online store easily. What we recommend is to create your e-commerce with WordPress and Woocommerce. Simply because it’s free. 🆓

So, all you need is a web hosting and a domain name(72€/year with o2switch ).

You can also market boxes by subscription, a business strategy that has been successful in recent years. The concept is simple. You will deliver a box every month/quarter/semester to your subscribers. Generally, the boxes are going to be specialized in a theme, like wine, health, wellness, local products, etc. 🎁

⚠️ We do not include in e-commerce dropshipping, business that consists in selling without stock, delegating the delivery to Aliexpress, Wish or others. In our opinion, dropshipping is not a real online business that generates money in the long run.

Who is this business for?

To be honest, anyone can create their own e-commerce. You just need to have an idea of products to sell and know how to create an online store. If you like the relationship with the customers, this business is ideal.

Managing an e-commerce requires more versatility. Indeed, you will have to manage the stock, the packaging, but also the advertising, the marketing and the referencing of the store, etc.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Ability to deliver anywhere in the world

✅ Little investment to create your online store

✅ You don’t depend on any other platform or company

Disadvantages:

❌ Requires stock

❌ Obligation to have an after-sales service

3/ Becoming a freelancer

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The easiest online activity that does not require any financial investment is surely becoming a freelancer. In other words, you are simply going to propose services, by beingself-employed (auto-entrepreneur). On the internet, there are many ways to offer your services as a freelancer. 🖥️

There are platforms for connecting freelancers and professionals. On this type of platform, you will be able to offer your services and find customers. Many freelancing platforms are reliable like Fiverr 5euros.com, Malt, UpWork, etc.

What jobs can you do as a freelancer? 🤔

In fact, you can offer any kind of service. Obviously, the demand is going to be much higher in some areas than in others. Here are the top freelance jobs:

• Graphic designer(creating thumbnails, book covers, logos, etc.) 🎨
• Editor ✍️
• Voice over 🎤
• Website creation 🌐
• Video editing 🎬
• Community Manager 📱

Once you have trained in a trade, you can offer your services by canvassing professionals or by registering on platforms. If you’re just starting out, the best way is through freelancing platforms. This way, you can easily find your first customers. However, the platform takes a small commission on your sales.

Who is this business for?

Becoming a freelancer is the most accessible activity on the internet. Also, you don’t need a lot of skills to get started. You can train quickly and start making money within a few weeks.

As long as you want to work from home, being a web freelancer is ideal for you!

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Opportunity to have income quickly

✅ Ease of training

✅ Short, medium or long term assignments depending on your preference

Disadvantages:

❌ Limited hourly rate

❌ Difficulty in finding clients in certain themes

4/ Doing online coaching

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In the past, coaching was only available in the sports world. And while this sector continues to dominate the coaching world, coaches can now be found in any field. All 100% online. Coaching sessions are done by video conference, alone or in groups.

Here again, there are themes where the demand for coaching is stronger than others:

• Nutrition / Sport 🥊
• Personal Development 💊
• Personal Finance 💸
• Development / Programming 💻
• Seduction 💋
• Management / Leadership 👔

We won’t lie to you, becoming a coach is not for everyone. Simply because you need to have real expertise in a field. If you want to become a dream salesman by offering get rich in 2 days coaching, you may be disappointed.

What students look for in a coach is the ability to teach and deliver relevant advice, but also expertise. So, if you feel like teaching and have experience in a field, you can offer your coaching services.

Finding customers is a little more complicated. There is no platform to connect students and coaches. In order to succeed in selling online coaching, it is imperative to have an audience(blog, YouTube channel, account on social networks, etc.)

In terms of the different types of coaching, we find individual and collective coaching.

👉 O ne-on-one coaching is a high-end service, where you’ll be providing personalized follow-up to a student. Obviously, this type of mentoring is quite expensive.

👉 Bundled coaching is much more affordable in terms of pricing. Here you will group several students who have a common goal. In this type of coaching, the follow-up will not be personalized. Sessions are generally question and answer and advice based on the students’ situation.

Who is this business for?

If you have expertise in a field and love to teach, becoming a coach is for you.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Very low expenses and high margins

✅ Easier to find clients than “physical” coaching

✅ Possibility to modulate one’s schedule easily

Disadvantages:

❌ Difficult to scal

❌ Income limited to the number of clients and coaching hours you can perform

5/ Amazon KDP

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Amazon Kindle direct publishing is a service founded by the American giant to self-publish a book. In short, it allows you to create an ebook or a paper book and sell it on e-commerce. For each sale, you get a “royalty“, which corresponds to 35% or 70% of the turnover according to certain criteria.

The big plus of Amazon KDP and why it dominates the self-publishing market is that it takes care of everything. It is indeed the American company that takes care ofprinting your book, but also manages delivery, VAT collection, etc. 📕

You just have to write your book on a word processor. Then you’ll need to use the Amazon Kindle Create software(free) to format it. You will also be able to choose the type of paper for printing as well as the dimensions, colors and other.

Once everything is ready, Amazon provides you with an ISBN number. Obviously, you won’t be able to sell your book anywhere but Amazon.

To make money with Amazon KDP, there are two main strategies:

👉 Low content: it consists of selling notebooks at a fairly low price. These are blank notebooks, where buyers can take notes. Their particularity is that they will be customized for an occasion or a niche.

Examples: notebook for young parents, recipe book, diet journal, etc.

👉 The High content: In contrast, here you will write informational ebooks of about 100 pages. It is also possible to write novels, but it will be much longer and not necessarily profitable. The goal of high content is to write an ebook about a particular niche.

Once again, some themes sell more than others:

• Travel 🛩️
• Personal Finance 💰
• Personal Development 💊
• Nutrition 🍎
• Wellness 🧘
• Spirituality ♐

Who is this business for?

If you have a good pen or you like to write, this business is clearly for you. But contrary to popular belief, it is not enough to simply write. You will also have to spend time researching, finding niches and promoting your books.

It’s also a business you can take much further if you want to. By delegating the creation of books and training yourself in Amazon Ads, you can generate tens of thousands of dollars per month with Amazon KDP.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ No investment required

✅ Ability to write in any theme, or sell notebooks(no writing skills required).

✅ Automatic income from referral on Amazon

Disadvantages:

❌ Quite long results(possibility to have faster returns with Amazon advertising)

6/ Becoming an Influencer

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Becoming an influencer is now much more accessible. No need to be on a reality show anymore, you can now make a name for yourself through the power of social media. And to make a living as an influencer, you don’t have to have millions of followers. 📲

If you have an audience in a selling theme, you can already claim to generate income. At the beginning, it is better to specialize in a theme. It will be much easier to develop an audience. But again, some niches will allow you to monetize your audience more easily.

For example, if you have an Instagram account about dolphins, it’s going to be hard for paid partnerships. No, it’s best to go into a low-competition niche, where you’ll be flooded with partnership requests. 🤑

Themes where it is easier to monetize an audience are cryptocurrency, travel,entrepreneurship,investing, fortune telling, wellness, bodybuilding and others.

However, being an influencer does not only mean doing product placements. Because once you have a qualified audience, you can earn money through different means. Partnerships are indeed the easiest, but you can also do affiliation or create your own brand.

Who is this business for?

If you’re not afraid to show your face on social media and love creating content, becoming an influencer may be for you. Obviously, this job also requires versatility. You will need to be able to manage your social networks, create quality content, etc.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Ability to acquire an audience in any topic

✅ Different monetization strategies

✅ Little investment required

Disadvantages:

❌ As an influencer, you become a public figure

7/ Create a YouTube channel

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One of the best businesses to start on the internet is surely to create a YouTube channel. In fact, with advertising alone, you can make a living if your videos get enough views.

Be careful, we are not talking about creating a YouTube channel to make entertainment videos, for several reasons.

👉 First, it is very difficult to monetize this type of audience, as it is not very qualified. To get a 5-figure product placement, you’ll already have to have a big YouTube channel.

👉 Secondly, it will be almost impossible to compete with the big Youtubers already out there. Unless you have the ability to create high quality videos with popular guests.

No, what it takes to break through on YouTube is to focus on a theme. With a small YouTube channel specializing in cryptocurrency, for example, you can expect to earn as much as a youtuber with hundreds of thousands of views.

Why the difference? 🤔

We come back to what we said above. The more qualified the audience of a channel is and the more it is situated in a “selling” theme, the more important the advertising revenues will be. Thus, the cost per click of an ad will be much higher on a channel specialized in crypto than on a channel about the history of pandas.

So, with a “medium” size YouTube channel in a bankable theme(business, travel, casino, bodybuilding, etc.), you can largely earn thousands of euros. 🤑

However, we recommend that you start a YouTube channel in a theme that you like. Otherwise, you risk being demotivated. However, you will have to think from the beginning about how to monetize your channel, so that you don’t depend only on advertising revenues.

Who is this business for?

If you are fluent and love creating video content, this business is for you!

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Learn multiple skills(graphic design, video editing, writing, framing, etc.)

✅ Ability to engage in any theme

✅ Multiple sources of monetization

Disadvantages:

❌ Requires investment(microphone, camera, editing software)

8/ Hosting a Podcast

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The podcast industry has literally exploded in the last few years, and the phenomenon is not about to stop. It is now possible to make a living from your podcasts, without needing a huge audience.

You can find podcasts on any topic, but again, some topics attract more than others:

• News 📰
• Sport 🏃‍♂️
• Personal Finance 💸
• Personal Development 💊
• Parenting 🍼
• Ecology ♻️
• Mode 👠
• Nutrition 🍌
• Feminism 🚺
• Entrepreneurship 👩‍💼

But in reality, you can create a podcast in any theme and be successful.

To publish your podcasts, there are specialized hosts. In other words, these hosts will be in charge of storing your audio content, then broadcasting it on streaming platforms(Deezer, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.).

By publishing podcasts regularly, you can quickly get a qualified audience. But once a lot of people are listening to your podcast, how do you make money?

That’s where podcast hosting platforms come in. Indeed, in addition to broadcasting podcasts, these platforms also offer several monetization strategies.

👉 Via the most famous podcast hosts(Buzzsprout, Lisbyn, Podbean, etc.), you’ll be able to easily monetize your podcasts. It will be possible to add advertising, to do “ sponsorship “or to create private podcasts, accessible by subscription.

So, if you have an audience, you can easily generate revenue from your podcast. The podcast can also be a gateway to diversify its acquisition sources(social networks, YouTube channel, blog, etc.).

Who is this business for?

As long as you have a microphone and are interested in creating audio content, putting together a podcast can be interesting. Again, you don’t have to be an expert to talk about a topic. Instead, listeners appreciate authentic speech and a podcaster they can relate to.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Possibility to create a podcast in all themes

✅ All-in-one platforms accessible to record, edit and distribute your podcast

✅ Several streaming platforms on which to broadcast

✅ Very easy to monetize with podcast hosts

Disadvantages:

❌ Requires a financial investment(microphone, audio recording software, etc.)

9/ Selling infoproducts

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An infoproduct is simply an information product, in the form of a video, PDF or other. Typically, an infoproduct will be a video training or an informational PDF. It is possible to sell infoproducts in any theme, but some are more selling than others:

• Seduction 💋
• Personal finance and investment 🏦
• Health / Wellness 🌿
• Survivalism ☢️
• Spirituality ♐

To create a 10-hour video training course, you need to have real skills. Otherwise, you risk not being credible to the customer, or simply destroying your reputation if your content is not of high quality.

However, to create informational content in PDF form, you don ‘t need to be an expert. By spending time writing and researching, you can largely create a quality infoproduct on a topic. Obviously, the selling price will not be the same.

Once you have your infoproduct, you have to sell it. 💳

To do this, you have several options:

• Advertising: Buy advertising on Facebook Ads, Pinterest Ads, Google ads and others. Here you can earn money quickly, but you will have to invest money for advertising.
• Organic traffic: Thanks to a blog, a YouTube channel or others, you can get free customers. Organic traffic is free, so you can increase your margins. On the other hand, it takes much longer to develop an audience.
• Affiliation: Affiliates will promote your infoproduct, in exchange for a portion of your sales. You can also sell very quickly, but this lowers your margins.

The big plus of this business is that once the infoproduct is created, you can sell it endlessly. So, no risk of having too much or too little stock! 💪

Who is this business for?

As long as you have special skills or are willing to spend time learning about a subject, this business may be right for you. Selling infoproducts requires a bit more budget, but it is also possible to sell without buying ads.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Large margins

✅ Ability to sell in any theme

✅ Fast return on investment

Disadvantages:

❌ More difficult to scal

❌ No passive income

10/ Vinted buy and sell

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You probably know Vinted, the Lithuanian company that allows you tobuy and sell second hand clothes. This platform is often used to earn some money by selling the clothes you don’t wear anymore. But, it is possible to make a real business out of it. 🤝

Indeed, buying/reselling or reselling on Vinted is a very popular business at the moment. Its operation is simple, it is enough tobuy clothes and shoes less expensive and to resell them by making a margin. So, you have to find “bargains” regularly.

To be a good reseller, you must also Surfing on the trends. By buying cheaply an old fashioned product, which will come back in fashion in a certain time and will sell for more. Rest assured, all it takes is some education to learn how to dig up good deals every day. 💪

Buying and selling can easily generate a few hundred euros per month. To do this, you will have to search for at least one hour a day for products at low prices. But if you spend more time on it, you can also make a real living.

Who is this business for?

If you like the contact with people and you are interested in fashion in general, this type of business can suit you. It is especially an activity to start with very little budget!

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Little investment needed(about 100€)

✅ Quick Results

✅ Possibility of scaling to create a big business

Disadvantages:

❌ You’ll have to manage the delivery, which means dropping your packages off at Mondial Relay regularly

❌ Need to have a way to store clothing and shoes.

11/ Closing

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Telephone closing has been around for decades, but only became popular on the internet a few years ago. The objective is the same, to call prospects to convince them tobuy products/services. The demand for closing has exploded, especially since the emergence of online training and coaching. 📞

Because these training programs are often very expensive, they are also difficult to sell. To increase their conversion rate, some infopreneurs use “closers“. In and of itself, they will ask their prospects if they would like to be called back by a member of their team.

On the phone, the future customer can ask questions to the closer. Then, the seller will propose a suitable solution and if he succeeds in making a sale, he will receive a commission. Generally, this commission will be 10 to 30%. 🤝🏻

Knowing that a closer is most of the time in charge of selling trainings at several thousands of euros, the amount of commissions can quickly become important.

But here again, it is possible to push the closing much further. Once you have the skills and the network, you can create a closing agency, for example.

Who is this business for?

If you are comfortable speaking and are willing to learn about sales, this job is clearly for you.

Advantages and disadvantages

Benefits:

✅ Significant compensation

✅ Almost no charge(other than a phone and a mobile plan)

✅ Get trained in sales, for a chance to move into sales positions

Disadvantages:

❌ Fairly unstable compensation: if you can’t sell, you won’t get paid

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Now you know the different online businesses that work and that can allow you to leave your job quickly. Our advice is to choose the online business that suits you best according to your desires and resources(time + money).

Then you have to stick with it and persevere. The goal is not to change business every week. If that’s the case, you won’t get visible results because the effort put in will be insufficient. 😔

If we had to recommend you only one business, it would be without hesitation the publishing of niche sites. We believe this is the business with the most benefits and the highest return on investment, while being low risk. Publishing niche sites also allows you to generate passive income which is not possible with most other activities.

To learn more about site editing, we invite you to download our free ebook. You will learn how to find a niche and reference a site to build an empire on the web. If you want to start generating your first money without any investment, you know what you have to do! ⤵️