Types Of Internet Business

In the overview: online business, I showed why people are doing online business. In this second part, I want to show the 4 main types of online business that people can venture.

A discussion with fellow technopreneurs highlighted 3, and later, I remembered one more.



1. Resellers
This is in fact the easiest way to earn money online. There are 2 ways to go about it here. First is similar to that of a traditional store, with the difference, you don't have a store, but instead a virtual store.

Some have an e commerce system with shopping cart. And for payment, though you can tie up with credit cards agents who tie up with the credit card companies , but those usually come with an annual fee (whether or not you use the card system). So, for a safer choice, just use PayPal as you pay only when you use, where they take a small percentage of your sales.

An easier option of course is through eBay or any other local sites that allow you to sell your products. Going to these sites are good because of easy searchability where your products are linked together with similar products.

Another type of reseller is the affiliates - where the products are not yours, but you are selling other people's product. Think as an online agent. All you need is using your email or you can even host the goods on a website. One example of an affiliate store is 1ShoppingCart - just choose the products suitable to you. If your website drives a lot of traffic, this might make good money for you. The good thing is you don't need to do anything - no handling work on your part - remember you are only the agent!

2. Internet Marketeers
These are people who learn SEO (search engine optimisation) where they ensure that the websites they create are highly ranked in search engines like Google & Yahoo, and even MSN.

They are famous for their one page websites, where the page is only to sell an ebook which may or may not have been written by them. Of course, some of them offer free information - and their aim is for you to click on their advertisements.

Basically, their theories here is to drive huge traffic and turn users either into buyers or interests in advertising.

A few have branced out and call themselves 'internet gurus' where all they do now is to teach others on maximising your online potential by giving you online course or by attending their seminars. And if you are too lazy to learn, you could hire them for a big fee (up to 5 figure) just to do your website.

Just be wary, some of them can be very big headed and arrogant.

3. Programmers
This group include the webmasters and is an interesting group of people who live and eat IT. They have programming at the back of their fingertips and know the latest free codes. Some however, prefer to do from scratch despite the many other codes readily available.

They aim to create new functions and services to aid web users and are usually very ethical in their works and jobscope. Some may spend months on a project, but now with Joomla and Wordpress.Org around, their job are much easier. In fact, many of them just use this currently to create new websites.

You will be surprised how easy it is to learn the codes on your own - some are self trained, working in their 'garage'. And the functions to their sites seem really cool - mainly because they know what is available and how to enhance a web user's experience.

4. Bloggers
This is of all the most interesting group. Starting out as a personal journey, some have taken it into a business. Topics can range from anything - mainly what you are interested in to write - it could be on cooking, travel, food places, business and many more. Some are even so dedicated to the political news in their country!

There are some bloggers who actually just teach you on blogging - on how to make your blog famous, and all the tools and tips require for blogging. These are sought after people because every blogger needs to learn more on maximising their blogs.

Then there is the 'celebrity bloggers'. Just imagine celebrity, but who is online. That means, their personal life is all shared - from their outings, dinner dates, places they eat, food they eat, clothes they buy & where, etc are all shared. There's no paparazzi, but instead its usually them who carry their pocket camera or phone camera taking photos of themselves and their friends.

Readers react to them well if they find the 'celebrity bloggers' interesting - and with such high demand on celeb stories, we don't see why not.

How do bloggers earn money? Through advertisements on their site and some also have affiliate banners. And once you become real popular, you can then become an ambassador to live products.

This is in fact, rather easy to earn money, but be prepared there is a lot to learn about blogging - it's not just writing and complaining your hearts' content.

Just a caution, you have to be prepared to meet other weird bloggers around who give a bad name to blogging or some weird comments coming into your blog.


Well, there you have it - 4 broad ways of making money online. Like I've mentioned, it's not easy money, or quick cash, as you'll need to put in hardwork just like any other business.

But saying that, internet business is a good option to think about if you want extra income for the start before you quit your full time job!