15 Most Profitable Online Businesses to Start in 2024

Despite what you can read out there, all that glitters in online business is not gold.

Some have extremely high hidden costs, while others require personal effort and dedication that increases exponentially over time. And when this was not planned, it can mean the end of any project.

But, as you will see in this article, there are also extremely profitable online businesses that you can start with very few resources and previous knowledge.

You just need a good strategy and make the right decisions.

Table Of Contents

The most coveted online business model
15 profitable online businesses you can start today
How to choose your online business model
Wrapping Up

I started creating online businesses in early 2017 while working at a solicitor.

The economic crisis had completely slowed my career progression, so, without any knowledge of digital marketing, I started looking for alternative ways to generate income.

Three years later, I was already living exclusively from my Internet businesses, earning thousands of dollars a month without having practically made any investment.

Income proof.

Today I have created businesses of all kinds. With some, I feel fulfilled and others are simple systems with which I earn passive income without spending too much time on them.

And it is that surely neither you nor I will invent the next social network or multi-million dollar application, but neither is it necessary.

There are infinite opportunities within our reach to build a business that allows us to live happily.

The most coveted online business model

There are two types of online business: those that operate on autopilot and those that require constant dedication.

Logically, the most coveted are the first, those that can become an automatic passive income capable of growing without requiring more time or money to be spent.

This type of business must meet 3 golden rules :

Solve an existing need. Many online businesses fail because they are guided by an “intuition” of their creator, instead of satisfying a real demand from their target audience.

That is why it is essential that you first validate your idea, however innovative it may seem.

Work autonomously. A passive online business must be able to generate money without your intervention is necessary. For that, you need to automate the processes.

Be scalable. This means that you should be able to increase your earnings without increasing costs proportionally.

Otherwise, the more money you earn, the more expenses you will have.

Below I will show you the most profitable and easy-to-start business models today with the potential to generate passive income and the results that I myself have achieved with several of them.

15 profitable online businesses you can start today

1. Affiliate Marketing

Without a doubt, one of my favorite forms of profitable online business due to its ability to become a recurring passive income.

With it, I have managed to earn more than 7,000 dollars in a month without spending more than a couple of hours.

Many entrepreneurs who want more freedom choose this business model.

Although at first, you will have to invest a lot of time, in the long term it can become a totally passive income.

In fact, it is not uncommon for people who are successful like this to end up leaving their jobs to go traveling the world.

Affiliate marketing basically consists of creating a website where you recommend certain products through affiliate links.

When someone clicks on those links, they are redirected to the website where the product is sold, and if they buy it the seller gives you a commission.

Some sellers, like Amazon, have their own affiliate programs, while others are on platforms like Shareasale or Clickbank.

If you want to know everything about affiliate marketing with Amazon and how I generate 2,000 dollars a month on autopilot, take a look at this article.

Commissions can vary widely depending on the type of product and vendor.

For products like online courses, commissions are around 30-50%, while for electronic products they are usually around 5%.

These are Amazon’s commissions according to the category of the product sold:

The great advantage of Amazon is that it is a selling machine.

And you will not only charge commissions for the product you have recommended but for everything that customer buys for 24 hours!

The key to this business model is to drive traffic to the website or blog where you recommend the products.

For this, you must publish high-quality content and use a good SEO strategy.

Fully automatic system of passive income generation: you must not manage stock or make shipments
Does not require any investment
Very simple and easy to implement, even for inexperienced people
It can be integrated into your blog if you already have one

The commissions of the most sold products are usually low
The opportunity is now and there is more and more competition

2. Monetize your personal blog

Creating a blog and positioning yourself as an expert on a specific topic is one of the most sustainable ways to build an online business in the long term.

Do not think of a blog as a personal diary where you can write what comes to mind at all times.

That has hardly any income potential. A blog is a place where you offer the public your knowledge on a specific topic for free.

Fortunately or unfortunately, most people do not dare to start a blog.

You think you have nothing to contribute, you fear not meeting your expectations, or you are concerned that readers will accuse you of imposing.

But those beliefs only exist in your mind.

All bloggers have started with those fears; the key is to choose something you are fairly good at because there will ALWAYS be someone who knows less than you and wants to learn.

In addition, as you work on your blog you will adjust its approach according to what your audience really values about you and finds interesting.

Another key to success is specializing, because too general blogs tend not to stand out at all or be able to create a loyal audience. Some specialized blog ideas could be:

Practical tips for cheaper travel
Productivity to organize tasks at work
Emotional intelligence training for parents with children
Keys to improving public presentations
Health Tips and much more.

If you can solve a problem of your audience and make yourself visible in the blogosphere, you will begin to receive more and more interested visitors.

From there, you just have to choose how to monetize your blog.

Here are the four most popular, but if you want to know all the ways to make money with a blog, take a look at this article.

Adsense is Google’s advertising network, and it includes thousands of potential advertisers.

It is a type of PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, which means that every time a reader clicks on an ad on your blog, you receive money.

Implementing it is as simple as registering here and putting the code it provides you on your website.

Then the system will take care of showing the most relevant ads to your readers.

Although it depends on the topic/niche of your blog, as a general rule it is necessary to have enough visits to the blog in order to generate a decent income.

So I prefer other forms of monetization.

To give you an idea, the best-paid topics are executive training, finance or health.

Personal development or simply informative content is paid much less.

However, I also know entrepreneurs/bloggers who earn more than 4,000 euros a month with Adsense because they have chosen a well-paid topic, with a lot of demand, and they are ranking well in search engines such as Google.

Very easy to implement
Show the most relevant ads to your audience to maximize revenue
It usually takes many visits to earn money

PRIVATE ADVERTISERS

Adsense is not the only form of advertising that exists.

If you have a website with a specific topic/niche, you can also contact companies in that sector to offer them advertising space in exchange for a monthly payment.

For example, if you have a travel website, you could contact travel agencies or private guides to advertise on your blog.

Advertisers typically pay per print, that is, the number of times readers have viewed that page with advertising.

Therefore, the more traffic your blog has, the more money you can ask for it.

It pays better than Adsense
You will need a lot of traffic to be attractive to advertisers
You must do the job of contacting advertisers

DIGITAL PRODUCTS

Creating a digital product on your blogs, such as a video course or an area with exclusive content, and selling it is one of the best ways to generate passive income.

The idea is to create these exclusive contents, put them under a payment system and present it to your readers.

If you automate it with a sales funnel via email marketing or prerecorded webinars, you no longer have to deal with anything other than collecting revenue.

Its potential is so great that, in the medium term, most successful blogs choose to become a digital business by offering paid content in the form of video courses or private areas.

With few customers you can generate high income
The process can be 100% automated
You control all stages of the sale
Building the product and sales funnel is laborious

OWN SERVICES

Finally, if you have a blog and have built an audience, surely there will be someone who is willing to pay for your advice in the form of coaching or group workshops.

This is one of the best ways to generate income quickly, and it tends to pay quite well.

However, you will be limited by the number of clients you can serve at the same time.

A very fast way to start earning money
It is not scalable nor can it be automated

3. Publish a book

Until a few years ago, publishing a book was quite a complicated undertaking.

You had to convince a publisher to take over and distribute it among bookstores, causing many aspiring writers to leave their manuscript picking up dust in home bookstores or on the computer’s hard drive.

But everything changed with the appearance of the electronic format.

Nowadays you just need to have a digital file with your book to publish your ebook on the vast majority of online book sales platforms.

If you want to self-publish it in physical format, which is still preferred by most readers, there are also several options:

Contact a printing company to make a print run
Work with a small publisher to help you with distribution
Use a print on demand service, where only the book is printed and sent when someone places an order (this saves you the cost of printing a print run and storing the stock)

If we talk about selling books, we have to talk about Amazon.

The American multinational has a service called Kindle Direct Publishing that allows you to self-publish books in digital and printed format on demand.

Selling self-published books on Amazon is a great way to generate passive income.

Although it is difficult to live exclusively from it, almost half of the best-selling books on Amazon are self-published, and the margin for the author is around 70%.

The best thing about publishing a book, either on your own or with a publisher, is that it becomes a recurring income.

Once written, you don’t have to worry about anything else.

It is an automatic passive income
It has no associated costs
You don’t need experience to succeed, you just win and the ability to write
If you self-publish it and you don’t have followers or subscribers, it will be difficult for you to achieve the first sales
You must sell many books to be able to live on it

4. Become a YouTuber

With the rise of content in video format, the idea of creating an online business from a YouTube channel is no longer far-fetched.

Youtube is the second Internet search engine, only behind Google, and year after year it has shown spectacular growth.

Although there is increasing competition, it is still relatively virgin territory.

If you consider that you can bring fun or knowledge to viewers, creating a YouTube channel is not far-fetched: in the medium term, you can live from it.

eye! This does not mean that it is simple. On average, YouTube advertising pays between 0.20 and 3 dollars for every 1,000 views of a video, a fairly low figure.

This number depends on the topic of your channel since for example the contents of higher education or health are usually paid better than the channels on video games, personal development or curiosities.

If you wanted to earn 1,000 dollars a month and were paid 1 dollar for every 1,000 views, you should have a million new views monthly.

Assuming you upload four new videos a month, each of them should achieve 250,000 views.

Reaching this volume is quite complicated, but fortunately there are other alternatives to increase income:

Contact companies and offer to advertise them on your videos
If your channel is popular, you can also sell personalized merchandise, such as T-shirts and hats with the channel’s logo
You can accept donations or offer exclusive paid videos with Patreon

In order to stand out on YouTube, in addition to adding value to your target audience and printing your own stamp on your communication style, certain knowledge of video ranking is also often necessary for your content to appear in the top results.

However, well worked is a channel of immense potential.

Youtube and the video format are in full growth
Although you may not think so, there is still relatively little competition
It is hardly necessary to invest (you only need a camera and microphone)
The platform is not yours and you are subject to its changes in policies
Creating a personal brand on video is more difficult than doing it on text
Youtube does not pay too well (and less and less)

5. Create a podcast

In addition to videos, there are also audio content known as podcasts .

The podcasting is very popular in countries like the United States, where it is estimated that 21% of Americans have listened to a podcast in the last month.

Little by little, this channel is also settling in the rest of the countries.

To create a podcast, you should simply record your shows, interviews, or reflections in audio and upload them to a platform like iTunes, Spotify, or Soundcloud.

The podcasts are now a good opportunity as yet there is little competition, so creating a channel that addresses an unmet need have enough numbers to get a good audience.

To make money with a podcast there are several options:

Sponsorships: If you have a community of followers and you deal with topics where there may be companies interested in advertising, you can contact them to offer them the opportunity to sponsor
Create paid content: you can make some of your podcasts only listen after paying a small amount
Recommending products: If you recommend services or programs in your podcasts, you can include their affiliate links in the description to earn extra money
Patreon: this platform also allows you to integrate payments (monthly or by podcast), so that whoever wants to subscribe to listen to your content must contribute the amount that you have stipulated

In summary, it can be a good way to have additional passive money every month.

A growing market with little competition
You don’t expose yourself as much as in the video
The investment is practically nil (a micro)
The economic potential is still low
You must contact most advertisers on your own

6. Sell your services online

Although you can sell them through your blog, YouTube channel, or podcast, if you still do not have an audience you can advertise on specialized platforms to put freelancers in contact who offer their online services with interested users.

The jobs that freelancers offer on these platforms are usually 100% online, such as translating a text, composing a jingle, editing a photo, or making a marketing plan.

There are even people selling love spells from a distance!

These are the three most popular platforms at the moment:

Upwork: Although it is only in English for now, it has a huge number of customers
Freelancer: It has less volume of clients and it is not so easy to use
Fiverr: It is a great platform with many potential customers, and you can earn money by offering your services on this platform.

All of them usually keep around 10% of your turnover and are based on your customer reviews to increase or decrease your popularity.

The more positive reviews you have, the more visible you will be to those users interested in services like yours.

It is possible to earn a lot of money with this type of business if you become popular and your services are in high demand.

In fact, I know people who are dedicated full-time to serving clients doing translation work.

You don’t need to build an audience
You can start earning money from day one
Some platforms have a huge volume of clients
You can’t turn it into an automatic passive income
The margin is not too big
There is usually quite a lot of competition

7. Become a copywriter

More and more companies and entrepreneurs are betting on reinforcing their online presence, and that means that the demand for written content is increasing.

To give you an idea, every day more than 3 million articles are published on blogs.

This need to generate content has caused copywriters to become a highly demanded profile in the online world.

Also, the barrier to entry is very low: you just have to like it and you have to be good at writing.

Within copywriters, there are several levels depending on their specialty, experience and the quality of their texts, and their standard rates are usually around 3 to 10 dollars for every 100 words (although some charge much more), making a text of 2,000 words It can be perfectly paid at more than 100 dollars.

I have worked with several copywriters for my affiliate projects with Amazon, and I know that working full time, the monthly income of a copywriter can be around 2,000 and 3,000 dollars.

Generally, copywriters specialized in creating sales pages are the best paid, as they are the key stage in getting a visitor to end up becoming a customer.

In some cases, thousands of dollars have been paid for a page of this type .

With the rise of copywriting, platforms dedicated to connecting copywriters with companies, entrepreneurs, or bloggers who need content have also appeared. Some examples are:

iWriter: It doesn’t pay excessively well, but it makes up for it with the number of customers it gets you.
Onlinejob.ph: Pay better and have a good volume of customers who need written content.
Upwork: allows you to negotiate the price directly with the client, but on the contrary, there is not too much workload.

If you are interested in starting a business as a copywriter from home, Copyhackers have highly recommended courses on copywriting.

You don’t need anything else to know how to write well (and you like it)
With copywriter platforms, you can start making money today
The best copywriters earn real fortunes
There is more and more competition and it costs more to stand out
Rates are coming down due to the proliferation of copywriters
It is not a passive income

8. Sell courses online on other platforms

If you want to sell an online course but are not willing to work for months to build an audience on your blog, you have a faster alternative.

There are platforms like Udemy where you can become an instructor by uploading your own paid video course.

These platforms usually receive thousands of visits a day from people interested in learning about a specific topic, and if your course meets demand and meets the expectations of users, you can earn a lot of money.

Unlike your own blog, to sell on Udemy you will have to adjust the price of your course (according to the studies of the platform itself, 90% of the courses sold are below 50 dollars).

Assuming an average of 15 dollars of profit per course sold, you can imagine the money they are making from this.

My recommendation to build a successful course on Udemy is as follows:

Make a list of topics in which you think you know more than the population average
Create your Udemy account and enter your topics in the Udemy Marketplace Insights, an application that allows you to calculate the potential of your online course
Choose a topic where the monthly earnings of popular courses are high
If the demand is HIGH and the number of courses MEDIUM or LOW, you are facing a very good opportunity

9. Sell your creations on marketplaces

If you like photography, composing music or programming, you have a business opportunity on some platforms that act as a marketplace , putting creative contacts with clients.

The concept is simple: you associate with these companies and they include your creations in the list of products on their website.

When a client buys the license to use your content (be it a photo, a music jingle, or a web template), you earn money and they get a commission.

These are some of the most popular marketplaces:

For photography, you could register in image banks as a provider in Shutterstock or Fotolia, where they pay you a percentage of the subscriptions of the clients who download your photos.
For music, you could partner with Encore (a website specialized in hiring musicians for events) or license your creations online with Airbit or AudioJungle.
If you create web templates or plugins, you can sell them through Themeforest. It is the most popular platform for buying and selling digital products, where some suppliers have billed more than 1 million dollars a year.

It is true that, as a general rule, it is not easy to generate large income in this way.

Unless you have some extremely popular product, the most common is that you earn extra money each month to complement your other sources of income.

They expose you in front of a lot of potential clients
It is a 100% passive income: once you upload your creations, you can no longer worry
If you are not extremely popular, the income is not very high

10. Give online language classes

In recent years online classes have become very popular among people who live abroad and want to learn the langagues of that particular country.

Although the idea is that you train as a teacher, it is true that in many cases the simple fact of being native and having a good methodology can already be enough to attract students and earn a good salary.

There are two ways to teach online languages:

Through your own blog
Through other platforms like Coursera or Duolingo

The advantage of creating your own blog and offering classes there is that you can set higher prices, in addition to not competing with hundreds of teachers who would appear alongside you on the platforms.

However, starting a blog and getting visitors is a medium-term job in which you will have to invest a lot of time.

On the contrary, online class platforms usually charge a monthly commission to stay enrolled, but in return, they put you in front of thousands of students looking for language teachers.

Also, the fact that many students reside abroad will allow you to adjust your class schedules to strips where you normally would not have students if you were to take classes at an academy, such as after dinner or at lunchtime.

If you are interested in teaching online, my recommendation would be that you sign up for those platforms while you grow your blog.

When the latter is popular, you can now focus exclusively on it.

It is a quick and easy way to earn money
There is a lot of demand, and the classes are well paid
The money you are able to generate will depend on the hours you are teaching
Surely you must train to be able to give classes with guarantees

11. Work as a virtual assistant

The virtual assistant profession is one of those new opportunities that have emerged with new technologies, and whose demand is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

A virtual assistant is someone who works remotely taking care of various tasks for other people, be they bloggers, entrepreneurs or even companies, to unload them from the most tedious and heavy work.

Some of the functions that virtual assistants perform are the following:

Receive and answer emails
Deal with your client’s schedule
Update content
Pay providers
Organize face-to-face events
Prepare documents in Word or PDF
Manage and energize private Facebook groups
Upload content on social networks
Edit videos
Edit written content

In general, they are usually quite mechanical tasks, but in case the client trusts the virtual assistant and establishes a relationship of trust, they may end up delegating tasks of greater responsibility, such as writing content or contacting the media.

There are several ways to get clients as a virtual assistant:

You can contact yourself with companies, bloggers or entrepreneurs and present your services (ideally, you should provide a sample to check the quality of your work)
You can keep an eye on the virtual assistant requests that bloggers often make to their subscribers
You can register in Upwork or Freelancer since many entrepreneurs look for virtual assistants on those platforms

The rates of a virtual assistant are usually calculated at a price per hour, which usually ranges from 10 to 40 dollars per hour worked, although some specialized assistants can charge considerably more.

Does not require any initial investment
No specific skill is required, only management skills
Can be done from home and part-time
It can be monotonous or unrewarding
Cannot automate it

12. Create an online store

E-commerce is booming, and if you sell products or can get them from a wholesaler or manufacturer, one of the most profitable ways to earn money is to create your own online store.

Today it is very easy to create an ecommerce without any prior knowledge.

There are specialized platforms that allow you to build an online store simply and quickly, such as Woocommerce for WordPress, Shopify, or Magento.

All of them allow you to offer various purchase options to customers, integrating payment gateways such as Paypal or credit cards.

They are also in charge of keeping the stock updated and allow you to adjust offers and promotions.

The great advantage of this model is that it offers high margins, allows you to customize your business image to the maximum, and eliminates the internal competition of selling on Amazon, where the client will find you along with ten more companies that sell the same or similar.

In addition, if you join a blog with an online store, you can create content that attracts visitors and generates customers constantly.

The main disadvantages are that you will have to make an initial investment to have a certain product stock, in addition to storing it and taking care of managing shipments.

In any case, the main key to success is finding a product where there is high demand and low competition.

And if you buy it directly from a manufacturer, it must be reliable and offer you good prices.

In the long run, it is a fairly scalable model. I have advised online stores where at the beginning the same owner was in charge of making the shipments, and as the orders increased, they ended up hiring a person to make them.

Some benefits of starting a online store:

Good profit margin
You have full control of your business
It allows you to create a blog to attract visits with your blog
Requires an initial investment in stock
Shipping management is at your expense
Depending on the type of product, you may encounter fierce competition (Amazon, for example)

13. Sell through dropshipping

Dropshipping is one of the best profitable online businesses. The problem with online stores is that they are not totally passive: you have to manage the stock and make the shipments.

However, there is another business model that relieves you of this responsibility: dropshipping .

The idea behind dropshipping is to partner with a manufacturer or wholesaler for him to take care of the shipments.

You just have to create an online store where the orders will be collected and attract customers.

In addition to eliminating all the work of shipping, Dropshipping also has the advantage of reducing the financial risk associated with purchasing and storing the stock.

The profit margin is usually between 20 and 50%, which is not bad.

But the biggest drawback is that you lose control of the delivery and the condition of the merchandise.

This means that if the shipment does not arrive or it is necessary to process a return, customers will claim you and you must ensure that the incident is resolved with the distributor.

In dropshipping it is essential to work with serious and trustworthy distributors, and that they have a system to synchronize their stock with your product catalog.

Otherwise, it may happen that customers buy products in your store that are actually out of stock or discontinued.

To find distributors you can attend fairs where several manufacturers of the type of product you want to sell are exposed, investigate and reach a dropshipping agreement with them.

To avoid disappointment, it is best to work with two or three distributors who can serve the same product.

There are also platforms that are in charge of putting you in contact with various dropshippers . Some of the best known are:

Aliexpress: This is a gigantic Chinese e-commerce website with thousands of suppliers.
DHgate: Another Chinese giant, specialized in electronic products.

Amazon also has a model similar to dropshipping, called FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon).

They are those products where the seller’s brand appears next to a “managed by Amazon“.

This indicates that it is a product of an external seller but that the distribution and post-sale are carried out by Amazon.

In this case, you must buy an initial stock, but you send it to Amazon so that it can keep it in its warehouses and make the shipments.

Then, you can integrate your online store with Amazon FBA so that they manage shipments from there.

There are several ways to automatically integrate the orders you collect in your store so that they automatically reach the distributor, and most e-commerce solutions such as Woocommerce or Shopify offer them.

Does not require any initial investment (except Amazon FBA)
Generate revenue on autopilot because you forget about shipments
Good profit margin
You are totally dependent on the dealer
If the distributor does not personalize the shipments with your image, you are not building a brand
In competitive markets, you will have to adjust the price a lot

14. Use an online franchise

Online franchises are one of the most booming businesses in recent years because they allow you to start generating income faster than other types of online businesses.

The model is very similar to that of physical franchises: you pay an initial fee to be able to use the name of the franchise, and then this remains a percentage of your turnover (usually between 20% and 40%).

To this you have to add the costs of stock if any, since in some cases the business may need actions off the Internet.

For this reason, the ideal is to find franchises where you can provide services from homes, such as consulting, training, web development, or e-commerce.

The biggest advantage of online franchises is that they are usually based on a business model that has already been shown to work.

In addition, they also allow you to use their name and thus take advantage of their authority.

Another point in favor is that, normally, your website will be linked and recommended from its portal, which will help you get clients.

But keep in mind that, according to the franchise model, you must also be in charge of looking for clients to expand your portfolio.

Online stores that work through dropshipping
Real estate agencies to serve clients in your area
Digital marketing companies to take care of customer social media management
Online travel agencies that will get you the administrative license to operate

If you are scared of not having knowledge about these topics, don’t worry.

Most franchises offer training and advice to their franchisees, in addition to promotional materials.

Creating an online franchise is a good way to generate extra income every month, since many allow you to work part-time, assuming the amount of work that you can attend.

But deep down, it’s not your own business.

They allow you to work part-time
The investment is less than in a physical franchise
You will get customers faster
In some franchises, customer acquisition must be done by you
You depend on the franchise
Do not create your own business/person brand

15. Make money by betting or investing

Finally, some ways to earn money online have become very popular in recent years, and for several people they have become a real business, such as investing in financial markets, playing poker or gambling on casinos and sports websites.

However, if you don’t have much experience, you risk losing a lot of money.

And even with experience, there is always the possibility of getting you upset.

Also, if you are not careful you can become an addiction.

So it is not a system that is recommended in the long term for someone who wants to start profitable online businesses.

If you still want to try it, it is best that you do not throw yourself headlong and train well at first. Of course, the courses are not exactly cheap.

Note: It is also possible to earn extra money on pages like Microworkers by completing surveys or taking actions such as visiting web pages and clicking on links.

It is not necessary to have the knowledge or make any initial investment, so anyone can do it. However, its potential is minuscule and it is practically impossible to live from it or generate significant income.

If you are good and you know what you do, you can win a lot of money
The initial investment is low and many cases give you the first dollar to invest
They require little commitment on your part and you can do it in your spare time
Requires a lot of knowledge and experience in this sector
Some platforms are very unreliable and you must inform yourself well before
You don’t stop relying heavily on luck
You can lose a lot of money in an instant

How to choose your online business model

As you have seen, each online business model has its advantages and disadvantages, and not all of them are equally suitable for anyone.

Some have greater potential, but they also require more work. In some you will be the visible face, and in others you will be able to remain anonymous.

There are also business models with higher financial risk or escalation costs, while others require little investment and can be converted into fully automated income.

To choose the one that best suits your needs, you should take into account the following factors:

Do you want to build a long-term profitable online business?

There are short-term opportunities that can make you money, but they do not guarantee that it will continue to be so in the future.

As a general rule, working on third-party platforms such as YouTube or Udemy, has two risks:

It is the platform that stores all the information and contact details of the clients
No one guarantees that they will continue to exist in the future, or that their conditions change.

If you want to ensure the viability of a business in the long term, you will probably have to work on your own platforms, such as a website or blog.

Do you want to build a personal brand?

Building a personal brand can open up more business opportunities for you.

For this, the most recommended would be a blog or YouTube channel, for example.

In my case, creating a blog helped me appear in various media and gave me the possibility of publishing a book.

It has also allowed me to meet people with similar interests and find many opportunities for collaboration.

But if you prefer not to have any public exposure, the best thing would be to choose an affiliate website or online store.

What is your favorite support?

If you have decided to create your own personal brand, you should ask yourself which is the medium in which you feel most comfortable to transmit your message.

Basically there are three:

Text
Video
Audio

The written format, whether it is a website or a blog, is comfortable because it allows you to control your message well.

It is also very easy to edit before publishing.

If you are good with the camera, you may prefer to create a YouTube channel to transmit your messages.

And if you have a good voice and speaking ability, you should really appreciate a podcast.

You don’t have to stay with just one support, but to start it is better to focus on one and not divide the efforts.

My recomendation

In my experience, the most profitable online businesses with the lowest risk and greatest potential in the medium and long term are:

The webs membership on a product category
Create a blog on a topic and sell automated services, such as video courses

A blog will help you build your personal brand, plus it will likely offer greater security in the long run.

What is your idea?

If you decide on a blog, first you have to make a fundamental decision: it’s a topic/niche.

The ideal is to specialize and satisfy a need of a specific audience.

When you try to cover too many topics, your readers don’t feel identified and stop seeing you as an authority on the subject.

To find your idea, ask yourself these three questions:

WHAT DO YOU LIKE?

If you’re going to have to be writing about a subject for several years, it better be about something you like.

Look for hobbies or interests that you would never tire of talking about, because all of them are excellent candidates to become the central theme of your blog. List 5 to 10 topics that meet this condition.

WHAT ARE YOU GOOD AT?

Now write down 5 things that you consider yourself especially good at or that your knowledge is above average.

You can also ask your friends what they would ask your advice for; they will often give you valuable information.

But remember that it is not necessary to be an expert in a subject to start a blog, because this is the fear that restrains 99% of digital entrepreneurs.

When you launch your blog you will have no readers. By the time you start having an audience, you will have had to inform yourself so much about your topic that you probably know more than 99% of the population.

What seems obvious to you, for a layman on the subject may not be so clear.

CAN YOU FILL A NEED?

Now you should have several ideas to start a blog. Before deciding on one, validate that there is potential.

In other words, it covers an existing need and there are also people who would be willing to pay to solve it.

For example, you could create a blog with tips on how to find accommodation, socialize or travel safely for people traveling alone.

If when you talk to them they tell you that they would be willing to pay to solve those problems, bingo!

Do not be afraid to make a mistake, because you can always adjust the topic to the needs that you find in your readers and in which you feel most comfortable.

In fact, when I started GoldenBlogging.com, I was dealing with all kinds of topics related to Blogging, and I only started to be successful when I focused on offering guidelines.

Create your payment service

The next step is to turn your blog into an online business by offering a paid service .

This service can be of two types: face-to-face coaching or a digital service , such as an online course.

The second option is my favorite, because it is the most scalable way to earn passive income.

Creating a course in the form of recorded videos only has the initial cost (and basically it’s about your time). Once you have created it, it will cost you the same to sell one as two hundred, unlike coaching where you will be limited by the number of hours you can dedicate to each client.

These are the advantages of creating an online course:

You will reach thousands of people around the world
You will create an asset that will continue to provide you with money for many years
You can scale your business without limits

If you want to build a personal brand that will give you long-term benefits, I recommend starting a blog and turning it into a business selling online training.

Otherwise, affiliate websites still have a lot of potential.

Whatever your choice, the important thing is to start without waiting for everything to be perfect.

Your experience in an online business is what will open up a sea of new opportunities.

Wrapping Up

I hope this article has helped you understand what profitable online business models exist today.

Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages, but these are the ones that are currently generating more income for small entrepreneurs.

Don’t see the Internet as a solution to make money quickly.

Although there are people who have become a millionaire overnight, they are the great exception.

To be successful you must be willing to learn, be consistent, and persevere.

My final recommendation is that you create an online business that can be automated and belongs to you, such as a blog or an affiliate website.

It will last longer.

If you found this article helpful and informative then consider it sharing with your friends and who also want to start a profitable online business.

And if you still have any doubt and query you can ask me in the comment section below, I will try to reply you as soon as possible.