The idea of working from home has mass appeal for obvious reasons. Imagine not getting up every day to commute to the office. You could get up whenever you feel like it, and there would be no need for a business wardrobe. Being tied to one location can be very limiting, so no wonder that so many people are dreaming up ways of working from home. Whatever your skill set is, there is a business out there that you can build from the comfort of your home and work remotely. Here are 30 of the best home business ideas we want to bring forward today.
1. Online Marketing
For this one, you’ll need to market yourself initially. If you’ve got excellent marketing skills, you are all set to help others promote their businesses - from within your own home. It helps to start by finding a niche you can focus on and then target people with those businesses.
Online marketing can be done in a variety of ways, such as setting up a professional website for yourself. The more you put yourself out there, the higher your chances of success when pursuing any sort of business.
This can be done without spending an inordinate amount of money, even if at first, the process of establishing an online presence seems to be surprisingly costly. There are a wealth of platforms that you could use to advertise your services, and not all of them need to be expensive.
For example, there is nothing stopping you from establishing a Youtube presence.
If you go down this road, you should do your research and understand the latest trends in digital marketing. Once you apply them to your personal brand, then you can implement them for the benefit of your clients.
2. Event Planning and Project Planning
If you’re a dab hand at setting up events and projects, then there is no reason why you can’t do this from home. To make this home-based business idea work, you first need to find people in your local area who want to put on an event but don’t have the time or expertise. The bulk of the work can be done at home, working remotely.
Make sure you have some degree of knowledge when it comes to planning, as a less-than-ideal event could destroy your career before it has even started. Spend time making sure that everything is perfect and that your client is going to be satisfied with the services. A good review goes a long way.
3. SEO Consulting
SEO is a big deal these days, and all businesses need it. Understanding and implementing it is another matter, however. If you’ve got SEO skills and know-how to help other businesses get off the ground, that’s your own home business sorted. As it all needs to be done online, this is one of those profitable home business ideas you can implement without having to leave the house.
This means, on the other hand, that you have to be aware of up-to-date SEO practices. Usually, this experience is gained when working with a professional, established marketing firm, although you can learn to optimise search engines on the internet - albeit significantly slower.
4. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is taking off in a big way. It’s not particularly difficult to learn, and you’ll be marketing other people’s products or services. There is no need for customer service or stock handling from your part. In affiliate marketing, the most crucial step is to choose the right product to market.
There are companies like Wealthy Affiliate that train you thoroughly to reach your long-term financial goals. You just need to learn a few processes, set up your site and affiliate landing pages, and you’re ready to go.
If you already built a business website or a personal blog/portfolio with Ucraft and you loved the whole experience and its results, you can also become a Ucraft affiliate. Check out our affiliate program page to understand how it works, what you get, and how we can help you succeed.
5. Selling Through an eCommerce Store
This is a simple business to start from home. You will use platforms such as Ucraft, a perfect online shop solution, and before long, you’ll be selling some products of your choice. You have two choices here:
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You decide you want to sell your own products through an eCommerce website. While eCommerce is booming these days, such business requires your full time and dedication. You will have to build an online store with all the trimmings, find suppliers for your products or invest in manufacturing. You then need to manage stocks, clients, plenty of financial and logistics issues, etc. As small businesses ideas from home that you could run, an online store is among the most profitable as long as you have a solid business plan.
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The second home business idea revolving around online shopping is building an online store with a drop-shipping model in mind. It means you can source high-quality products from reputable suppliers and sell them on your eCommerce website for a profit. In other words, you won’t have to worry about suppliers, inventories, logistics, budgets, etc. All you need to do is attract clients to your online store and make sure they return to you for even more products.
The best part of the dropshipping process is that it can be automated for minimal effort on your part.
6. Selling Domain Names
This home-based business requires good research skills and forward-thinking. You need to be able to predict the kind of website names that people will dream up. Most people who are in this business find available domain names with no owners. You can use a domain availability checker tool to start off easy. Then you simply buy the domain names at the basic prices from the reliable domain registrar you found. When someone searches that name, they’ll find it’s already taken – but it’s up for sale.
You can sell that for a profit, assuming that you know how to negotiate.
7. Self-Publishing
If you’re a good writer, you can try your hand at writing e-books. It’s easier than ever to publish them online. People can then buy them on Amazon Kindle and other sites. You don’t even need to be able to write if you’re prepared to hire a ghostwriter to do the job for you.
You’d be surprised just how successful you can be as a writer if you’re at least a native speaker and have an intrinsic understanding of syntax and grammar. Keep in mind that self-publishing is one of those home business ideas that take time, creativity, and effort. Especially when it comes to marketing. The competition is fierce, also. Some of the most lucrative e-books in the self-publishing industry are related to:
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Fiction (literature you need to master in an overly-competitive market where big publishers lead the game),
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Biographies (but you’d have to be pretty famous to sell your memoirs for a profit),
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Self-help books (another competitive market where platitudes don’t have a place anymore)
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Non-fiction books (technical papers)
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Children’s books (which also take time to create, require writing/drawing talent, etc.)
Self-publishing is a profitable home business idea if you associate it with who you are or what you do. Let’s say you have an online artist portfolio. You may be a graphic designer, painter, photographer, etc. Adding a downloadable e-book (for a price) is a smart idea if that ebook contains a photography guide for beginners, an introduction to modern painting, etc. These are just some ideas, but you get the gist.
8. Selling Online Photos
This is a home business idea for professional photographers. There are many websites selling photos, and you can approach stock photo companies like Getty Images. Ideally, you have to have a DSLR camera and some good editing software. Don’t forget to watermark your images if you have your own site.
Even basic knowledge of Photoshop can help you a long way when it comes to setting up an online portfolio with which to impress potential clients. However, don’t over-edit your pictures, as that is more likely to hide your talent than to showcase it.
9. Referral Services
If you are an information library for your friends or a true encyclopedia of products to use and love, turn it into a business with referral services and affiliate marketing. Hook your clients up with all the great businesses you know for a referral fee. It helps to start by collating lists of reputable businesses and profiling them for your clients.
10. Content Creation
Every business needs good web content and a blog. If you’re a great writer, this is something you can do every day without much effort. As home business ideas go, it has never been easier to work remotely as it is today.
If you have a blog with a good following, businesses will pay you to link to their products as a blogger. Blogs with great content and traffic also make money from ads. Just write on engaging topics, market your articles, and build a fan base. If you don’t have a blog/website yet, here are some suggestions of blogs that make money and stay ahead of the competition in their niches.
As an alternative, you can also join freelancing sites like Upwork to get yourself off the ground.
11. Testing and Reviewing Products
Businesses are often looking for people who are prepared to test and review their products and services. Set up profiles on freelancing sites and advertise yourself as a reviewer. You are technically becoming an influencer and can even write blogs about future clients’ products.
12. Freelancing
General freelancing. Whatever your skill is, somebody could use it. We have already mentioned some businesses that can be promoted on freelancing sites. Designers, consultants, writers, publishers, event managers, and more… make good money freelancing. Again, try Upwork, Fiverr, or Clarity.fm.
13. Selling Meal Plans
Are you a great cook? Share your skills with those who have no idea what to do. Design meals for various diets and sell meal plans to people who don’t want to do the research. You’ll need to make it as simple as possible for them, with step-by-step recipes, ingredients lists, and nutritional profiles.
Remember to sell the benefits in your marketing materials!
14. Online Tutoring
If you have knowledge of a particular subject, why not teach others through online courses?! So many people want to learn from their own homes, so there’s a market for most subjects. Build courses and get ideas through Thinkific, Udemy, or Coursera.
15. Developing Apps
Tech heads can build native and web apps for their clients from home. It’s cheap to start, but you may need some training first to understand the languages used by Apple, Windows, etc. This can take up to 6 months if you’re starting from scratch, but after that, you’re good to go.
16. Taking Surveys
Sign up to sites like MySurveys, InboxDollars, and Global Test Market to take surveys for cash. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme, but it can certainly bring in some extra income. You can earn more than $150 with some sites.
17. Start an Online Community
This one is all about subscription fees. Start communities on various topics and charge a fee for joining. How does this work? Let’s see!
Online communities can gather ten thousand Instagram users around a specific topic/interest or ten people in a Facebook group with a passion for dark chocolate. Online communities’s scale can be massive and big brands are using them successfully. For instance, a car manufacturer can build an online community to keep its users updated to all the news and innovations they bring to their cars. Such brands also use the communities as think-tanks to implement users’ ideas and solve customers’ pain points.
As a beginner who wants to take a home-based business idea off the ground, an online community is the place to find like-minded people to whom you can present your creative print-on-demand products or your blog articles. The community is there to get benefits and even contribute to your growth. After all, this is what fans do. To make money out of this, you can implement a subscription fee.
People pay to receive your blog’s premium content or tailored discounts you have for your exclusive products.
18. Web Design
This one is not the easiest if you’re not already into it, but if you are, you can do it from home. Just gather a shining portfolio and market yourself online. You may need a USP (unique selling point), as it’s a competitive market. If you have designers’ skills and understand how website builders work, why don’t you check out our white label solution? With little effort, you could take off the ground a home business idea in this field.
19. Graphic Design
Every business needs a graphic designer at some point. If that’s your skill, simply find companies that need it and show them your portfolio. Again, freelancing sites like Fiverr are good places to start building your reputation.
20. Bookkeeping
Bookkeeping is something that all serious businesses need. Many will outsource to reputable bookkeepers – especially start-ups who don’t want to pay office salaries.
21. Multi-level Marketing
There are many MLM businesses out there. Choose a niche like beauty products or travel packages and sign up to the one that has the best scheme. It can take time to build it, and you’ll need good networks and sales skills, but good products sell themselves.
22. Producing Videos
YouTube videos are just too technical for some people. If you’re skilled at this, they’ll want your editing skills. You could offer vlog editing, music videos, voice-overs, and adverts.
23. Virtual Assistant
Executives who travel a lot and can’t connect in person with their PA will often hire a VA that works from home. They’re also a cheaper option for start-ups. Find clients through freelancing sites; all you need is reliable Wifi and the appropriate software.
24. Desktop Publishing
Why not create magazines, books, and newsletters from your own home if you’ve got the skills? If you can write the content yourself, that’s two marketable skills in one. Many businesses will outsource, so you just need to find them.
25. Tax Consultant
Companies of all sizes need tax preparation. It’s often cheaper and more accessible for them to outsource it. You can be a freelance tax consultant, but you may need to undertake some training to secure the clients. With a bit of time and learning, you can turn this activity into a full-fledged home-based business.
26. Translating
Do you know a foreign language? Then set yourself up as a translator. You can set up as a freelancer and market your skills to local and online businesses. Even though you’re unlikely to pull many jobs without the accreditation of a professional translator, the possibility of landing the occasional, career-changing gig is not as low to avoid trying.
27. Career Consulting
There are a lot of confused students out there! If you know your staff, help them to figure out their ideal career choices. An overwhelming amount of youths are completely lost on what career they’d like to pursue in life, so capitalise on their confusion by offering your services. Put flyers in colleges and universities, advertise online and wait for inquiries.
28. Resume Writer
Writing CVs fills many people with dread. They simply don’t know how to market themselves or concisely present the information. If that’s your skill, advertise on freelance sites and help people to realise their dreams.
Being the person that writes a CV for someone else is surprisingly easier than drafting one for yourself. This is because you don’t have any of the stress associated with failure. Surprisingly, it improves the quality of your work, rather than low. So, surprisingly, more often than not, the stress behind failure is what leads to failure itself.
29. Podcasting
If you’re happy to talk publicly and know your stuff in your niche, there are people out there that will listen to you for a subscription fee. Become famous and get paid for it! It might help to get interviewed as a guest on other podcasts first.
30. TEFL Teacher
Teach English to those who need it via Skype. You’ll need to do a relatively simple course, and then you can advertise your skills online, signing up students from around the world for an hourly rate.
Home Business Ideas: Final Thoughts
Working remotely and taking profitable home business ideas off the ground has never been easier. As you can see, there are so many options available to you if you want to work from your home. Find your niche and skills, train, and soon those long days in the office will become history! However, don’t forget that in our highly-digitalized world, no matter what business you intend to develop, it will most likely have to start with a well-designed, mobile-friendly website. If you don’t have one yet, don’t worry, we’ve got your back!