Somewhere between settling down and having kids, it happened - your need for an extra income increased by quite a lot. Then you have to weigh the factors on whether or not you’re going to work outside the home. For many mothers, the cost of child care for one or more children, the professional wardrobe necessary for most jobs and the ridiculous price of gasoline can make working at home a very appealing thing. Not to mention that if you have little ones, they will probably develop a perpetual case of the sniffles that may or may not require antibiotics, my family doctor affectionately termed it, “Daycare Syndrome”.
Paying yet another doctor bill for what I thought was an unnecessary cold my daughter had is when I decided I wanted to be self employed and see my kids all day every single day. If we wanted to go to the zoo on the spur of the moment, we could do it! When summer rolled around and we wanted to go bake at the pool for a day - we could do it! I decided if I were self employed I would have no boss, no schedule and no one to answer to except my clients and I would make sure to work in the evenings and early mornings when my kids were sleeping so no time would be taken away from them. And so started my search for what I could do from home.
I had done some web design in the past and I knew html like the back of my hand. Why I would just do web design for people. Well, it sounded good. I built a website and nobody came. I didn’t know a hill of beans about how to market myself online at the time and then I got one client who referred me to others and in the meantime I got very educated and read everything I could get my hands on about Internet Marketing and how to get listed on the search engines. What did Google, Yahoo and other search engines consider important? That was my goal to find out and I did it. Soon I had web design clients then the inevitable happened. Web design wasn’t something I truly enjoyed and I started getting a little burned out. I cringed when I saw an order for web design come in and even though the money was good, I wasn’t enjoying it - in fact, I was dreading it. Still, I did my best for my clients while I looked for something else I would enjoy doing.
I decided since I had really gotten a handle on internet marketing I would take advantage of this new Google Adsense program where you put their script on your website and when people click you make money. I looked at my web stats and I had a really healthy number of unique visitors every month. I would never need to work again from all these clicks I was going to get! So, I did it and make approximately $1.25 the first month in clicks. Well, that won’t even buy a cup of coffee much less replace the income from web design.
Then one of my clients asked me to create some web content. Words on a page for a website and I don’t have to design it? Sure! I found that I liked doing research on products and writing compelling web copy to make everything from bad breath to fine jewelry interesting to read by and entice the reader to purchase from the client’s site. Then I got asked to create articles and I found something I loved to do, I loved to write and getting paid to create words really rocked.
I learned to create articles, blog entries, keyword articles, e-books, press releases and even horoscopes for people and their websites. I’ve lost track of how many thousands of pieces of content I’ve created but I’ve enjoyed every second of it. I really enjoy research and I feel like I do something that keeps my brain busy learning every single day. Late last year, I wrote a book, “Write All the Way to the Bank” about how I did it and laid out a step-by-step game plan so you can do it too.
Okay let’s talk about you. What are you talents? Don’t say, “None”. Everyone can do at least one thing really well and it’s just a matter of propelling yourself forward and doing something that you’re both good at and enjoy.
Love to write your thoughts? You can make it as a blogger or writer for the web and there are literally thousands of open opportunities to choose from every single day. I can show you how.
Do you love to organize? Consider starting a personal organization service. There are a huge number of people that would love to have their closets, drawers, cabinets and more organized and just lack the time and knowledge to do it. If you have a special talent for keeping things neat as a pin, sell your knowledge and you can do two main ways. Set up a service online that shows your talents (Use your own closets, kitchens and bathrooms for your first before and after photos) and then promote your online website by writing short articles about what you do and posting them on websites such as www.goarticles.com or www.ezinearticles.com with links back to your website. People searching for closet organization will find you and use your services.
Ever wanted to own an online retail business? It’s very possible and you don’t have to buy stock either. Consider the world of drop shipping. In a nutshell, when you drop ship, you have a retail store online and you show products as they are your own. When people buy, you contact your drop shipper, pay for the item and pocket your profit. The drop shipper will ship the item in your company name and your customer is none the wiser.
Need a website and you don’t know beans about html? You can get a website that is literally fill in the blank and create a retail-ready website that is ready to with just a few clicks of your mouse and a Yahoo website is very affordable.
Now, need some ideas for finding drop shipping companies? First of all, don’t buy a list. Those lists are generally scams and you just paid upwards of $20 for something that is probably outdated anyway. I went through a lot of Google searches to find an actual, legitimate drop shipping supplier and I bumbled onto one of the best!
The drop shipping catalog that I use has a huge number of companies affiliated with it and you can check it out here at Worldwide Brands/One Source. Ever wanted to sell jewelry, dog toys, plus size fashions, designer clothing, handbags, shoes, sporting equipment or even home security items? You can find it all there and more. Be the coolest Mom in the universe and sell children’s toys! The price for drop shippers is below retail so you can compete with other retail outlets and your supplier won’t be undercutting your pricing either. It’s a great way to have an online retail business. Some drop shippers charge a small fee find out if it is per order or per item and choose your drop shipping partner accordingly.
Okay now you need to promote your online store. A company blog about what you’re selling, what products make great gifts, ways to use the products with links back to whatever you’re writing about is a wonderful way to promote your site for free. Also, informational articles with a link back to your site, such as the importance of using pretend play to stimulate a child’s imagination would be a great topic for a website that sold children’s toys. Don’t write a sales piece, make it informational and you’ll have people coming to your site. No one wants to read a commercial; you don’t, I don’t and neither will your potential customers. You can set it up yourself or have an outside company set it up.
A press release is another great way to promote your company. You can write one yourself or for about $25 you can have one written by a writing company. Create news, think of yourself as Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and make some news about your company. Have a poll on your website and publicize the results, tie in your company to an observance. A good example would be if you have a home safety store to release a press release along the lines of, “XYZ Company Promotes Safety in the Home During National Safety Awareness Month”. Need to know where to check out those groovy obscure observances to create press releases of your own? Check out Brownie Locks, she has it all.
Are you a member of any forums online bulletin board communities? Don’t just join a forum and start posting links to your website. You’ll get blacklisted faster than fast. There are robotic programs that do just that - don’t be confused with something like that. Instead, ask questions, post replies where you’re interested in doing so, make online acquaintances and get “known” in the online community. You’ll get much better feedback and no hassles for linking to your website or products.
Social networking is the biggie now with building traffic to yourself. You can hit up Myspace.com or Facebook.com. Even Hi5.com is getting traffic to people now. Building a Squidoo lens (simply a member page in Squidoo-speak) is another way to get yourself found and show what you know about a topic or product. If you’re passionate about what you do, put it on a page with a link to your own website. It’s a good way to really reach targeted traffic for your website. Sites such as Digg.com or Del.ico.us.com, Stumbleupon (my personal fav) and others are wonderful ways to share your links with others. You simply click and submit the site, along with a brief review or synopsis and keywords that relate to the website. Done. You can submit to something like 30+ social sites at once through Social Marker.com.
Affiliate programs and Pay-Per-Click like Adsense are great ways to bring in some supplemental income. You need a blog or website with a fair amount of traffic. Blogs are by far the best for this and you need to post things that relate to the content of your blog so you can get indexed with relevance in the search engines. In short, keep the theme you start with. I’ve always made far more money off promoting affiliate programs on blogs rather than Google Adsense. People have seen those “Ads by Google” on so many sites for so long, I personally think they blot them out of their field of vision now. Blogging to the Bank is a great e-book that will show you exactly how to build a blog and how to choose affiliate programs that will yield good returns.
In the 1990’s, the online businesses of creating stationary and gift baskets exploded as home businesses for stay-at-home-Moms. They are still good businesses with a lot of draw as the call for personalized and “made for you” items is still strong. However, competition is fierce and you have to be able to market yourself on the web. Using the online techniques above is a great way to promote yourself if you want to go this route.
Avoid like the plague:
*Websites that offer a pre-made affiliate site for $XX. You won’t make a dime because the
search engines prize uniqueness above all. How can you make a dime if your content is just like
everyone else’s that paid x-amount of dollars for a website?
*Lists of companies that promise work at home opportunities. These are an old scam that is
still going on to this day. Repeat after me: “Don’t pay to work”.
*Companies that promise 6-figure incomes for doing nothing. If they don’t have a service/product
they are selling, how the heck are they making money? Steer clear.
*Products that promise you overnight wealth. Google Adwords for Free is one of these. It’s
a cool concept but will only work for a minimal amount of people.
*Data entry or email collection “jobs”. These are 99.9% of the time scams. If you run across
one that is an actual legitimate gig - please forward it to me so I can fill in that hopeful
1% I left open in that estimation above.
And those are just a few ideas. Think about what you’d really like to spend your time doing and make it happen. If you really want to make a living at home, there are a good number of ways and it’s just a matter of putting your efforts forth and doing it.
To your success!
