I am a normal, work from home mom, who started my own home
business working from home. This article will show you how you,
too, can be a work from home mom.
After I gave birth to our first baby, Hana, I really couldn’t
see myself going back to that old job working for Mr.
Whats-his-name for a measly salary and leaving Hana with a
babysitter. I didn’t realize how deeply I would LOVE my baby. Do
you know what I mean by that? When I was pregnant, I thought,
“Right. Have the baby. Find a babysitter. Go back to work.
Done.” But I loved her so completely and so profoundly, that I
really didn’t want to leave her. Plus, she was really high-needs
and I had spent the last year learning her cues and I felt that
only I knew exactly how to comfort her. Would a babysitter
really be able to do that?
So I set out to figure out what home based business
opportunities were out there. First I told my employer that I
wouldn’t be coming back, but offered to work for him from home.
He seemed mildly interested. So I asked for $30 an hour. I never
heard back from him. So I took that as a “No”. Ha ha!
Then, one of my friends offered me some work doing proofreading
and editing a magazine she was creating. That was great, except
that it wasn't a lot of work, and I ended up making only about
$200 a month. Proofreading is a viable home business idea, and
you can do it while the kids nap, or at night after they go to
bed. There are websites where you can bid on jobs, such as one
called Elance. www.elance.com
Another thing I looked at was starting a home based daycare. But
then I thought about all the colds and flu I'd be bringing into
the house... And I also thought I wasn't really cut out to stay
home with more than my own kids all day. I think I'd go nuts.
So I started thinking about the Internet and how many people
make a living from it with home based business opportunities.
The only problem was it was really hard to know which companies
to trust. I would estimate that I wasted about $300USD trying
out different things that turned out to be scams. I was so
frustrated! And I felt like a real idiot. One eBook I bought
walked me through exactly how to build a one page website to
sell an eBook. First I wrote the eBook, then went to all the
trouble to build the website, paying monthly fees for hosting,
using their templates, etc, and then I never even got a single
visitor to my site! So then the eBook explained how to PAY to
get people to visit my site – frankly, this person was getting
rich off me and I wasn’t earning a penny.
The nice thing about having your own web based business is that
it can be about whatever you want it to be. Whether you are into
scrapbooking, or cooking, or home organizing, or perhaps you
left a job as a flight attendant and your website will offer
travel tips to families traveling with children! The
possibilities are endless.
If you decide to build a website, you will either have to learn
all about html or a wysiwyg program like Dreamweaver, or go with
a company that has templates and does it for you. You will have
to attract visitors to your website (otherwise you will not make
any money) and there are a variety of ways of doing this. One is
to write articles like this one. Another is to make sure that
you build enough content-rich pages so that you get noticed by
Google and your site shows up when people search for your
keywords. You could pay to get traffic, but there are other free
ways of getting traffic. The key to my success, I think, was
choosing the company carefully that I was going to give my
business to and, ultimately, trust to help me learn how to do
everything.
Be very careful of get-rich-quick scams. There is NO SUCH THING.
Any legitimate business takes work, real hard work. There are no
shortcuts, and that's all there is to it. So any legitimate
business will be upfront and clearly state that this is going to
be a lot of work.
When you research the variety of website-building companies out
there, make sure they offer all-in-one packages, and they make
it clear what you will get for your money. Make sure there are
no hidden costs or extra things you will have to pay for later.
Don't pay more than $30 per month (I pay $299 per year for my
program). At the very least, they should offer:
Domain name, fast, reliable hosting; E-mail & telephone customer
support; Point and click page building, with unlimited pages &
unlimited E-mail accounts; E-mail forwarding; Page templates &
Fully Customizable Look & Feel; Statistics & Keyword Research
tool; E-commerce & Credit Card Processing; Blogging, Submission
(& Auto Re-submission) to Search Engines; Web site analysis for
Engine compatibility &Tracking of Search Engine 'Spiders';
Search Engine Listing & Ranking report; Unique Keyword search
reports for search engines; Ranking Reports for Directories; and
a Step-By-Step Marketing Guide
For more information on the product that I use, visit SiteSell.com
.
When reviewing various companies or products, also ask yourself,
what kind of customer service do they offer? Email them a
question and see if they get back to you or not. If they don't,
don't give them your money! Also, do they make it clear on their
website who they are and how they can be reached? I hate those
sites with no contact information. It's like they have something
to hide.
I am so glad I took the leap and started my own website as a
result of the many home based business opportunities I
researched. It has been a great learning experience for me. I
found what works for me. It has made a difference in my life and
I hope it can make a difference in yours too. I wish you all the
best.
Sincerely, Suzanne Doyle-Ingram
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