Todd Sumamno
It’s easy to find reasons to procrastinate, especially if it is to do something new that seems complex. Starting a business is one example. It doesn’t have to be that hard though. In fact, let’s look at
10 online businesses you could get started running by tomorrow.
- Start a blog – If you have a working computer, internet service, and keyboard, you can blog. Blogging is like an online journal where you can talk about things important to you and that you know a lot about. It can also be a business. Monetizing a blog can be as simple as adding a few advertisements on each page, selling goods or services related to your blogging subject.
- Virtual Assistant – Online work has been expanding steadily and one rapidly growing field is that of virtual assistants. VAs work like an executive assistant, but are usually freelancers that work at home. This can be an excellent gig for a stay at home parent.
- Bug Testing – Websites are big money these days and companies depend on them for brand recognition and to drive sales. That ,means they hate it when bugs turn up, making them look amateurish online. That’s where bug testers come in. You can get paid to review site functionality and look for errors that might occur with the pages or online ordering system.
- Translator – If you speak a second language, you can be almost guaranteed online work. Companies are constantly searching for contract translators to handle one-off business needs.
- Customer Service Agent – Technology has made huge inroads in customer service and companies have been tracking advantages of this to lower costs by hiring home-based customer service agents to field customer calls and complaints.
- Sell Your Crafts – If you’ve got some crafting skills, you may want to try online selling. Sites like Etsy make setting up shop relatively easy and inexpensive.
- Proofreader – If you’ve always had a knack for annoying friends and family by correcting their English – you have a marketable skill. Companies pay well for proofreaders they can sent internal documents as well as advertising material out to to make sure they contain no errors.
- Resume writer – This field actually does well regardless of the economy. When it’s good, people update their resumes to find better positions. When the economy is bad, lay offs are unavoidable and people will need to dust off and update their resume to find new work. Increasingly, people are hiring professional resume writers to give them a competitive edge in a busy market.
- Social Media Manager – If you’re a social media whiz you might find work representing a company online. An online presence is becoming increasingly important for both large and small companies, but a lot of them neither have the in-house talent, nor the desire to train them. Instead, many companies now outsource to someone to manage their brand identity online.
- Graphic Artist – If you have artistic talent – particularly with computer graphics, there is a large market for your skills. Companies hire freelancers for everything from logo design to backgrounds and style guides for corporate press releases and documentation.
For more examples, check established list sites such as ahjoo or toptenthebest.com where the research has already been done for you and you can explore more great online career options.
Brittany Maslo