Starting an internet home based business for me has been like living the dream, and if it’s your dream I encourage you to hold on to it.
I can't tell you that with a few clicks of your mouse you'll be making millions in just a few weeks, but I can tell you that if you have a realistic approach, you plan well, use your time wisely and aren’t afraid to research, you’re practically there.
Having created my business almost ten years ago there have been bumps and struggles in the road but I’ve also learned a thing or two along the way and today I’d like to share a few of those things with you…
1. Carefully research your ideas. Our ideas often excite us and it’s easy to jump into starting your business without first researching how profitable it will be. You might very well have a great idea but you have to know if there’s a market for it. You don’t want to create a market and hope they come to you.
2. What do you have to offer? What are your personal talents and how can you apply them to generate income?
Internet businesses vary from selling your own products to selling other people's products to performing various services, but don’t let the options overwhelm you, start by looking at various internet home business ideas while carefully considering how you can create your own business around what you already know or have an interest in.
2. Learn to Manage Your Time Wisely. Get into the habit of creating a daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly schedule to map your time wisely. If you currently work outside the home, you don't want to find yourself on your computer at all hours of the night; your enthusiasm will drop off considerably if you do.
You never want to get in front of your computer and think “What shall I do today?” I can assure you; you’ll end up wasting your time and get nothing done.
Make the most constructive use of your time by creating solid goals. What do you want to do each day, when do you want to have tasks completed and how do you intend to get them done? I find writing out my goals on a piece of paper and looking at them each day helps keep me on track and is a big motivator as well.
3. Somewhere down the road you will need to create a website. This is not as hard as you may think. Tools today are much simpler than they were even just a few years ago. I remember creating my first website using HTML, Yuck! Today there are plenty of great site builders to use, just be sure you follow a good website design flow. Here are the standard website design best practices that you should follow:
http://homenotion.com/blog/create-a-website/website-design-best-practices/
4. Once you've created your website your primary focus will be to promote it. The beauty of the web is that so many promotion strategies are still free. There are certainly tools that can help you promote but it's still the free ones that work pretty well.
5. Don’t let money be your guiding force. Money is why you start a business, yes, but focusing too heavily on making the most money the fastest way possible will diminish the quality of your business. If you can truly enjoy what you do and be passionate about making it something to be proud of, the money will often follow.
6. Stay with whatever you are doing until it is profitable. Don't head off and start another project because you think it may be more profitable. It’s tempting but spreading your focus too thin is a recipe for failure. Stay focused on the business at hand and work to make it profitable before moving on to the next thing.
7. Take Action. The road to success is often paved with good intentions. But those good intentions won't have you living the dream. Make a commitment to take action. It's easy to get stuck in the thinking, research and learning phase but if you don't eventually get into the taking action phase it can all become a huge waste of time.
If you're a procrastinator as we all sometimes are, Steve Pavlina has some great ideas that set me in motion every time.
When starting an internet home business remember these three important tips:
- Your business is an investment so invest in it and yourself.
- Don’t try to be all things to all people. Instead, be niche focused.
- Know your audience and what they want and treat them and your customers like gold.
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April 2, 2010 at 6:11 am
I wish I had this advice when I first started my website. Because I was not making money at first. I started looking around for another niche. I have wasted money and now I have three websites. However, what I have learned it that I did not need to chase another niche, but keep working. I had my original site review by an SBI coach and she believes my site has potential. The traffic is picking up and it is getting found for more keywords. I needed confidence. it just takes time. Thank you for a great article.
Melva, you hit the nail exactly on the head. Always work what you have until it is profitable. And of course confidence is key as well. SBI is great isn’t it? Their products and support and the best I’ve come across, so glad your site is doing well
I’ve read your article from the top to the bottom. This is something I will be using in my day to day routine.
I didn’t start profiting working at home because I wanted to, it just from out of the blue came. I didn’t know I had the talents, I only was more into wanting to help people.
But what you’ve mentioned here about setting a goal in a day in a piece of paper is something that works for me too.
The other thing that you mentioned that I find so hard to make it possible is budgeting my time.
But I’ll read this post again, maybe I just need to absorb what is it you mentioned that I obviously am aware of but having to many barriers not to do so.
Yes, sometimes we must have patience. At the beggining when I started my website I thought about renting it. As there are people who rents websites that receive a certain number of visitors. BUT this could ruin the reputation of my site, SO I gave up and waited until my site started to get some profit.