If you’re looking for an online business idea that can generate some income for you, one of the best places to start is by using the skills you already have.
Now I know that probably sounds pretty vague, so let me explain…
Chances are you have lots of knowledge. This could be from jobs that you’ve worked at, hobbies you love, or just something you’ve learned within your lifetime thus far.
Some of these might be:
Writing
Website Design
Accounting or Bookkeeping
Copywriting
Research
How these skills can work for you is simply this:
There are lots of small business owners who simply don’t have enough time to get all of their tasks done by themselves. So to help them out, what they’ll do is outsource these projects to someone else. They look for people who can get the job done for them at a reasonable price.
If you have experience in any of the areas mentioned (or even in areas that aren’t), you could start your very own business yourself selling your services.
If you have writing experience and you’re able to write well, you can offer this as a service to individuals and businesses who need writing done for their websites.
If you’re adept at creating websites or blogs, you can offer a service doing this for someone else.
If you’re experienced at handling office tasks such as organizing, making phone calls, or creating spreadsheets, you could become a virtual assistant and offer these services to businesses who need some help in these areas.
Even if you don’t want to go to the extent of starting a website of your own but just want to offer up your services to these businesses, you can look to online resources that will help you connect with people needing these kinds of services.
Some of these online resources are:
and
– who even offers virtual assistant or “VA” training.
Now, depending upon the type of service you’ll provide, you should have some degree of skills under your belt. It’s not necessary to have a traditional educational degree but your potential clients do like to see that you have some kind of experience that will get the job done. If you’ve done work for someone else in the past, see if they’d be willing to give you a testimonial that you could provide on your own website or within the profile you’d set up at one of the above resources.
Basic Essentials
There are a few “basic items” that you’ll need to get started and most likely you’ll already have these available. Some of them are:
A Computer
Reliable Internet Access
A Telephone
A way to receive email
A Website (of course, this is entirely optional if you choose to go through services like ).
Sometimes clients will also want you to be familiar with, and have access to certain programs. Some of these are:
A Word processing program like Microsoft Word or Open Office Writer
A spreadsheet program like Excel
Some type of web designing program if you choose to get into web design. A free one that you can use online is Kompozer.
Additionally you should consider some kind of instant messaging program like AOL’s instant messenger so that clients can contact you at a moment’s notice if they have to.
An optional program to use as well is Skype which let’s you make phone calls through your computer. And Skype even includes video chat and their own instant messaging system. Best of all, their software is free.
Getting Started
To get yourself up and running quickly, one option would be to set up a simple website at a free service such as or or join one of the services listed above like or .
If you choose to set up your own site, and plan on sending a lot of people there, you’ll want to look into getting a website address and web hosting of your own rather than using a free service. Your own website address just looks more professional than a free one does.
All in all, it’s not difficult to get that online business idea going. You just need to know what it is you want to do, and which direction you’ll take; either exclusively offering services through your own website or by providing services through an online system set up to connect service providers with buyers.