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Mobile applications are more popular than ever, with people willing to pay good money for ways to manage their lives from their smartphones. If you have a great new idea for an app and know how to code, you can run with it and create your app yourself. You can also become an app developer for businesses that need to create specific apps. Both options will require you to know the basic elements of software design and at least two common programming languages, such as SQL, JavaScript, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails or iOS. If you have an app idea but don't know the ins and outs of coding, there are plenty of software developers looking to collaborate with people on app creation. Depending on your situation and know-how, you may be able to make a lucrative business out of app development. businessnewsdaily.com

As merchants switch their sales to e-commerce, online marketplaces for handmade goods, like Etsy and ArtFire, make it extremely easy for artisans who can produce a steady supply of quality handmade products, such as crocheted blankets or unique painted glassware. If you have a unique craft, this is a good way to earn income while you're at home, doing what you love. Startup costs for this business idea are extremely low if you purchase your creative materials in bulk from a craft supplier. If you can create and sell your artwork quickly, you'll be making a profit in no time at all. Local artisans find added success when they promote their businesses on social media. businessnewsdaily.com

Many small businesses don't have room in their budgets to hire a full-time IT employee, so when their systems go on the fritz, they'll usually call a computer-savvy friend or family member. If you are tech savvy and have experience working on computers and networks, you can eliminate their need to call in a favor by offering immediate remote technical assistance. Although some businesses may prefer you to have a technical degree, many will look to your experience and knowledge instead. You can start to build your remote tech support business by reaching out to friends, family and local business owners about their tech support needs. You can also find freelance tech support gigs on job boards like Upwork. businessnewsdaily.com

If you love leaving customer reviews on sites like Amazon, it may be beneficial to look into affiliate marketing as a source of income. Word-of-mouth advertising is still a huge lead generator for many companies, and a lot of businesses are willing to share a portion of their profits with persuasive individuals who will promote their products to the public. Affiliate marketing can be broken down into different levels of involvement: unattached, related and involved. Unattached affiliate marketing is a basic pay-per-click affiliate marketing campaign that requires little to no involvement with the product you are promoting. Related affiliate marketing requires you to have some authority and content on the product you are marketing, but you don't personally use the product. Involved affiliate marketing is perhaps the most effective, as you'll be marketing an affiliate product that you actually use and enjoy. If you have a personal website or social media presence with a large following, affiliate marketing may be a profitable approach for you. PR reps are always seeking out brand advocates and influencers they can send free samples to. businessnewsdaily.com

Do you have impeccable organizational skills and task management abilities? Maybe it's time to put those skills to good use by becoming a virtual assistant. VA services typically consist of basic administrative tasks like entering data, making travel arrangements and answering phone calls. Previous experience in this field is ideal but not required. Companies like TaskRabbit and Zirtual make it easy for VA professionals to find jobs. They allow you to create an online profile and sign up for tasks you want to complete – including data research, virtual assistance or running errands – and begin building clientele. businessnewsdaily.com

Having a blog may seem like an outdated business strategy, since nearly everybody already has one, but the competition should not deter you from starting this online business journey. If you love writing or have important information to share, blogging may be a profitable business for you. Starting a blog as a business is very simple with website builders like Weebly and WordPress, but the key to success is consistency and quality. To gain a steady following, you must continually write and produce high-quality content that provides value to your readers. Content that educates, informs or entertains your readers gives them a reason to follow you. Once you've mastered the creation of consistent content, you can make money through your blog by selling products like online courses, digital coaching, e-books or webinars. You can also sell ad space or sponsored posts. This business strategy may take a little more time and effort to monetize, but it can be very profitable in the end. businessnewsdaily.com

If you are a creative, digital professional who thrives on forming the layout, visual theme, font set and color palette of a website, freelance web design may be a good path for you. If you have little to no experience in this field, you can learn the basics of web design and master the tools you'll need for success, like Adobe XD, Chrome DevTools and text editor software. If you are more interested in the coding side of building websites, freelance web development might be your wheelhouse. If you already know HTML, CSS or JavaScript and have a good eye for solving problems with creative solutions, you can launch a service to build attractive, easy-to-use websites for small businesses. If you need to learn the basics of web developing before launching your full-stack career, you can take a simple beginner's course to get started. Put your technical and creative skills to good use for business owners who want to take their online presence to the next level. Build a comprehensive portfolio, and then create your own website to show it off and attract a steady stream of clients. businessnewsdaily.com

There's an audience for everything, even if it's as specific as dollhouse furniture or organic dog food. With a niche e-commerce store, you can reach customers who seek your specific products. Building a business in a niche market can help you differentiate yourself from other brands and build your credibility and expertise. Look to social media or your own consumer needs to come up with a product to sell online. To get your e-commerce business up and running, all you need is a web hosting service with an integrated shopping cart feature or e-commerce software. To simplify the shipping process, you can work with vendors to ship products to customers on your behalf. This can reduce the amount of inventory you need to keep onsite. [Related: A Small Business Guide to E-Commerce Shipping] businessnewsdaily.com

Larger enterprises can hire an agency or full-time staff member to run their social media accounts, but small businesses often have to handle their own social media marketing. With so many responsibilities, business owners are often too busy, overwhelmed or undereducated about the importance of a social media presence to spend time developing and implementing a great social media strategy. As a social media consultant, you can help small businesses determine the best tactics, posting schedules and content for their target audience. As their follower count grows, so will your business. Facebook and Twitter are still the top business networks, but businesses often tend to struggle with more visual platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Snapchat. All of these platforms have huge consumer audiences, but many businesses don't realize how big they really are, how effective they can be and how to make them work for their brand. If you have a background in social media marketing and a passion for photography, focusing your consulting business on one specific platform, like Instagram, can be a great way to make money while helping other businesses improve their content and achieve their business goals. businessnewsdaily.com

If you have a great deal of business experience and knowledge, why not create a business that helps aspiring entrepreneurs find success? As a business consultant, you can use your skills to help new business owners get off to a good start and help experienced entrepreneurs keep up with demand. Your chances of success may be greater if you focus your strategy on a niche aspect of business consulting. You can start this process by following this 18-step checklist for becoming a small business consultant. To add to your credibility, demonstrate your expertise and bring in clients, it is helpful to be present in the digital business community. You can contribute to small business communities like business.com or write business articles on platforms like LinkedIn. businessnewsdaily.com

If you know the ins and outs of search engines and have technical skills in platforms like Google Ads and Google Analytics, becoming an SEO consultant can be a lucrative option for you. Many small business owners don't realize how much of an impact search engine optimization (SEO) can have on their business. Start your online consulting business by educating those business owners on the power of SEO to help transform their websites and increase their conversion rates. You can use your marketing skills to show business owners the benefits of using analytics data, strategic keywords and content structure to gain more organic web traffic. If you are unfamiliar with SEO or want to brush up on your digital marketing skills, you can reference Moz's Beginner's Guide to SEO. Keep in mind that Google's algorithms are always changing, so SEO is something you will need to continue your education on to stay relevant and successful in this field. businessnewsdaily.com

We have a beautiful name, we have a product, we have a domain, we could need hosting depending on our choice from a technical perspective. If we will sell our products online, we should choose carefully how to test our business idea and how to develop it considering existing e-commerce solutions. What can we do? WordPress. Easy to implement and modify after we bought a template and maybe a visual composer, it’s one of most prominent e-commerce solutions also thanks to Woocommerce. The great possibilities for customizations enable us to create a website that is both appealing and functional; however, one of the risks is to add too many plugins and to reduce customer satisfaction because of the “weight” of the single pages. Magento is widely considered one of the hardest platform to start a business if the entrepreneur does not have a technical background, given the steep learning curve to run if efficiently. However, the results can be pretty rewarding as it is one of the market leaders in e-commerce and is considered a top-notch solution by important brands in its “business” version (https://paulnrogers.com/top-magento-ecommerce-websites/). One of the most straightforward options for starting online businesses, Shopify offers a variety of functionalities which are easily available and do not require specific technical skills. The drawbacks can vary, such as limited array of information when a more in-depth analysis is needed or having to pay for more functionalities which could be required once the business skyrockets. A similar solution worth mentioning is Prestashop, which has a different pricing structure. Other Content Management Systems. The possibilities are endless, but they tend to be preferred by technical entrepreneurs (Drupal, Joomla, Adobe CQ and others). Web Site Builders (WYSIWYG). Last but not least, there are solutions which enable to create a website without writing any line of code. They could be a good initial test before switching to more advanced solutions, even if they have full-fledged functionalities in most cases (Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, Jimdo and others). With a functioning website, a compelling product and a great name, the real challenge begins. ftaccelerator.it

If we have passed the first checklist, we are ready to create a company. However, we need to find a name to increase our brand awareness. Two options are prevalent: Tied to the market. If we are going to sell jackets, we could think of www.greatjackets.com. Many services help us into finding available domains in this regard. Original name. This is by far the most common option for people starting an online business. However, it could be hard to find an interesting name from scratch which also resonates our preliminary brand identity. Once we have defined a name (and we have registered an accompanying online domain), we do not need too much graphics. A logo would be a nice start to add a special touch to our products, but it could be hard to create if we do not have experience in this sector. What could we do? Create a contest. Websites such as 99designs offer a broad choice of logos for a moderate amount. Pay a selected freelancer. While a personal connection would be a better fit, websites such as Fiverr show a great number of freelancers willing to create logos almost for free. Pay an agency. Any company dealing with branding would be easily in charge of creating a compelling logo, while being a more expensive choice for the entrepreneur. Create it from scratch. Online logo makers are more developed than ever, but it could be timely and unsatisfactory if there is not a clear idea behind the final product. ftaccelerator.it

The main prerequisite is that the product should be hard to find. Selling a product online which can be easily found in local stores is risky. This is why it would be beneficial to find a completely “new” product (jacket with electronic functions), a known product with a special twist (customized) or one that is catered towards a niche (environment-friendly or full-body customers are two examples). Another aspect to be taken into consideration is how crowded is the market. While this can be a great sign for a potential investor (having companies which have reached an interesting market share), it also means that investments to increase brand awareness will be consistent and require important amounts for the marketing strategy. Even finding a product which shows the previous characteristics, the search is far from over. In particular, we are looking for a product which is: Not too expensive. If we are bootstrapping and we do not use dropshipping, thinking of selling products for more than $200 could be problematic from a cash-flow perspective. An excessive inventory could hurt our ability to use funds in the short term, especially if we are still testing the e-commerce with an initial investment. With good marginality. Actually, the price itself is not as relevant as the marginality. As long as we have a good margin (at least 40%) we can sell items on our store with confidence. This is also a great reminder on why promotions and sales should be carefully crafted in advance, as a 20% discount on the complete purchase widely differs from a free shipping on the order or from the possibility of adding a complementary item for free on the same order. The cash flow should not be underestimated in this regard. Easily sourced. Are we sure that it would be easy to sell 10 as well as 1000 of these items per month? Which are the alternatives if there is a problem with our main sourcing partner? Generally speaking, various startups try to reduce the risk dealing with multiple suppliers at the same time. The issue, in that case, is creating a consistent experience while having to rely on different manufacturers. On the other side, there is a certain security that the website won’t suffer from an “out of stock” option anytime soon. Easily shipped. Shipping is widely underestimated, as it should be automatized and also properly communicated to the consumer on the website. When the competition is made out of retailers, the “free shipping” could make all the difference and is easier to absorb if we are dealing with smaller items. ftaccelerator.it

Step 7: Increase your income through back-end sales and upselling. One of the most important internet marketing strategies is to develop every customer's lifetime value. At least 36 percent of people who have purchased from you once will buy from you again if you follow up with them. Closing that first sale is by far the most difficult part -- not to mention the most expensive. So use back-end selling and upselling to get them to buy again: Offer products that complement their original purchase. Send out electronic loyalty coupons they can redeem on their next visit. Offer related products on your "Thank You" page after they purchase. Reward your customers for their loyalty and they'll become even more loyal. entrepreneur.com