Many women dream of being their own boss. Well, it’s not an impossible dream. The internet has made it easier than ever to make money online, and even if you’re only your own boss gal in the evenings or at weekends, you can get started very easily – and maybe eventually develop a business big enough that you can go full time.
- Blogging is great if you have a passion to share and you can write engagingly about it. Whether it’s extreme sports or extreme cleaning, the key is to find something enough people want to read about, and know what keywords will get readers heading to your site – and then remember to post regularly. A weekly review or monthly round-up style post can be a good way to keep things together. Then simply use Google AdWords together with affiliate relationships to monetise your site.
- Ebooks can leverage your blog, if you can write ‘how-to’ books that help people with practicalities. Find a problem people want to solve and help them solve it. Whether it’s how to detox in January, a fitness program for couch potatoes, or how to play the stock market, if you can write clear instructional prose, perhaps with a sense of humour, you’ve got the beginnings of a business. Keep building with new titles, use Amazon or Smashwords to publish, and use your own website or blog to promote your books. You won’t be JK Rowling, but you’ll have got started.
- If you’re a crafter you can sell online, through Etsy or Ebay or through your own website. This business doesn’t scale up too well, but if you’ve got a good product – particularly if it’s a bit different – you can charge good prices and make a bit of money out of something you enjoy doing. Pay attention to the little things, like cute wrapping and pretty branded labels – you’ll find repeat customers are the best kind and this is the way to keep them coming back. Remember to do your costings correctly though, or you could end up out of pocket.
- If you have a skill like computer programming, website design, or translating, you might find a good market for your skills as a freelance on sites like Upwork or Freelance.com. The key to getting good gigs is to establish a clear, quality profile for yourself and find those more specialised jobs that pay well – otherwise you’ll end up working for a pittance.
- Online trading isn’t for the timid but it can be a good moneymaker for those with a good head for numbers and a bit of self-discipline. Don’t think about getting rich quick – to do well you’ll need to start off making regular trades that generate a small profit. Find a good trading site like CMC Markets, set yourself some basic rules (like not investing more than you can afford to lose, and limiting any trade to 20% of your total funds), and you’re on the way to a small but steady income. Keep reinvesting those funds, and that small income will get bigger.
- Play computer games for money! Yes, you really could make it big in games. There are a few different ways to do this. One popular way is to ‘farm’ items in games and sell them online; another, for the keen gamer, is to run a video stream, Youtube channel or liveblog. Or you could always become a games tester. But you really will need to live and breathe your games to make money this way, as there are always far more wannabes than there are jobs.
Whatever you decide to do, remember that it does take time to build up a business. Just having a great product isn’t enough – you need to promote yourself properly, and you’ll need time to polish your profile and build up a good base of repeat custom. But whether you want to save up enough for a spa vacation every year, or make a nestegg that might let you take a sabbatical or make the down payment on a new home, an online business can get you there.
Related: Virgin Atlantic has a New Boss
