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Start a Business from Home

You can start a business from home with limited budget & resources. All that's needed is a computer (desktop, laptop, or tablet), and a high-speed Internet connection. This article offers some guidance on creating a profitable online business from the comfort of your own home.

Tools

Let's confirm the required tools for generating income through the Web. As mentioned, a computer and Internet connection are necessities. Given the nature of e-business, that being one which demands personally take care of virtually every aspect, it's important to establish independence from early on. Therefore, relying on a nearby café's Wi-Fi connection or a friend's office space isn't recommended. Designate a quiet spot in your home that can be used as a work center; set up your desk, PC and accessories (pen/stylus, notepad, mobile phone, etc), keeping the area as minimal as possible.

Although it can certainly come in handy, you don't need a printer or fax machine. Of course, this depends on whatever it is you'll be doing online to make your living. If you'll be offering freelance/Web-related services to offline businesses in your local area, then printed files may come in handy for billing & contract purposes. But if you're an aspiring blogger and/or affiliate marketer (communicating via email & phone, exclusively) — a printer and compatible ink cartridges may go unused, taking up valuable office real estate.

The Gist

How do most successful e-business owners make money online? First and foremost, they have their own website to either sell or promote products. More often than not, the products will be their own; conversely, the products they simply promote will be of companies/merchants they've formed strong ties with. The takeaway here is that your personal website should remain the foundation of your business. Here's a timeless piece of advice; traffic opportunities abound on social media, but leads are generated through websites.

Your Website

You can set up a nice-looking website with one of the many publishing platforms, most of which not requiring any knowledge of coding. These are generally referred to as website builders. For more tech-savvy users that don't mind the higher learning curve, content management systems (i.e., CMSs, or simply CMS [even in plural terms]) offer increased flexibility, customization, and extension of functionality.

Alternatively, you can choose to delegate the task of creating a website and/or blog to a webmaster (known more recently as a digital marketing professional) that offers related services. One that specializes in SEO Web design (i.e., content marketing) could help generate targeted traffic to it as well, but this will naturally bring up the total cost significantly (especially since it's usually recurring [as it should be for achieving sustainable or ever-increasing results]). That said, it is well worth it, given s/he abides by up-to-date best practices.

Monetization

With regards to monetizing a website, if you're genuinely interested in starting a legitimate business from home, you have to approach it from a professional standpoint. As a side-note, how others perceive it should not be of your concern; the world hasn't caught up to the reality & power of e-business — which isn't necessarily bad, persecution aside. Internet marketing is greatly misunderstood by the general public (as much as they are a part of it), and has not yet reached the masses in the way that many industry experts had anticipated it would. Still, there is profit to be made, and traditional factors leading to success, like generous time commitments and a strong work ethic, should be put forth for this reason.

Some Stats

If a person dedicates twenty hours per week of concentrated effort on a new online, home-based business, they'll be able to approximately match an average (Western world) full-time, yearly salary of $48,500 USD within one year or less. Similarly, it takes 4,000 unique visitors per day to a website for it to roughly generate the same amount (by virtually any passive means; affiliate marketing programs, ad network placement, etc) — and that's on the low side. We understand that these are bold statements but they shouldn't be taken lightly, nonetheless. Our experiences & observations have confirmed the stats, albeit informally.

The reason for most solopreneurs taking extended lengths of time to achieve a fraction of what they originally set out to accomplish is that they fight with the concept of remaining focused, often spreading themselves too thin, or worse — procrastinating (while waiting for the perfect moment to carry out tasks, pondering alternate ideas for their site, etc). Call it Karma, but you indeed get what you put out. The key is to take action regularly (understanding fully that marketing is an ongoing process) without holding onto the fear of making mistakes.

Points Worth Mentioning

• Affiliate marketing (as a publisher) offers more freedom than any other home-based business model
• The selling of your own products or services yields a higher return on investment and overall income potential (relative to any other business model)
• Offering some level of visitor/customer support through your website is recommended (as it helps build trust and encourages repeat purchases, if applicable)

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing (i.e., the promotion of affiliate programs through your website, social media, or email) is perfect for anyone looking to start a business from home, for several reasons. For one, no employees. Secondly, no stocking of inventory (as you're marketing other people's products, entirely online). Third, and most importantly, no pitching (which understandably can be very difficult for novices to Internet marketing); merchants take care of any hard selling through their website, which is where affiliates direct the warm leads to.

Internet Marketing Strategies

Since traffic is the lifeline of all home-based businesses, strategies must be used to promote the website itself. They are:

• Organic search engine optimization (otherwise known as organic SEO, and in more recent years labeled content marketing)
• Search engine marketing (i.e., the paying for ad listings to be displayed on popular search engines [and their ad network, that is, theme-related sites/publishers compensated for every click of an ad]) {On search engines, keywords/keyphrases relevant to your business are used to conduct a search (by individuals seeking advice, products, etc), bringing up the relevant results; on ad network sites they're brought up (wherever positioned by the publisher) based on the content on said Web page}
• Social media marketing, free or paid advertising
• Video marketing (i.e., the creation/delivering of informative and/or entertaining video content through hosted video-sharing sites)
• Many others

Before setting off on your journey to start a business from home, it's important not to get overwhelmed by the upcoming labor of generating traffic (as tedious as the required tasks are). Look at it as something fun — notwithstanding the fact that it's what will ultimately make the difference in terms of profitability. Also, it's okay to choose one method only. For example, if you build a quality website that includes free, engaging, original content that other publishers would normally charge for... word of mouth will quickly take effect; plus, you'll receive the SEO benefits we touched upon.

Conclusion

While every individual starting a business from home should favor quality over quantity, the opposite is usually the case. Regardless, publishers need to keep in mind that all traffic opportunities exist to bring attention to the website, your central hub. It doesn't matter how many followers you have or if you're considered an influencer or thought leader among them. Try to be an authority but don't lose sight of the prize — which is to entice your target user to visit your site. Once there, serve them well.