Do you want to start a small business? Let’s go for something that can grow over time and that you can do at home in your spare time, with very low startup cost. How about creating a website? You could earn money from any of the following:

  • running ads on your site 
  • affiliate marketing 
  • selling the domain name and/or the website at an online auction venue like Flippa 
Making a website is easy and you can do it without knowing any coding with various website building solutions or one of my favorite tools - Sitebuilder. You don’t need transportation or other special equipment, all you need is a laptop or computer, that’s all. And most of us have one of those. It doesn’t need to be a fancy or new computer either. Anything will do. If you can browse the internet, you can set up a website.

How to get started

For the full free guide of how to get started, you can try the beginner's illustrated tutorial at Purely Space that takes you every step of the way. Examples are shown for creating different types of sites, so you can make any of the following types of sites: 
  • a blog
  • a forum
  • a social network (yes, really!)
  • an e-commerce store site
  • a question-and-answer site
Besides having the potential to earn money, it can also be enjoyable work creating a website. The startup costs are very, very low, and the ongoing costs are also low.

It’s not like operating a real-life storefront or a food stall where there are high costs just to run it. If you don’t like taking on a lot of risks, then you’ll enjoy starting a small business creating a website.

Let your existing hobbies, interests, and strengths guide you

For example, if you love to write, then you’ll probably enjoy making a blog.

But if writing isn’t your thing, don’t worry! Let your users write the content for you when you run a forum, social network pages like InventHelp, or question-and-answer site. You can still earn money from the methods mentioned at the start on any of these types of sites.

Do you have a physical or digital product you can sell? Perhaps you paint beautiful art that you can sell. If so, an e-commerce store is an answer for you. If you are running e-commerce, your income arrives from sales of your product, so you typically would not want to run ads or affiliate links (because those would encourage your visitors to click away from your site, losing you sales). If your product is popular, your earnings from sales can scale up quickly.

It will take awhile for earnings to start and grow

At first, you won’t earn much, if anything, from a new site. This is because it’s not a well-known site yet, so you won’t be at the top of the search engine results. Be prepared for this to take time. It’s not a replacement for a full-time job, or at least not when you first begin. But also, the advantage is that creating and running a website is flexible and doesn’t take very much time. You can go at your own pace.

If you only have a few hours a week to spare, that’s fine, creating a website is a good small business to start. And if you have lots of time to devote to your new site, it will grow quicker and therefore you should start earning quicker.

Remember, if you need earnings immediately, building a website is not the best way of doing it. Getting a full-time or part-time job outside the home is the best way to get immediate earnings.

But do note: the huge advantage of a website is that earnings can scale over time, unlike a job outside the home. So it’s a great idea to start a website in your spare time now, and give yourself the best chance to get additional earnings later.

Next steps after starting out

Besides the beginner tutorial that was mentioned above, Purely Space also has plenty of other free tutorials for your next steps, as well as more advanced tutorials for later stages. So you’ll be well taken care of there.

And you don’t need to stop at making just one website, either. Why not maximize the opportunity to earn? After you’ve launched your first website, you can add more. Purely Space is one of several websites that the owner’s company runs, so they speak from experience.

Conclusion

Here we have described why running one or more websites is the best small business to start in your spare time. We have also explained how to get started with a fully illustrated guide for beginners – no coding experience necessary. We wish you a prosperous and enjoyable future.