Work From Home Ideas

30DC 2009 Day One

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

So here goes. As I explained in my previous post, I'm going to give the 30DC a proper chance to make me some pennies. Note that although I use the word pennies, I'm planning on it being a whole lot more than just mere pennies.

The Challenge is run / fronted by one Ed Dale - aka TubbyNerd. First things first, he's Australian - in my mind a nation with its collective head screwed on correctly. So, Day 1. What's occurin'? Well, by way of introduction, Ed talks about a making money on the internet as a Magnificent Symphony in Four Parts. These being

Market Research
Traffic
Conversion, and finally...
Product

Or in essence, let the market tell you what it wants and create or promote a product or products based upon your research, i.e. the first 3 parts. As is explained, this is contrary to 'normal' business practice, but it's perfectly sensible if you think about it. You will most likely be starting this business with little or no cash, so having to go the expense of develop a product that you're not sure will sell in the first place is, well, nonsensical.

So where do you find out what people want? Well in the Day 1 videos, you are shown that you can look just about anywhere for sources of inspiration. However, amongst other places, the guys direct you to look in nothing more high-tech than magazines - say for example you are in a newsagents and you pick up a gardening magazine gardening, have a look at the classified ads. These contain things for sale for which there is obviously already a market. Gardening on its own may well be far too competitive for you to get into, but something like 'pruning roses' may well be less difficult for you to tackle. There, I've done it. Without meaning to, I've started giving examples of some of the terms used by the team, and I haven't even defined them!

So just to jump out here, for the last few words of this post... the 30DC will enable you to create your own website, which in turn will contain (initially at least) ads for other people's products, for which you will receive a commission if and when people click on them and go buy. In essence, what Day 1 is starting to show you is which products to feature and how to find them.

There, I hope that I've whetted your appetite, why not have a look at the 30DC website, where you can register (it's free) and have a go yourself. Whether you want this to be a money making hobby, or even replace your full time income, it's surely worth a look?

03.02.2010 thirty day challenge No Comments

How To Spot A Great Internet Business Opportunity

Wednesday, September 9th, 2009

You know, the Internet offers a wealth of opportunity. In many respects though, it's much like the Wild West. As in the Wild West, finding a safe, reliable Internet business opportunity that works is not easy - there are cowboys and villains out there. Our innate nature caution and cynicism kicks in once you've tried and failed at the odd get rich quick scheme or twenty.

Here's a couple of pointers to help you sort out the wheat from the chaff amongst all those Internet business opportunities.

One - Programme Particulars & Support

Look for information on the programme. Look at what type of support is on offer. Ask if there are extra fees for mentoring or help. Usually if a programme has good support they will respond to your questions before you buy. If they don't, it's unlikely that they'll be much help to you once you have signed up.

Two - Information On The Promoter

Learn about the programme promoter. Take the time to find out how long they've been working online. It stands to reason, and just like in the real world, that if they've been making money for a year, you wouldn't trust them nearly as much as if they have been online for 5 years or more.

Three - Follow Your Instinct

Now this sounds obvious (the best advice IS always obvious), but you shouldn't always trust online programme reviews. Why is this? Well, you can bet your bottom dollar that many such review are written by the either the promoter, or by affiliate or network marketers trying to get more sales or team members. And what's more, if there's money at stake, the temptation is always going to be there to give glowing review for a programme that the reviewer has perhaps never sampled. Always remember, your instinct is your best guide to the veracity of any Internet business opportunity.

Four - Information Pure and Simple

Back again to information and for this I make no apologies. Information is the key to the Internet - after all that's really just what it is, a vast collection of information. So see if the opportunity that you're looking at offers any free information or content before you sign up for a programme. Many of the best opportunities have their own free forum or membership site. This is actually very good (the best?) practice on the part of the advertiser - get your prospects thinking 'Wow! Look what they are giving away for free, their paid stuff MUST be worth it!' However it does also benefit you as the prospect as it gives a very good idea about the programme before spending money on it.

To summarise then, believe it or not, the Internet is not all that different to real life! Just as finding a good business proposition in the real world is fraught with potential complications the same is true on the Internet. Perhaps the faceless aspect of the Internet puts people off, but then adverts in newspapers for same are just as faceless and always have been. However, if you are persistent, you will succeed in finding the Internet business opportunity that is right for you.

09.09.2009 affiliate marketing, internet business opportunity No Comments

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! Part I.

Friday, August 28th, 2009

A website without traffic is like a pencil without lead. Pointless. But how do you get this traffic, this magical stuff. You can't see it, you can't smell it, but boy do you need it, your website will wither and die without it. There are many different ways for you to get traffic, some are free, some are not. This article deals with the free variety.

Free Traffic

Now by free, I mean traffic that we don't have to pay for with cash. In order to get free traffic you will have to invest some time in one way or another. Obviously, your site will consist of content of one description or another - that's what it is after all. So, on your site you can optimise your content so that when the spiders come they'll find it and report back that there is actually something there worth reading. But this isn't the full extent of what you have to do to get this free traffic. For a kick off, you need to write content that is relatively unique but with a lot of potential visitors. This is the eternal conundrum for website optimisation and there are many tools out there which will help you to get a grip on the issue. Again, some are free, some are paid.

Free keyword tool

Perhaps the best free way is to pop over to wordtracker and use their free keyword tool (opens in new window). Type in your keyword and press 'hit me'. You will get a list of the top 100 searches related to your keyword. Try it with writing paper. You'll get a list of keywords with the number of times they have been searched for. Your looking for a phrase with more than 100 searches - you know it's popular. Now you need to check the competition. Head over to google and do a search using the exact same keyword. Try it first with out quotes - writing paper. This gives a very large number of competing pages - a lot of millions. So although many people are looking for it, it's unlikely that you'd be able to rank very highly for it because of the plethora of competing pages. Trying it in quotes "writing paper" - gives you a smaller number, but still in the millions. So no good. What you are looking for is less than 75,000 pages without quotes and I'd say less than 35,000 in quotes. Also, you don't want any 'authority' sites in the list. You know, sites like BBC, Amazon, Wikipedia and the like. If they appear in the google search, they'll tend to attract the clicks.

Suitable keyword

Once you have a suitable keyword you need to start the work of using it in order to draw those clicks to your website. Use it both on your website, and perhaps more importantly off your website too. You are getting deeper into the realms of internet marketing now. But don't worry, it's not anything sinister - you just have to keep your wits about you and do what are relatively simple things over and over. Please stay tuned for the next installment.

28.08.2009 internet marketing No Comments

Work From Home Companies

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

As with going out to work, there is any number of work from home companies. It really does depend upon what you want to do. I think that it'd be useful also to say that as well as working for yourself, or being freelance, you can also work from or at home for an employer.

There are some genuine work from home companies out there, and also some scams. Please be wary of such work from home scams. Normally, a job won't come with a fee, so never send money up front to people or companies who claim they can give you work at home. If you are interested in an advertised work from home job do some research into the company and contact them with your questions. A legitimate company will be very glad to speak with you and give you as much information as you require.

Beware the Scammer

One of the more common ones involves adverts about addressing and stuffing envelopes which ask for a registration fee. If you pay the fee, all you get in return is advice to place adverts like the one you saw, but no actual work. Another type will ask you for money for home assembly kits, promising your money back and additional payment for the kits that you complete. The advertiser will pocket any money you send and then claim the kit you assembled didn't meet the necessary standards. If you feel that you have been the victim of such a scam, you will need to inform your local Trading Standards Department - be insistent with them too. Sometimes you can get passed from pillar to post, insist that someone takes responsibility for your complaint, after all it's their duty and they do have this responsibility to you.

Three Legitimate Companies

I'd like to discuss three of the more well known work from home companies in the UK. All involve catalogues, but all have different business models. No doubt you will have heard of them, but I'll give you the names anyway. There's Kleeneze, Avon and Betterware. All are direct sales companies, that is, there is no middle man between you as a distributor of products and your customers. I believe that Avon and Betterware both operate with territory systems - that is they tell you where to put your catalogues, where as Kleeneze does not - it is up to you.

With Betterware you receive your catalogues from the company at no cost, but you are told how many you need to put out. Avon does charge you for your books as does Kleeneze, but the difference is that with Kleeneze you can put your books anywhere - you build your own territory. I have heard of a lady who was advised by someone from Avon that she could just drop her books out wherever she wanted to. This resulted in nothing more than an irate call from the lady whose Avon territory she'd stepped on. Ouch!

Kleeneze charges an upfront fee to join. Now as I have discussed above, a legitimate company which Kleeneze (like Avon and Betterware) is, will be glad to answer any queries that you have. Furthermore, it is likely, especially with Kleeneze, that you will be joining up with a sponsor, again they will have no problems in discussing the business with you. In many respects there's something which seems almost shady about some of the methods used by Kleeneze Distributors to encourage enquiries. You may have found a mysterious card on your card, or seen a flyer or even poster - not to mention newspaper ads. This is because upfront mention of the name Kleeneze does put people off. However, if you were to look at the Kleeneze opportunity in any depth you would realise that there is a direct relationship between work done and reward received.

Conclusion

With all three opportunities, as in life really, you don't get anything for nothing. You have to put in some work, there's just no way that you'll make a single penny if you do nowt. I guess what concerns people is whether or not they're doing the right thing, as doing lots, but of the wrong things gets you the same place as doing nothing. So this leads us back to another question, namely how do we know if we're doing the right thing. Well dear reader, research is key, as is listening to your own gut instinct, if something feels wrong then it probably is, so leave it alone. Try and make sure that your research is as independent as possible. There are plenty of forums out there and all sorts of people will post on them. People post for various reasons - positive, negative and neutral, so be wary and read as much as you can to get the best possible range of opinions. Ultimately though, it's down to you. Good Luck.

25.08.2009 self employment, self employment essentials No Comments

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

There are many reasons why one would wish to work from home. To compliment this, there are probably just as many ideas for what you could do as a home worker. So let's run through a few:

Work From Home Ideas 1. Run Your Own Website

In this day and age, the internet seems to be a good place to try and earn a living from home. But what should you do on the internet? Well, this is the first point at which I think that you should take stock of the situation and think very carefully. Be wary, there are a million (should that be billion?) and one opportunities out there, and everyone is the best. A good rule of thumb is that if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is.

The internet has become an extension of our day to day lives. Therefore, you should think about your skills and interests and use these as basis for your self employment idea. Even if initially this is just a hobby or an extension of your hobby then go with it, see where it takes you.

Here's a slightly odd example, but please bear with me. What if you're really good at ironing. You know, you can get creases in trousers that nobody else could even dream of. Well apart from offering your services, doing people's ironing for them, you could write a website about ironing, documenting the history of the iron, developments in the technology of ironing boards, that sort of thing. With carefully placed adverts you can make money as people come to your website to learn about ironing, see an ad that takes their fancy, click on it and voila, there's a small commission for you. You don't need to know everything about the web or how to build a website, there are plenty of sites out there that can give you the platform, Blogger.com is a good place to start.

Work From Home Ideas 2. Sell Stuff On eBay

eBay claims that $1,900 worth of goods is traded every second worldwide on their myriad sites around the world. Surely some of that would look good on your bank statement? Stick to what you know - irons, ironing boards and other ironing board paraphernalia in our case. Even if irons and ironing are not your thing, think about all the junk that you have in your house. Your junk could be just what somebody else's heart desires.

Work From Home Ideas 3. Write Articles Or Other Copy For Websites

Want to tell the world about irons and ironing boards? Well if you don't fancy doing it on your own website, why not do it for others. Or if writing really isn't your forte, why not compile a list of all iron manufactrers or do some web searches and compile a list of websites related to irons or ironing. Believe it or not, this may well be a useful resource (just remember irons and ironing is a silly example that I have made up).

Work From Home Ideas 4. Use Your Hobbies Or Skills

As I mentioned above, why not offer to do other people's ironing. Many people absolutely abhor the idea of spending even a minute ironing. If you're good at it and you enjoy it, why not take this burden off others who don't. It's not like you'd offer to do it for free - LOL. Of course ironing is just the tip of the iceberg. There's all sorts of things you could do, from mowing lawns to walking dogs, delivering leaflets to childcare, baking, knitting - the list is only limited by your imagination.

Work From Home Ideas 5. Door To Door Catalogues

Arghh! I hear you cry. I can't do that, imagine the shame of it. Well if you need a few extra pennies, this line of work, with the right company could be very rewarding. The beauty of this type of work is that you don't have to be a sales-man or -woman. The catalogues will do the selling for you. In the UK there are three major catalogue opportunities - Avon, Kleeneze or Betterware. Each has its own merits and drawbacks, you can easily research them all with a quick Google search.

06.08.2009 self employment, self employment essentials No Comments

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