There are many no cost things that can be done with a computer and internet connection to generate money and grow into a business. What is true for life is also true on the web. You get what you give. There is no one, sure fire way to generate income by doing nothing but sign up for a website. There are no get-rich-quick schemes that work with no effort. Having said that, there are a variety of tools on the web that are free to use that can help you generate income and track it.
First, you should decide on your interests. Do you have a hobby? Are you a fiend for books, sports or music? Identify your interests aside from making money. This will hopefully become a passion and it is far easy to be inspired to keep up work on something you are passionate about rather than simply working to generating a check.
Second, do your market research. Ideally you want to find something that has broad appeal, but then narrow it down to a very small distinct niche. If you don’t do this, you are competing with many more players online and your income will be diluted. Be creative. Someone made a million dollars by selling 1,000 tiny ads for $100 each on his site. The only thing his site showed when you got there was a bunch of patchwork postage stamp ads. His story is what drove the traffic to the site and it came to be considered a stroke of brilliance as well as artwork. He was able to segue that into posters, post cards and a lot of free press. You can bet this college student put some time into landing those small ads, but he made a million dollars. Not many college students can say the same.
Here are some business ideas that take little to no start up costs:
RESALE
- Resell a product. There are manufacturers and distributors who drop ship product for customers. This means you carry no inventory and when you have an order, you send it to your source who then sends it directly to your customer. Usually companies will charge a fee to you, such as $5, for drop ship. You can also sign up with Amazon and build yourself a store. Be sure to also offer content, not just product. This will enhance traffic and keep people coming back.
- Resell information. This would be in the form of eBooks, books, booklets, audio CDs, podcasts or DVDs. Make sure you have resale rights to the product you resell or create new material. You can use such places ClickBank or purchase your own from eBay with resell rights. The plus to a place like ClickBank is that you have a variety of products to choose from and you generate revenue on each one. You may have to pay for some of the products but can compile any combination you wish. They also give you very good tools to market and get paid for your sales. The drawback to eBay or any other place where you purchase eBooks is there will be stiff competition. The more competition, the more the prices go down. You will notice packages of 20 or even 100 eBooks selling for 99 cents or $5. Don’t plan on reselling on eBay if you do this. You also have more time involved setting up the downloads and the mode of sales.
Ideally when you sell a product, either your own or one manufactured elsewhere, you want to aim for a product that will allow you 20x-80x markup. You will rarely get that by drop shipping or with an affiliate program like Amazon.
- Passive Income. This is my favorite. Passive income is income you need to do little for once it is set up. You may have to tweak things here and there for better results, but once set up, you can earn money in your sleep with little to no involvement. That’s not to say there is no work involved. This would be things like ad revenue.
- Active Income. This is income you work for each time. For example, if someone orders a product and you are the one taking the orders and shipping out the product. Each order takes much time, and if you calculate your time, it also takes money. Your time is worth something right? The idea is to free up your time in your day while still earning enough to live the lifestyle you want to live.
RESOURCES
- Free Blog: Blogger http://www.blogger.com
- Free Blog: WordPress http://www.wordpress.com or http://www.wordpress.org
- Free Website: You can now get a website for as low as $4.99 a month with Go Daddy. Due to the tools and excellent customer service Go Daddy offers for such a low price, I don’t like to use free website services. This is your bread and butter, after all. The free services often place ads that irritate customers, slow load times and limit what you can do. Having said that you can check places like Google, GeoCities and Bravenet.
- Revenue: Google Adsense http://www.google.com/adsense
- Revenue: Adify http://www.adify.com
- Revenue (and product and ability to build a store): Amazon http://www.amazon.com (look for the affiliate link)
- Revenue: You should also check places that sell things that compliment your site. For instance, a niche DVD seller that has a good affiliate program. If you sell yoga pants, perhaps a yoga DVD would be a good compliment.
- Money: PayPal (customers pay by check or credit card and allows you to build a shopping cart if needed) http://www.paypal.com
- Marketing: Self Promotion.com (a ton of tools and resources) http://www.selfpromotion.com
There are virtually unlimited ways to build your online business. All will take effort on your part. Effort, and a lot of patience coupled with research. You may not see huge results straight away, but you will see income and you will see it increase if you do this right. It may take some trial and error until you hit upon the niche that is right for you. They key is to learn from each venture and not be dismayed.
