Web based startup ideas include things like drop shipping and affiliate marketing. With both these ideas you can wok remotely from a laptop from anywhere. You don’t need to deal with customers directly or even touch any products. Another web based startup might be working from ebay. See my article how to start a profitable ebay business.
Web Based Startup Ideas – Drop Shipping
Shopify let you build a website and send customers directly to a drop shipping company. All you need to do from here is advertise your website. You can start a free trial with shopify here. Advertising is your main job from here since the website will automatically send customers to products which are handled and delivered by another company. When you make a sale you are paid a commission. It’s a simple system. The hard part is advertising. You can learn more about advertising online in my ebook The Ultimate Guide To Online Marketing.
Web Based Startup Ideas – Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing works in a similar way to drop shipping. Both these models allow a huge amount of flexibility and freedom. You can work from anywhere from a laptop and simply send people to your website. With affiliate marketing you can send people directly to products available online.
These can be either physical or digital products. Digital products offer a larger percentage of the sale (up to 50% in some cases) so many affiliate marketers concentrate entirely on selling digital products online.
Web Based Startup Ideas – Ebay
There’s a number of ways to make money from ebay. I have already mentioned one method which I used to use here: how to start a profitable ebay business. You can also use ebay to direct people to drop shipping companies too. Be wary of companies charging you for this service.
Do some research to find real drop shipping companies. The other way to earn from ebay is by buying wholesale from wholesalers like www.alibaba.com. You can then create a single listing for buy it now and sell multiple items through that one listing. Of course this requires an initial outlay for a bulk buy. You should also do some research into which product/s to choose. There is huge competition for this on ebay and you also compete with international sellers from China and Hong Kong.
Web Based Startup Ideas – Information Products
Many affiliate products are information products. You don’t need to create your own information products. You can sell almost anything online providing there is an affiliate program attached to a product. What was the last thing you bought online? Go to the website and see if there is an affiliate program. If there is you can join it and promote the very item you recently bought. There are several ways to do this, which we will come to shortly.
Information products might include something like an ebook. I promote a couple of my own ebooks on my website. You can sell your own information products in the form of an ebook on a website or upload it to Amazon to sell for you. If you upload a short guide to Amazon they can help you sell it and you earn from royalties on every sale.
Internet Startup Ideas – Your Own Website Business
You can build your own website and promote several products from it. Drop shipping and affiliate marketing are two simple models which you can use to monetize your website with. But how can you get people to visit your website? There are two main methods: content creation and paid advertising.
If you have a good business model, paid advertising is the fastest way to generate income from your website. Building content and sharing via social media, and/or getting traffic from the organic search engines takes much longer to achieve.
Web Based Startup Ideas – Niche Websites
You can make money with niche sites by using the methods described above or with Google Adsense. Adsense allows bloggers and website owners to place some code within their website content. Google then uses this code to create adverts specific to your content. When someone clicks on your advert, you earn a small commission.
Niche websites take time to build up and if you monetise with Adsense, you will need to build a huge amount of traffic in order to earn even a modest income. Often bloggers use adsense in conjunction with other methods of earning such as affiliate marketing. You can buy ready made niche websites or access websites which are pre-populated with affiliate banners. This makes the building of sites much easier and less time consuming.
Startup Ideas – Summary
A web based business should give you complete freedom and flexibility. I worked on ebay for several years looking for the ideal business model. Ultimately, I wanted something which could be operated from anywhere, I could start with low overheads, and would be able to be scaled up.
Any business which puts your time in the ‘loop’ is flawed! You ideally want every aspect of your online business to be automated. Dealing with products and customers yourself ties you to a physical location. I wanted a lifestyle business which could be worked from anywhere, which allowed me to choose my own hours and working patterns and which only needed a laptop and internet connection to run.
I tried various ebay models including ebay missspellings, buying and selling on ebay, finding items in car boot sales and charity shops etc. Ultimately I realised I was cought up in a model which required a huge amount of work for very little pay. I couldn’t scale this model easily because I was still effectively selling my time.
Selling products over the internet on autopilot was what inspired me to learn the affiliate marketing model. I tried and failed with several models until I found a sustainable and long term model which worked. This included membership products which enabled me to earn monthly commissions from each sale.
This was something which I was missing from my previous efforts. Although I had sold products before I was selling individual products with no monthly commissions attached. I later realised a better business model which worked and produced a sustainable income which could be built upone over the long term.
