Starting A Home Business During A Difficult Economy
You may be thinking about starting a home business in order to supplement your income or replace lost wages during the recession, but the idea of spending a lot of time or money may be daunting to you. The good news is that starting a home business doesn't have to be time consuming or expensive. Following are some simple steps to take to start a home business in two weeks or less.
Before you invest money in starting a home business, you have to pick a business out of the hundreds of opportunities. Common time-tested home businesses include watching people's kids, dog walking, and giving piano lessons. Newer versions concern themselves with web marketing or content. No matter which type you choose, you'll need to stand out from your competition, which means having an appealing website.
When starting a home business it's absolutely necessary to have a website in order to compete in the current economic climate. Customers expect you to have a website; you'll be looked on as ridiculously behind the times without one. By all means, do this yourself if you know how, but for those of us that don't, there are also economical options that still present quality.
Web hosts will provide you a wide range of services, from simple hosting for around ten dollars a month to added value like free e-mail accounts and access to customer service for just a little more. Many web hosting sites will let you build your web pages with templates, and others will offer you reasonably priced design services for a custom page.
While you're waiting for your website to go up, the next step in starting a home business is to advertise it. You can do this through traditional print media like business cards, flyers, or an ad in the local paper, or online through pay-per-click ads, blog comments, posting in forums and social networking sites.
Online promotion like blog comments, posting on forums, sigs and e-mailing needs to be undertaken carefully, as you don't want people to perceive your message as spam. On the other hand, offering people thoughtful comments or linking to useful content will get you a lot of customers in the long run.
Promotion should wait until your website is actually up, though. Carefully placing your link in the right place, only to have enthusiastic people clicking on it and finding a message saying your site is under construction, is not only a waste of time, it can hurt you because the next time they see your link they'll assume it's not working. As impatient as you may be to get started, wait on advertising until the site is open for business.
The final step in starting a home business is to make sure you can handle potential high demand. If you're selling a product, make sure that your distribution is in place before the website goes up. If it's a service, make sure that you can do the work if there's high volume, or that you have other people lined up to help out. Many worry about failure when starting a home business but forget to plan for success.
Before you invest money in starting a home business, you have to pick a business out of the hundreds of opportunities. Common time-tested home businesses include watching people's kids, dog walking, and giving piano lessons. Newer versions concern themselves with web marketing or content. No matter which type you choose, you'll need to stand out from your competition, which means having an appealing website.
When starting a home business it's absolutely necessary to have a website in order to compete in the current economic climate. Customers expect you to have a website; you'll be looked on as ridiculously behind the times without one. By all means, do this yourself if you know how, but for those of us that don't, there are also economical options that still present quality.
Web hosts will provide you a wide range of services, from simple hosting for around ten dollars a month to added value like free e-mail accounts and access to customer service for just a little more. Many web hosting sites will let you build your web pages with templates, and others will offer you reasonably priced design services for a custom page.
While you're waiting for your website to go up, the next step in starting a home business is to advertise it. You can do this through traditional print media like business cards, flyers, or an ad in the local paper, or online through pay-per-click ads, blog comments, posting in forums and social networking sites.
Online promotion like blog comments, posting on forums, sigs and e-mailing needs to be undertaken carefully, as you don't want people to perceive your message as spam. On the other hand, offering people thoughtful comments or linking to useful content will get you a lot of customers in the long run.
Promotion should wait until your website is actually up, though. Carefully placing your link in the right place, only to have enthusiastic people clicking on it and finding a message saying your site is under construction, is not only a waste of time, it can hurt you because the next time they see your link they'll assume it's not working. As impatient as you may be to get started, wait on advertising until the site is open for business.
The final step in starting a home business is to make sure you can handle potential high demand. If you're selling a product, make sure that your distribution is in place before the website goes up. If it's a service, make sure that you can do the work if there's high volume, or that you have other people lined up to help out. Many worry about failure when starting a home business but forget to plan for success.
About the Author:
Danielle Martensen is a published author, adviser and co-founder of DebtCollectionSteps, a website born out of her expertise in commercial debt collection services. Possibly you have a passion, an idea, or expertise in something that can be turned it into a MONEY-MAKING website and home-based business. as well.