Four Tips for an Optimal Home Office You Can Truly Build a Business In

One of the most overlooked things for succeeding in a home based business is to have your own separate space dedicated solely to your work – a home office. The following are four tips for creating the optimal home office working environment easily and affordably:

Make sure you have a door you can close. To really concentrate on your business tasks and make your work time much more effective and efficient you need the option of being able to close the door and work in seclusion. Maybe you don’t always keep the door shut when you work, but it’ll help a lot when you really need some peace and quiet to get work done.

Use furniture you already have. Most of us have attics, garages, basements, sheds, and spare rooms filled with furniture we rarely or never use. There’s no reason to spend more money on buying new office furniture when you can touch up and recycle something you’ve already got.

Have a place for everything and put everything in its place. Organization is crucial for an effective home office environment. You will be much more efficient in your home business if you are organized, and it starts with your office. It’s easy to get overrun by a mess of paperwork and office supplies if you don’t watch out. Prevent that from happening by preparing an organized work space in advance and keeping it that way.

Get a dedicated home business phone and number. When running a home business, the last thing you want to do is compete with your family for the telephone. One business expense that’s well worth your money is a separate phone line, whether that’s a land line or a cell phone.

There are a few benefits to having a separate business phone number. First, you won’t be interrupted by personal calls beeping in or family members needing to use the phone. Second, it comes across as more professional because the business associates and clients calling will only reach you or your business voice mail. Lastly, it’ll be easier to keep track of your home based business expenses when your home phone bills and work phone bills are separate.

Use the four tips above and you will be well on your way to creating an optimal home office working environment that is suitable for running a successful home based business.

Affiliate Programs Are Not Just For Joining – You Can Set Up Your Own!

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to start a home based business, and it’s no wonder why. Affiliate programs allow individuals to make money marketing a product or service without having to create it on their own. Usually affiliate programs also offer professionally designed websites and marketing tools for affiliates.

An affiliate program is essentially an advertising model which allows people to earn a share of the revenues from products and services they market on behalf of the original product developers or service providers. An individual can add one or more affiliate products to their existing website, make a new website devoted to the product(s) and/or service(s) they’re selling as an affiliate, or (in many cases) utilize and promote a “cloned” website produced by the product or service provider’s own team of professional web designers.

Affiliate programs are an excellent way for beginners to get started working at home and also a great way for veteran home based business owners to expand their income streams. But one of the best ways to take advantage of the power of affiliate programs is to start your own. Anyone can set up their own affiliate program, even you! If you already have a home based business promoting one or more products and/or services, and you would like to take your income to the next level, starting your own affiliate program is an excellent way to do so.

One huge advantage of having your own affiliate program is that you make money off all your affiliate’s sales in addition to your own. It’s a pay for performance model that will make you more money than you are now while saving you marketing expenses. These days, a vast number of home business owners have their own affiliate programs.

Here’s a very basic outline of how affiliate programs work:

* You recruit your affiliates
* You provide them with the promotional tools
* They sell your product for you
* You pay them a certain percentage (commission) of each sale

Most home business entrepreneurs find that building a network of affiliates is far more profitable than search engine marketing and other paid advertising campaigns. Also, establishing good relationships with your affiliates will not only increase the sales of your products, it will assist greatly with the launching of any new products you come out with.

There’s definitely not a shortage of potential affiliates either. The work at home market is huge and keeps getting bigger. In the increasingly unstable job market, working at home has exploded as one of the top options for people seeking an income or a new career.

Once you have created your product and are ready to start your affiliate program there are a lot of affiliate networks you can join. One very popular and easy to use option is clickbank.com

Existing affiliate networks are beneficial in that they will host your program for you and take care of most of the other tasks you would normally have to do yourself. You simply pay a small setup fee and agree to give them a tiny cut of monthly sales. Since they are already very well-established and recognized online, existing affiliate networks will usually go a long way in helping you get more affiliates quickly. This is the kind of exposure most new home based businesses simply can’t get by themselves.

Using the power of affiliate marketing by creating your own affiliate product is a phenomenal way to expand your home based business and sky-rocket your income.

Avoiding Work at Home Scams – Here’s How

There are plenty of legitimate work at home opportunities out there for anyone looking for one, but there are also countless scams that will rob you of your time, money, dignity and your faith in whether or not you really can work from home successfully. Below are several key ways to avoid all the WAH scams out there…

Do your due diligence

Know exactly who you are dealing with before you get involved with them. Many companies do not actually hire you directly – instead they sell you a list of other companies that MIGHT hire you, or they might just be trying to recruit you into an opportunity or something else like that. Make sure you know what you are getting in to.

Email them, call them, search forums and other websites for information about them, etc… Don’t stop until you have your questions fully answered. All legitimate companies will be happy to answer your questions, so it’s a huge red flag if they won’t.

Stay grounded

Don’t get some pie in the sky dream or kid yourself that you’re going to quickly make a lot of money in your new work at home venture. A work at home job is still a “job” and requires you to work to gradually increase your income.

Never answer unsolicited (spam) emails

Spammers are the scum of the earth and you will never do yourself any good by opening or answering one of their emails. Anytime you see an email offering you some work at home opportunity, ask yourself where the email came from. How did the sender find you? Did you sign up to receive these notifications, or might it be spam? Does it address you personally? Does it mention a referral from anyone you know? Is it written professionally or is it full of spelling and grammar mistakes?

If you just get a random email offering you work, money, or saying you won something there is a high chance it’s a scam or a virus or something else you don’t want. I recommend not even opening these emails. I never do!

Never pay for a work at home job

If you’re doing a job, you should be getting paid for it, not the other way around. A legitimate company looking to hire you will not ask you for money to get the job. There are legitimate home based business opportunities that you will usually have to pay to be a part of. But that’s something completely different. If you are looking for an actual “job” that you do online (not a home business) then you shouldn’t ever pay for it.

Ask for references

Ask around job forums and find several other people who are already doing the work you’re considering taking on. Talk to them to see if it really is what it professes to be and, even more importantly, whether they’re satisfied with the results. Also ask whether or not they feel that the company has been keeping their promises and paying for the work.

Check the law

Make sure you don’t get yourself tangled up in some illegal scheme that you’ll later regret for more reasons than one. Find out if you need to obtain a certification or a license in order to do the proposed work legally. You may also want to make sure your local zoning board permits you to operate a business from your home (if relevant).

More Tips For Avoiding The WAH Job Scams

There are many red flags that say to me, “This job is a scam!” when I see them. And when I refer to jobs, I mean the one that has an employer, but you do it from home.

Here’s a list of what to look for to avoid the work at home job scams.

1. If it looks to good to be true, then it usually is. Always go with your gut instincts. If you’re questioning it because something looks fishy or just doesn’t seem right, then most likely it’s a scam. Ask around the various work at home forums or type in your favorite search engine the company’s name+scam.

2. Earn tons of money in a short amount of time. You will see $300-$500+ in just 2-3 hours per day or something more outrageous than that. Doesn’t ask for resume or job skills or experience. Um… NOT! Seriously, if you can make that kind of money, why aren’t we all doing it?

3. Loud, colorful, screaming websites. A lot of hype and not much else. Websites that are the colors of the rainbow, have highlighted words, bold and huge fonts cannot possibly be taken seriously.

4. Training materials or registration fees. This is a sure sign it’s a scam. Legitimate employers do not ask for fees! Though there are exceptions to this rule such as background checks and equipment required for the job.

5. Free email address. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a scam. Many legitimate employers use a free email address to avoid clogging up their company’s email system, but it should at least make you think and look into it further.

6. Free webhosting. Many scammers will use free web hosts. I know of only a few legit companies that use a free webhost. With that said, it’s not an absolute guarantee that it is a scam but it does jump out as a red flag because if they can’t pay for web hosting, how are they suppose pay you?

7. No contact information. There should be at least an email address, a phone (or toll-free) number or physical address.

8. Poorly written English. This is tip off. Almost a sure sign it’s a scam or at least worth investigating more.

9. Money processing. No. No. No. Never accept any jobs that require you to accept payment into your account for transfer later to another bank account.

10. Stuffing envelopes. Again, no such thing. This one has been around the block many times and is very well-known as bullshit!

Anyway, these are just some of the main signs to avoid. Always do your due diligence and never be desperate because that is when you will fall prey to scams.

Ok now you have some tips to help you avoid scams of all kinds in the WAH world. Don’t let yourself get involved in any work at home scams. If you do you will find yourself out money, time and maybe even in trouble with the law. Knowing how to identify these scams before you fall victim to one will save you a lot of headaches ahead of time.

Success Qualities for Individuals Working at Home

Working at home for a company or as your own boss can be an excellent option for many people. It’s a great way to earn an income while being free to manage your home life on your own terms. But not everyone is cut out for working at home. Are you?

Let’s take a look at 4 qualities that most work at home individuals tend to have:

1. Self Discipline – Without a boss watching over you or co-workers working by your side, you may find it incredibly easy to do anything other than actually work. And when you’re working at home, the potential for distraction is increased by having all of your personal life within reach.

Just because you’re working at home does not mean you shouldn’t have a work schedule. Routine is good and will help you a lot with your self-discipline. For a home based worker this can be a lifesaver as the self-imposed structure helps you get your work done each day. If you completely refuse to set yourself a schedule and stick to it, then at least set yourself daily, weekly and monthly goals to keep you on track.

2. Personal Motivation – Procrastination is a dirty word for anyone who works at home. Similar to self-discipline but not quite, you also need to be self-motivated in order to rise to the challenges of the tasks you need to finish each day. When you work at home, you’re the only one there to motivate yourself to work, and if you don’t do it, you will be out looking for a regular job in no time.

3. Perseverance – You can’t be easily discouraged when you work at home, especially if it’s in a home based business where you’re not only your own supervisor but your own boss too. It takes time to get adjusted to the new mode of employment and if you own a home based business it’s not easy to build it into a highly profitable venture. You can’t be the type of person who gives up easily if you want to be successful working at home. You must be persistent or you might as well go find a job right now and save yourself the disappointment.

4. Positive Attitude – It can get very lonely working at home so you might as well at least enjoy your own company, if you’re going do it. But more than that, you need to have enthusiasm for what you’re doing in order to inspire you to stick with it. It can be easy to fake it in the offline world – getting up each day, driving to work, doing what you’ve got to do, and driving home. But it’s much harder to fake it when you’re in the comfort and privacy of your own home environment and you are the only one around.

As a general rule it’s a good idea to enjoy what you do for a living, but it’s never more important than when you work at home. At least at an offline job you can leave every day and go home. But when your home is your workplace it can be a lot harder to separate the two, and therefore even more important that you enjoy what you’re doing. That way, you won’t start resenting your home environment and dreading waking up every morning like so many other people dread their workplace environment and resent going there each day.

There are numerous success qualities for individual working at home but the four listed above are some of the more important ones.

Send Your Blog Traffic Skywards With This Blog Boosting Ballyhoo!

Being an avid blogger with a perpetually growing menagerie of websites, blogs, web 2.0 sites, and other online properties; I know full well the importance of promoting those windows onto the various rooms in my creative writer’s mind. There are several methods of getting the word out to the general content hungry public and I’ll cover a few of my favorite here in this post.

Let’s start with “commenting your way to the top” as I like to call it.

So, what do I mean by that? I’m glad you asked. Let me explain…

Blogs are very special content medium, in that they allow a two way interaction between blogger and reader in the form of comments. If a visitor to a blog likes what they are reading, they may feel moved to comment on a particular post. If the blogger is enthusiastic about what he does, he’ll reply to the comment. Other readers may also get involved in the conversation and what you end up with is a social meeting place of like minded people who are all able, thanks to the beauty of the comment box, to exchange thoughts, ideas and information.

So a blog can also become a social networking platform if sorts.

So far, so good. How does a blogger (like me) take advantage of this?

By getting into the blogosphere and visiting lots of other blogs that inhabit the same niche, a blogger can not only get a good deal of inspiration and alternative viewpoints on a variety of subjects, but he can comment on other bloggers’ posts.

That has a severalfold positive effect.

  • He becomes known to the blog owner he just commented in – more so if he comments regularly
  • He becomes known to the regular readers of the blog
  • Those readers may well click his link back to his own blog out of interest
  • If the blog is a “Do Follow” supporter, he gets a free, one-way back-link to his blog

Let’s analyze these points a little.

Points 1 and 2 are obvious – networking gets you known and raises your online profile and that of your blogs/sites.

Point 3 is a major benefit, because it means more targeted traffic to your blog. If you write well and your posts are interesting and entertaining enough those people may well become regular readers of your blog too.

Point 4 can be a killer benefit. There are a lot of “Do Follow” supporters and a good number of high authority blogs are in on the movement.

Note: For those of you who are unfamiliar with this term, “Do Follow” is a plugin or coding that cancels out the hard-coded “rel=nofollow” in the HTML of most blogs which effectively blocks the search engines from accrediting you with the backlink from your comments. In other words, “Do Follow” blogs give you real backlinks from your comments.

This means that newer bloggers have an incredible chance to not only get indexed by the search engines fast by commenting on these higher PR blogs, but they also boost their chances of a higher authority and rankings for their own blogs by creating enough of them from lots of different sources.

These points makes it so worthwhile writing and hosting an excellently written blog and making friends with other bloggers by writing good, relevant, creative and thought provoking comments in their blogs. Because don’t forget, real bloggers strictly moderate their comments and simply won’t approve any old rubbish. Spammers don’t get a look in!

So, as you can see, commenting is a great way to promote yourself and your blog(s)!

Okay, now, let’s continue one to another powerful method of attracting visitors to your website/blog…

Using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Google Plus, YouTube, Stumbleupon, or any of the MANY others out there – you can make a name for yourself while also promoting your blog to a high number of potential visitors.

The great value of belonging to these social networking sites is that you can relatively easily build up a new readership and get a flood of traffic to your blog quite quickly in some cases. This boils down to the fact that once they get to know you, they’ll be beating a path to your door as long as what you’ve got to offer is what they want.

And what do most people want?

They want to know how to make money online of course. Even the ones who vehemently shake their heads when you mention earning a few bucks for their trouble won’t turn down some easy money if you tell them how to get it. So for internet marketers who run their own “make money” blogs, such as this one, this is an excellent way to attract a large number of curious people to your own information stockpile.

But you better be ready to give away some juicy secrets and money making techniques that really work, or they will soon get bored and go someplace else. The trick is to have some really top quality articles ready and waiting for their inquisitive eyes to soak up. If they like what you’ve got and you show them that you are following up regularly with quality posts, then they will keep coming back for more and hey presto – your site visitor stats go way up, which likely means your earnings will too.

I’ll bring you some more inspiring insights into the fascinating world of social networking and the eternal quest for more quality traffic in future posts.

Continuing on to the next strategy…

In order to escalate the exposure and ultimately the popularity of your own blog, you need to use all the best free promotional techniques at your disposal to spread the word as widely and quickly as possible around the internet. Here is another great, zero cost method of exposing your blog to a greater number of readers.

It’s called Guest Blogging.

Yep, writing as a guest blogger in other people’s blogs is a surefire way to get yourself and your blog(s) known to a much wider circle of blog readers and fellow bloggers. It works beautifully because the concept is so simple.

You write in your usual style and standard so that your guest blogging posts are every bit as good as what you would write in your own blogs. The readers of the blog you are guest blogging in will naturally see and read your posts. Assuming they like what they see then natural human curiosity takes over and they will most likely click on your link at the end of your post and visit your own blog to see what else you’re writing about.

If you author several blogs of your own, you can make this great method work for you by doing this intelligently. Simply by changing the links in your sign-off paragraph to point to a different blog for every post you make and you’ll spread the word around about all of your blogs.

Of course you need to be sensible about this and don’t go spamming lots of links in a single post as that will likely get you banned from further posting in someone else’s blog and greatly diminish the impact gained from the links anyway.

Perhaps you don’t want to keep changing links for every guest post you make, especially if you have a lot of other blogs. The simple solution to getting all of your blogs seen is to only link to your main blog and from your guest posts, then make sure you have prominent links to all your other blogs from there.

You don’t need to go crazy, but it’s a good idea to do one or two guest blogging spots per week in different blogs if you can. That way you spread yourself around enough so that lots of different people will see your posts and you are getting a lot of exposure to your content.

Well, there you have it, 3 very powerful (and free) ways to skyrocket your blog traffic and earnings! Try them. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.