Are you ready to take advantage of the digital revolution? The world is going online, and it’s not stopping anytime soon.
With the rise of VR and AR, the opportunities are endless.
Don’t be left behind!
Be an early adopter and reap the rewards, just like the pioneers of the internet, cryptocurrencies, and YouTube.
In this post, we’ll explore some of the most profitable online businesses that are booming.
From digital products to YouTube and blogging, there’s something for everyone. So, let’s dive in and discover how you can turn your passion into a lucrative online business!
Digital products
Digital products are basically things that are sold and delivered electronically. This can include anything from eBooks, courses, templates, and graphics. One of the biggest benefits of digital products is that you can create them once and sell them again and again, which makes them a great source of passive income.
The best part is that digital products have low overhead costs since there is no need for physical inventory or shipping.
Worksheets
Worksheets can be a profitable digital product if done right.
For example, if you have a blog around personal finance, you could create a budgeting worksheet that helps your readers get their spending under control. You can also create a worksheet that helps people to further internalize the learnings from a book and put teachings into action. You don’t need to be a designer to create these worksheets.
You can simply make use of Canva’s beautiful worksheet templates and just design your worksheet. Then download it as a PDF, and upload them directly to Gumroad or Etsy.
No-code templates
No-code templates are a huge trend right now because they are democratizing the ability to build websites and apps without a single line of code. With platforms like Notion, Webflow, and Bubble, you can create custom templates for people in a specific niche or industry.
For example, you could create a project management template for startups or some habit trackers based on Atomic Habits principles.
If you’re not sure where to start, take a look at what other people are doing. There are dozens of people who sell Notion templates on Twitter day in and day out. You can also check out websites like Gumroad and Creative Market to see what types of templates are selling well. Just remember to make your templates specific to a particular niche or industry and to focus on solving a specific problem for your customers.
Digital planners
Digital planners have become increasingly popular on platforms like Amazon and Etsy. You can create digital planners for specific niches, like online entrepreneurs or bloggers.
You can also target only iPad or GoodNotes users.
To sell these planners, you can rank for keywords related to digital planners on Etsy or Gumroad. People who are looking for digital planners will search for these keywords and buy your templates.
To sell your digital planners, you can rank for relevant keywords on platforms like Etsy or Gumroad. By doing so, you can attract potential customers who are actively searching for digital planners and boost your sales.
Creating digital planners doesn’t have to be complicated, either. You can make use of free online tools like Canva’s beautiful planner templates to create stunning designs. Once you’ve created your planner, simply export it as a PDF and upload it directly to the platform of your choice. It’s that easy!
So, if you’re looking for a profitable online business idea, consider creating digital planners. They’re low-cost, customizable, and in high demand. With the right marketing strategy, you can turn your passion for organization into a lucrative online business.
Graphics
If you’re a designer, you can create a set of images, illustrations, or even fonts related to a specific niche or interest. For example, you can create a printable digital poster with niche-specific inspirational quotes for people to buy.
You can sell your digital graphics on platforms like Etsy, Creative Market, Design Bundles, Shutterstock, and Adobe Stock. To stand out on these platforms, it’s important to have high-quality and unique designs that cater to a specific niche or interest.
You can also optimize your product listings with relevant keywords and tags, create eye-catching thumbnails, and offer bundle deals or discounts to attract customers. Building a strong brand identity and promoting your designs on social media can also help increase your sales and visibility.
Checklists and guides
You can create checklists and guides for a variety of topics, such as organizational productivity, self-care, or travel. Essentially, you can create printable PDFs, such as quick-start guides or checklist templates, for various purposes. These can be sold on platforms like Etsy or Gumroad.
You may also want to consider targeting a specific audience.
Some high-selling guides on Etsy include wedding planning checklists, travel packing lists, and home organization guides. It’s important to create products around burning problems people are facing.
Microniche eBooks and courses
You can create an ebook or course around a specific topic and sell it. You can also make use of tools like Udemy or Skillshare.
For example, you can create a course around neuromarketing on, say, Udemy. You can also host your own training courses or release your own micro-niche ebooks.
Twitter is a great social network for niche marketers, where you can build a following of like-minded individuals who are eager to buy products in your niche. Once you have built a following, you can create a product around the micro niche that you are targeting and promote it to your followers.
One great example of someone using Twitter to sell microniche digital products is Arvid Kahl. He has built a following of over 20,000 people on Twitter and has created a course called “The Bootstrapped Founder’s Playbook” that has made him over $100,000 in revenue.
He used Twitter to promote the course to his followers and has also used it to gather feedback and testimonials from his customers.
Selling Illustrations
If you’re good at design or drawing, you can make some extra cash or even potentially turn it into a full-time business by selling illustrations. You can also create NFTs to ride the crypto wave and collect royalties from book publishers in turn for them using your graphics in their books.
Additionally, you can create illustrations, graphics, or even fonts that are related to a specific niche or interest. For example, you can create printable digital posters with niche-specific inspirational quotes for people to buy. By selling these digital assets on platforms like Dribble, Creative Market, and Gumroad, you can potentially turn your artistic skills into a full-time business.
One example here is Jack Butcher, the founder of Visualize Value. He has turned his illustrations into a profitable business by creating graphics that simplify complex ideas and concepts. He has grown his business mainly through Twitter and sells his illustrations as NFTs, which allows him to collect royalties from book publishers who use his graphics in their books.
Training
Courses
People are finally realizing that the things they learn in universities have little to do with their lives. They’re recognizing that specific training in their fields of interest can give them a better living than traditional education, which hasn’t changed for centuries.
Heck, even the “degree for dignity” trend is falling apart.
It’s high time for you to take a plunge into an industry that interests you, become an expert, and train others.
According to Inc, the eLearning industry is worth $107 billion and still booming. As a domain expert, you can leverage online courses and membership sites to take a larger piece of the pie.
You can kickstart your training business on platforms like Teachable to host your training courses. However, marketing can be a challenging task. Here are some tips to help you effectively market your training courses:
- Create a funnel around your training course that consists of free offers, low-risk offers, webinars, etc., to warm up your cold audience.
- Get some traffic acquisitions to your funnel by creating free content on places where your target audience hangs out. Maybe on YouTube, Quora, FB groups, etc.
- Provide continuous value to your course buyers by giving them access to your members-only forum, groups, and so on.
- Create an affiliate program for rewarding people who promote your training courses.
If you’re a beginner looking to easily market your training courses while focusing only on the creation part, you can join as an instructor on Udemy or Skillshare. These platforms already have hundreds of thousands of highly motivated learners, and marketing your product will be very easy – provided you tap into the right niche using their Market Insights tools.
Consulting
Consulting is a lucrative profession that helps businesses and individuals navigate the constantly evolving landscape of technology. With the right expertise, consultants can provide valuable advice in various fields, including marketing, finance, technology, and management.
By creating standard procedures and templates and by utilizing online scheduling tools like Calendly and Google Calendar, it’s easier than ever to systematize your consulting process and schedule appointments with clients.
To become a successful consultant, first, you must establish your expertise in a specific area, build a strong reputation, and network to gain referrals.
High-ticket consulting allows you to earn a significant income while providing customized solutions that meet your client’s needs. Focus on delivering value, and you’ll become a sought-after consultant in your field.
These are the top 5 ways to get more bookings as a consultant:
- Offer a free evaluation call to potential clients as a way to showcase your expertise and build trust.
- Create short videos that showcase your consulting skills and share them on social media platforms or your website.
- Send hyper-personalized cold emails to potential clients. Research the company or an individual to make an email more relevant and value-added to their needs.
- Provide free value upfront to establish yourself as an authority in your field. This could be in the form of a blog post, a video, or a free consultation.
After providing the free value, pitch your services to potential clients who are already warmed up to your expertise and knowledge.
Remember that as a consultant, your reputation is everything. Focus on delivering value to your clients and building a strong reputation, and you’ll be sure to get more bookings in the future.
YouTube
Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google?
To get started with YouTube marketing, choose a niche, such as a tech or gadget reviews, and research potential keywords with good traffic. Use these keywords in your video description, tags, and subtitles to improve YouTube SEO. Once you create your content, update your channel regularly with fresh videos to keep the audience engaged.
It’s important to note that you shouldn’t rely solely on AdSense income from YouTube. Instead, consider affiliate marketing or publishing sponsored content to diversify your income streams.
It’s important for you to choose a niche you’re interested in and start creating videos.
But I know.
It’s common for new creators to get stuck when trying to choose a niche.
Remember that a niche can change over time. Start with a general idea of the type of videos you want to make and let the niche develop naturally. This can be a great method.
Consistency is the key when it comes to creating YouTube content. It’s recommended to upload at least one video per week to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more. By doing so, you’ll likely experience compounded growth and engagement on your channel.
Blogging
Blogging is a profession where you create and publish content online. It’s a great way to share your thoughts, opinions, and expertise on a specific topic with a global audience.
The best part about blogging is that, unlike creating software products, it requires little investment. All you need is a web hosting account, a domain, and free WordPress installed. That’s it!
However, the cost of investment for content creation may vary depending on whether you outsource the work or not.
Similar to YouTube, it is highly recommended that you start a niche blog. Finding a perfect niche that is a sweet spot between your passion and profit is essential.
Personally, as I run multiple niche blogs, I outsource all my content to Filipino, US, or Indian writers.
There are over a number of ways to monetize your blog.
But the sad thing is that the majority of bloggers tend to put their efforts into only one or two monetizing methods.
So, I recommend that you take good training for blogging from an experienced blogger.
When it comes to blogging, there are three main ways by which you can earn money:
- Promoting your own products
- Affiliate marketing
- Advertising or using AdSense
I recommend sticking to either affiliate marketing or advertising, as success is where the focus is.
In order for blogging to provide you with a sustainable income, patience and consistency matter.
New to blogging? Start here!
- How to Start Your Blog? [In Less Than 10 Minutes]
- How to Choose a Blogging Niche? (Don’t Regret Later!)
- How to Write Great Blog Posts That People Drool Over?
- How to Earn Money Blogging? (Top 10 Ways to Easily Earn $1k+ per Month)
- 27+ Ways to Increase Blog Traffic Exponentially!
Website flipping
This is one of the great passive income avenues if done correctly with a proper team.
You need a team of content writers and SEO specialists for this to work. There are two ways to approach this:
- Create new sites in bulk from scratch, grow them, and sell them. Similar to selling ready-made websites.
- Acquire good sites making decent money, upgrade the content, design, and SEO, and sell for more money.
To succeed in this business, you need to be a good negotiator, have patience, and have excellent intuition. You must have good writing or SEO skills or, at the very least, a talented team to leverage.
When selling domain names, it’s standard to sell at 20 times the current monthly income.
The price the buyer pays for a website depends on various factors, such as:
- Quality of the content
- Brandability of the domain name
- Social media following
- Email subscribers
- Backlink profile
- Traffic – diversified traffic works great
- Post-sale guidance and assistance received
You may need to clean up your backlink profile, improve the quality of the content and design the site to increase the likelihood of landing a good deal.
If you’re interested in learning more about website flipping, refer to this awesome site-flipping guide by Matt Diggity.
If you want to buy websites, improvise on, and then sell websites for a higher price, it’s better for you to buy them via email outreach and sell them using domain brokers like EmpireFlippers, Flippa, FE International, etc., as they have a network of big-time website buyers.
Domain investing
Domains are virtual real estate, and a good brandable .com domain name can cost you a pretty penny. But investing in domains can yield tremendous profits if you know the latest market trends.
For instance, cryptocurrencies have been buzzing since 2017, and many domain investors made a fortune by investing in good domain names before the emergence of thousands of ICOs worldwide. However, it’s not recommended for newbies.
Investing in domaining requires significant capital and market knowledge. So, don’t spend your hard-earned money on domains that don’t serve any purpose.
Here are some tips on how to identify trends that can lead to successful domain name investments. Here are my top five tips:
- Stay up-to-date with industry news: Keep informed about industry news and trends to identify emerging trends and invest in matching domain names.
- Use keyword research tools: Use keyword research tools to spot trending keywords and invest in domain names containing these keywords.
- Check social media: Social media is a great platform to identify what’s trending and what people are interested in.
- Follow successful domain investors: Follow successful investors who have a track record of identifying trends and applying their strategies to your investments.
- Be creative: Use your creativity to find unique trends that haven’t been identified yet for valuable domain name investments.
By following these tips, you can increase your chances of identifying trends and investing in domain names that have the potential to generate significant returns.
Freelancing
The freelance industry has seen significant growth in recent years due to the rise of remote work and the ability to work across different time zones. This trend is expected to continue in the digital era. Companies have started to hire freelancers and contractors instead of full-time employees during this age of disruptions.
To get started in freelancing, you can join a freelancer site like Upwork or Outsourcely and fill out your profile with your portfolio and experiences. It’s important to specialize in a niche when freelancing.
Apart from using marketplaces, there are several other ways to find freelancing opportunities. You can try sending cold emails to potential clients, networking on LinkedIn, joining Facebook groups for freelancers, and attending industry events or conferences.
Building a personal website or blog can also help you showcase your work and attract potential clients.
Freelancers like virtual assistants, social media managers, SEO freelancers, graphic designers, programmers, and video editors have a really bright future ahead.
However, this requires a client-serving mindset, so it’s important to consider whether this is the right path for you.
Akshay strongly recommends: Check out 7 Proven Ways to Get High-Paying Freelance Writing Jobs for Beginners
Video editing
The freelancing industry has recently seen a sharp rise in demand for video editors. As more and more businesses shift to video content, the demand for skilled video editors has skyrocketed. This has even led to an increase in the number of kids dropping out of college and pursuing video editing as a career.
In addition, there is a growing demand for video editors who can edit captivating short videos for influencers. This has opened up new opportunities for freelance video editors to work with social media influencers and build their portfolios.
To get started as a video editor, you need to have a good understanding of video editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and DaVinci Resolve.
Once you have the necessary skills, start building a portfolio of your work to showcase your skills and attract clients. You can find clients on freelance job websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.
Overall, the rise of video content has led to a surge in demand for video editing services in the freelancing industry. As technology continues to advance, it’s likely that this trend will only continue to grow.
Virtual assistant
Virtual assistants are in high demand in today’s digital world and can perform a variety of tasks, such as data entry, customer service, and administrative support.
To get started as a virtual assistant, you need to have good communication and organizational skills. You also need to learn software such as Microsoft Office and Google Suite.
Once you have these skills, you can create a website to promote your services and start looking for clients. You can find clients on freelance job websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.
The Philippines has a high number of virtual assistants. You may need to connect, network, and engage with them on social media sites to find potential clients.
Copywriting
Copywriting is basically writing stuff to sell things. It’s like advertising in written form. The goal is to create really good content that makes people want to buy a product, service, or idea. To be a good copywriter, you need to be a strong writer, understand digital marketing, and be able to create content that speaks to your audience.
You should also write in a persuasive and engaging manner, with the ability to tailor your writing style to different audiences and mediums.
You can learn these skills through online courses and tutorials. Once you have the necessary skills, start building a portfolio of your work to showcase your skills and attract clients.
To become a better copywriter, it’s essential to analyze top-performing copies and practice writing. By studying successful copies, you can gain insight into what works and what doesn’t. As you practice writing, you’ll improve your skills and eventually create successful copies of your own.
It’s important to specialize in a niche when freelancing as a copywriter. For example, you could focus on writing copy for e-commerce websites or for companies in the health and wellness industry. By specializing, you can position yourself as an expert in a specific area and attract clients who are looking for your specific skills and knowledge.
For getting clients, you can try freelance job websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer. Also, reach out to businesses and brands directly, network on LinkedIn, attend industry events or conferences, and even build your own personal website or blog.
Showcasing your work with writing samples and testimonials from previous clients can attract potential clients.
Graphic design
Graphic design is a highly creative field that offers excellent freelance opportunities. To get started as a graphic designer, you need to learn design software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
You can learn these skills through online courses and tutorials. Once you have the necessary skills, start building a portfolio of your work to showcase your skills and attract clients. You can find clients on freelance job websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer.
Note that with the rise of generative AI, it may also be worth considering learning how to use tools like Photoshop AI, MidJourney, and Stable Diffusion to stay ahead of the curve.
Here are some highly profitable sub-niches in graphic design:
- Branding design: creating logos, visual identity systems, and brand guidelines for businesses.
- Packaging design: designing product packaging that is visually appealing and effective in marketing.
- User interface (UI) design: designing interfaces for websites, apps, and software.
- Motion graphics: creating animated visuals for video, social media, and other digital platforms.
- Infographic design: designing informative graphics that present data and information in a visually appealing way.
eCommerce
Amazon FBA
Amazon FBA stands for “Fulfilled by Amazon.” In this industry, you purchase products at wholesale prices and list them on Amazon at a higher price. To succeed in this business, you need to sell white-labeled products and ship them to Amazon Fulfillment centers. These centers handle shipping, packaging, and support for the products.
By outsourcing inventory management and hiring an accountant to maintain and regularly update your Amazon seller account, you can create a lucrative passive business. This business is more sustainable than drop shipping because there are risks like product damage or shipping issues.
With FBA, Amazon handles the challenging parts of the business, including shipping, inventory, and returns. This frees up your time to focus on marketing and the creative aspects of the business.
Initial costs include inventory, Amazon account registration, product photography, logos, and UPC codes. To succeed in Amazon FBA, you need to find a niche. You can use tools like the JungleScout product research tool to help you find one. After finding a niche, look for overseas private-label product suppliers on sites like Alibaba.
If you’re just starting out, this guide by StartupBros is a good resource to get you going.
Dropshipping
Are you tired of managing inventory, storage, and shipping for your online store?
If so, dropshipping might just be the solution you’ve been searching for. With this business model, you don’t have to worry about holding stock or shipping products. Instead, you act as a mediator between the customer and the supplier, promoting the supplier’s products on your website.
And the best part? Once a customer purchases, the supplier delivers the product on behalf of you.
Beginner dropshippers often make common mistakes such as failing to establish a clear target audience, not building strong supplier relationships, underestimating shipping times and costs, setting uncompetitive prices, and ignoring customer feedback.
To succeed in dropshipping, you need to choose a profitable niche, research the competition, establish strong relationships with the supplier, and create high-quality product descriptions with clear images. And once you have those things in place, consider marketing strategies like social media advertising, SEO, and influencer marketing to drive traffic to your store. And don’t forget to offer excellent customer service to build trust and loyalty with your customers.
In short, dropshipping is a viable online business idea for anyone looking to start an e-commerce business without the hassle of managing inventory. But in order to succeed in this competitive market, you need to avoid common mistakes and implement actionable strategies.
Final words
These aren’t the only profitable online businesses, but I believe they’re among the top ones at the moment. Online training, in particular, is expected to grow significantly in the near future.
If you explore any of these fields, you’ll find numerous untapped opportunities waiting to be discovered.
It’s important to stay informed about the constantly evolving online landscape.
I hope you found this post helpful. Don’t forget to share it with your friends.