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Working from home has a lot of benefits.   However, sometimes the luxury and familiarity of working out of your house can actually cause you to be less productive.  Let’s face it, there are a lot of distractions.  What I find is the best way to stay disciplined and avoid those distractions is to have a routine that you can stick to.

Since I work out of the house, I set up a home office in my basement.  It’s very important to have your own secluded work space that is away from your living/family space. My basement has a separate entrance, a bathroom, kitchen etc.  This allows me to have a work environment that is truly a work environment, with minimal distractions.  I also set up a separate phone line so I’m not sharing my phone with the rest of my family.  People know that this phone is my work number, so when it rings I know it’s work related.

The other thing I do that I find effective is to discover a commute.  Get out of your house in the morning for a walk, a drive for coffee, whatever it may be.  If you are in your house all day working, it can start to get lonely.  Especially when you are just starting a home based business, and may not be very busy with customers.   Getting out of the house for a morning “commute” will refresh your body and mind, and get you ready for the day.  Try and treat your working from home like any other workplace and you’ll find yourself being more productive.

The other thing to do to stay productive is don’t beat yourself up if you end up doing some home based activities when you should be working from home.  Think of it this way, if you were in an office job you would be spending some time chatting with co-workers and doing some things that aren’t necessarily work related.   The same holds true for working at home.  You don’t have to be heads down working all day.  Treat it like an office job, only now your the boss.  Be realistic and set goals for each day and you’ll find your days will go quickly, and that you get a lot done during the day.

Spring is finally here!  Spring is a time for renewal.  In many ways it’s better than New Year’s in terms of getting started with resolutions.  Why not start your spring renewal right, and start a home based business?

You’ve probably been thinking about it for quite some time.  If you are like I was, you get excited about starting a home based business, and then you don’t.  Your initial excitement turns into a lukewarm excitement.  Before you know it you are well past the idea of owning your own home based business, and are back to the daily grind.  Fight it and begin your home based business today.

Now, if you’ve already started a home based business, here are some things to do as “spring cleaning”.

• Review your business plan and make any necessary tweaks to it.
•  Organize your weeks more effectively and come up with a goal each week that will move you forward.
• If you are a mom working from home, try and include your children in some of your activities, and make it a family business.
• Learn something new each week.  Try and read blogs, or forums and contribute to them.
• Review the reasons why you started a home based business in the first place and re-energize yourself.

Being an entrepreneur and having a home based business is fun, but it’s not easy.  You need to work every day, and make sure that you are setting and then accomplishing goals.  You can do this if you stay focused, and spring is a perfect time to re-energize.

One of the problems with some of the online home business programs is all of the many “add on” spends that are offered to help grow your business. You should initially be looking for an online business that doesn’t require you to spend a ton of money when you’re just getting started. There are plenty of ways to build traffic to your site naturally without having to go broke in the process.

Starting a home based business requires that you have the focus and commitment to be successful. You may quickly lose heart if you end up spending a lot of money on traffic building programs, without first doing your own research. Remember, if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. My suggestion is that when you start an online home based business, you should initially focus any spending on only the following items:

1. e-books and any training. There is a wealth of information available. Some of these e-books are free. Some cost money. Get the free ones first. They’ll ask for a name and password, but beyond that they are free.
Here are links to some free guides and books.

Home Business Newsletter

Dotcomology–The Science of Making Money Online

Home Business Secrets Mini Course

2. Web site hosting service. You’ll need a good, reliable, and easy to administer site. Here is a good one: Web Hosting Company

You should either design your own site or pay someone to build a site. I believe that you should never outsource web design to someone if you can do it yourself. The problem is not everyone knows HTML. I use a site building tool that is great and very easy. You can find out more about it here: Web Design Tool

3. One of the ways to create more interest and links to your site is buying writing articles and publishing them. Here is a great service that helps you submit your articles to multiple article directories: Article Submission Service

Other than that, you can find a lot of free ways to advertise your site, and you should focus on the free ones first. When you start making money online, you can start to think about more ways to invest. Don’t get caught up believing you can spend and invest your way into traffic. You do need to invest a little bit, but you also need to figure out ways to get free and natural traffic to your site.

Search engine optimization can seem like searching for the holy grail.  It can be time consuming, and tedious but if done correctly will pay dividends.

There are so many different people offering a means to help you optimize your site for certain keywords that if you’re not careful it can overwhelm you.  My perspective is that starting a home based business, and doing it with an online business, is like going back to school and getting your master’s degree.  There are many concepts to learn.  At first it will seem like drinking from a fire hose.  However, after a while things will come into focus and you will see how many of these concepts are interconnected.

One of the really important things you MUST do is learn about search engine optimization.  My suggestion is do not outsource this  task, but learn how to do it yourself.  By focusing on how to optimize your website you will be exposed to so many different ways to do it, what you’ll realize in the middle of your learning curve is that you also just learned 5 or 6 additional concepts that will impact your online business, and help you make money online much faster.

In order to be successful building your home based business, you need to get organized.  This is especially true when you are running a home based business part time.  Here are real simple things I do each week.

Write down you weekly goals.  They may be things like working on your website design, optimizing your web pages,  writing articles, or submitting to directories.

Then you need to carve out time each week.  Put a goal on the number of hours you would like to spend and then work backwards.  For example, say you want to spend 10 hours that week on your week.  Organize the time by task.  i.e. 2 hours for web site design. 

Finally, make sure you schedule the work.  Don’t just assume you’ll get to it.  Make sure it’s on your schedule and that you plan on doing it.

Starting a home based business can be fun.  If you’re not careful it can get away from you.  Be smart.  Organize your work.  Do something every day if possible.  Over time you’ll have build up enough momentum and you’ll be making money.

The reason people think about starting a home based business for themselves is because they seek the rewards and financial freedom that owning something offers. I’m sure they are fed up with feeling out of control, and like many people feel they have a lot more to offer and need to push themselves to achieve it. Starting a home based business is the way to achieve what you are looking for. 

However, it is not going to come without hard work. There are a number of programs out there that provide a promise of signing up, plunking down several of your hard earned dollars, and like magic, you’ll be a millionaire. Run from those messages. Let me be candid. I’m not a millionaire. I’m somebody just like you, working hard to support my family. The only difference between you and I is that I committed to start a home based business. I have taken action and am on my way to the sort of future I envision. If you are serious take action.

Consider this, between 1860 and 1910, the number of farms in the United States tripled, increasing from 2 million to 6 million, while the area farmed more than doubled from 160 million to 352 million acres. These farmers were all mostly home based business people. Then the industrial revolution started and the economy shifted. People began going to citiies and working a job. Well now our economy is shifting back. The internet is allowing thousands of people with a desire of starting a home based business realize their dreams.

We all know that the global market and the economy is in a state of flux and most people have very little control of their financial future. Companies that provide jobs are always concerned about shareholder value, and seem to have lowered the priority on employee value. Most people desire a successful home based business and have been thinking about starting a home based business, but have procrastinated or felt they would fail. The excuses come in all shapes and sizes:

· The market isn’t right.

· The timing isn’t right for me.

· My finances aren’t where they needed to be.

· I don’t have enough experience and want to keep researching.

All these reasons were and are valid. All these reasons were and are excuses. There will never EVER be a perfect time to make a change. Once you know that, getting yourself to make those important changes becomes easier.

So, I did a lot of research. I’d say my research on how to start a home based business dates back to 1989. But I didn’t do anything. I procrastinated and made excuses. My years of research, and matching my skillset has led me to a number of different internet home based business opportunities and I am working towards my goals. Take action and do something and start your own home business.

Starting a home based business is fun. But it can also be pretty overwhelming when you consider all the things you need to do to start making money online. When you first get started you are enthusiastic and excited. You have great designs and great visions of what the future holds with your business and for your finances. Over a few weeks if you don’t see money coming in to your business you can get discouraged. But fight that discouragement and persevere. What you have to do is find that one thing to get really good at.

There will be a lot of ways to market your site. You can not be the master of all those things from the beginning. When you get started with an online business you should really spend as much time reading as much as you can, and then choose one area to get good at. Whether it is using Google Adwords and Pay-Per-Click, directory marketing, social bookmarking, article writing or whatever, choose one thing to get good at and then build from there. Trying to master everything when you get started may dilute your time. Find something you’re good at, and build your marketing strategy around that. Then over time incorporate more strategies. If you try and do everything at once, you’ll end up spending a lot of money, but may not have the return you’re looking for. You can be successful if you really are diligent.

When you are starting a home based business it’s important to get back links to your site. One of the best ways to do this is to get back links to your site through article marketing. Now, you can have someone write an article for you or write them yourself. This post isn’t about that though as you’ll need to determine if you have the skills to do it yourself or if you would rather have someone write them.

After you get your article, you are going to want to submit those articles to the different article directories. This is a very labor intensive task and is somewhat mindless. You have to go to each site, register at each, and then submit your article at each location. They’ll then review and submit it. If you are looking to get hundreds of back links this will take a while and get you crossed eyed from looking at your computer. There is company called SumbitYourArticle.com that automates the entire submission process for you. They use a very easy interface, and all you need to do is submit your article once, and they take care of the rest. What they then do is all the legwork. They’ll register you at all the different article directory sites, and then review each of your articles, and submit them. For $37 per month they’ll submit up to 8 articles to hundreds of sites, and you’ll end up with thousands of back links to your site, which will improve how search engines rank you. This, by far is the easiest and most cost effective means of getting back links to your site and won’t drive you crazy trying to submit them all manually.

As you endeavor to create a unique online home based business, branding is very important. Since your web site is your brand it becomes increasingly important to be able to manage your web site easily. Learning HTML can be time consuming and for some, overwhelming. When I first started my online business, I spent time trying to change things using HTML and an HTML editor with mixed results. It became frustrating and extremely time consuming for me to make simple changes like changing colors or formatting. I looked into paying someone to make changes to my site, but as an entrepreneur I felt I really wanted to control the look and feel and content, and be able to make changes at a moments notice. Something I couldn’t do if I used a third party. I started looking to web site tools that are easy to use as I was not a computer science expert. I wanted something that provided enough flexibility that I could make my site look really great, but also easy enough to use that I wouldn’t have to spend hours with my head in a user guide. Finally I came across the best web site development tool, called XSitePro. Without question, XSitePro has saved me hours of time and work. It is quite simply the best web design tool I have ever come across.

It’s easy to use, allows you to build multiple sites and multiple pages quickly, add affiliate links, change the design of your site, Google Adsense ads, publish to the web, add site maps and so much more. If you are really serious about starting and building an online home based business, and do not really know HTML, XSitePro is worth looking in to. You can check out the XSitePro by clicking HERE.

It’s really important to identify multiple forms of revenue when setting up a home based business online. What’s you really are trying to do is be a resource for others, and offer some unique value. If you specialize in just one product or offering you are limiting your ability to generate revenue. Think of it this way, today a lot of people go to the mall, because they are looking for options. Think of your website as a specialized mall. You are dealing with a specific category, but offering a lot of different options in that category.

Take, for example, my web site, www.FortifiedWealth.com. My site has to do with starting a home based business. There are people looking for a lot of things when searching on a home based business. My site provides some information in the form of an article directory, free e-books and newsletters dealing specifically with home based businesses, some proven online business opportunities, and some specific products that will help you manage your online business more effectively. The goal is to have people come to the site, get value, and keep coming back.

Look, it takes time. It can sometimes seem overwhelming. But in the end, if you are really committed to being successful you will create a website that is an online mall for your specialty. People stick around malls and keep coming back to malls that have what they are looking for. By diversifying your products and creating multiple revenue streams on your site, you are both creating a better user experience, and also helping guarantee that you will make money in your online home based business.