Stuff these envelopes and you will make a million dollars in 20 minutes. Yeah, right. Don't buy the fluff. So, can you really run an Internet business from home? Run An Internet Businesses From Your Home? First and foremost, there is no single internet business for every person working from home. The sooner you can come to grips with this fact, the better off you will be. Does that mean there aren't great choices? Of course, not. You simply have to realize the answer is dependent upon your circumstances. If you are working from home, you need to consider the level of interaction you want with customers. If you have kids and drive them all over town, customer service is going to be a problem. In such a situation, you probably need to consider a business without much interaction with customers. What about selling a product? This is a common theme on e-commerce sites, but there are downsides. First, you have to be able to get the product to the customer in a reasonable time, the faster the better. Second, is there a large enough profit margin on the product to make all your hard work worthwhile? Third, you are going to have to deal with tax issues, as states are trying to apply sales tax to product sales on the net. Given these issues, a produce site may or may not be good for you. What about turnkey sites? Turnkey sites are pre-made sites selling something. The advantage is you don't really have to do anything in regard to building out a site. The disadvantages, however, are significant. First, your business is not unique, so why would anyone pick you over similar sites? Second, profit margins on turnkey sites can be mighty small. Third, they will only give you minor marketing assistance regardless of what most say. Fourth, you often are barred from modifying the site, which makes getting free traffic through search engine optimization practically impossible. All and all, this is not the best choice in my humble opinion. So, what should you do? An Internet business is no different than any other business. It takes time and hard work. The best way to pick a successful one is to give some thought to what you are passionate about. Because the net is so big, a market exists for practically anything. In fact, the more unique sites do far better than general ones. If you are the master of sewing, open a site on the subject. If you like watching soaps on television, open a site on that. The point is to find something you enjoy, because the business will then be fun instead of work. Once you have identified a couple of different areas, you need to do keyword research to see if other people are interested in any of the subject areas. If they are, you have a business you can run from home. Admittedly, it is not as easy as stuffing envelopes, but at least you do not have to deal with paper cuts! |
