Entries from August 2008 ↓

I recently came across this article: Feminine Mistake

It actually made me kind of upset.  I think the person’s heart is in the right place, but she doesn’t come across in the right way.  Basically, the article states that women need to stay in the workforce.  That saying home and witnessing every “lost tooth” your children have isn’t worth the monetary losses that come from skipping out on working outside of the home for a few years.

I think her heart is in the right place (because I like to see the good in everyone), but there is no way I agree.  Even if I didn’t have the opportunity to work at home I would still want to stay home in some way shape or form.  Who cares if I’m giving up the chance to earn a position as assistant-to-the-ceo-whose-rear-I-need-to-kiss.

Her main point is that too many women give up those years for their children and then if they become widowed they have nothing to fall back on.  The article also cites statistics like those taking a 3 year break form work lose out on 40% of their pay when they come back.

Women definitely need to develop skills and know where they can get money, or learn to earn money if that time comes.  It’s just plain smart to prepare for your future.

With that being said, it’s just too strong to say that working and securing those high end paychecks is more important than staying home with your children.  Missing those precious moments is something I refuse to do.  That is worth more than any paycheck.

However, I do agree that moms should get their thinking caps on about raising their family if it were strictly up to them (and many single moms already do that!).  The best way I know is to have the best of both worlds.  You can stay home with your children, and be your own CEO right in your living room

Forget the corporate ladder, I’d rather play “Shoots and Ladders”

Women are NOT stupid to want to stay and home and raise their children

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Flickr Photo by triciaward

I’m going to start off this Sarah Palin post by saying that I have yet to decide who I’m voting for for president.  I’m also not a “feminist” in the strict sense of the word – meaning, my reason for voting for the Republican duo wouldn’t be because I desperately need a woman as close to the White House as possible.  Even so, I find Sarah Palin as the mom to be very inspirational.

Here is a woman who demonstrates that it is possible to be incredibly successful, yet she is able to raise her 5 children (one with Down’s Syndrome) at the same time.  While she’s certainly not living the work at home life style like the readers of this blog do or want to do, she is still an inspiration to those of us who wonder what is possible.

So while I’m not going to let the fact that she is a woman swing my vote one way or another, I can applaud because she has done great things.

Are you struggling to get started making money online?  It’s definitely understandable.  As a mom it is tough to know which end is up.  You start your day full of plans only to find that you just can’t seem to get anything done with those kiddos running around.

While no mom is perfect, it always helps me to look to people who are successful managing their time and their families.

I have a feeling that as the presidential election nears I’ll be looking more and more to Sarah Palin to see how she juggles it all.

I used to be an elementary school teacher.  Back then I was lucky if I could take a few minutes to go to the bathroom, let alone take a few days to go on vacation when I wanted.  This is just reason 2,349,343 that moms working at home have an awesome life.

Lazy days at the beach, hanging with my little boy…nothing could be better!  OK, I’ll admit that I did take my computer along to answer e-mails and make sure all was OK in the online world, but that doesn’t mean I was working my tail off.  The bottom line is that I got to stay in a very nice hotel and simply “just be.”

Are you to the point where you can take off and enjoy yourself whenever you want to?  What’s holding you back?  If the answer is, “my job,” are you content with that?  There are some people who adore working outside of the home.  They like the structure and having a boss to work under.  It’s go to work, complete your work, come home, and you’re done.

OR, are you the type of person who would rather work at home and be your own boss.  Are you the type that wants to be able to take off and vacation “whenever”.  Yes, it can be really tough and there is a lack of structure to contend with.  But the benefits can be really, really amazing.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

If you think you’re ready to start the work at home lifestyle, don’t hesitate to sign up for your free eBooks that will help you get started.

So far in our website building series we’ve talked about getting hosting for your website, how to choose a domain, and how to decide what kind of website you want to have. Well, we work at home moms definitely can’t gloss over the glue that holds all of those things together…choosing your niche!

In fact, you can’t very well choose a domain name if you don’t have your niche picked out. Also, the kind of website you want to build might be dependent on the niche you choose as well. You might find that a certain topic warrants a certain look or feel to your website.

There are many different factors that go into choosing a niche. Some people do quite well choosing something they are intimately familiar with or passionate about. In fact, that is what this website is for me. I’m very familiar with being a work at home mom, and I am passionate about sharing this kind of lifestyle with other moms.

Another person might be very passionate about everything to do with scrapbooking. I don’t know a single thing about scrapbooking, but you can do quite well with that niche! The point is that you really can earn a good income using the things you’re good at, really enjoy, or have a talent for.

You do need to be careful to make sure the niche will be a viable one for you. Just because you like underwater basket weaving does not mean other people do. Or, other people might like it, but they are not willing to spend any money on it.

Since you want to make money online, you need to choose a niche that people are spending money in. there is no need to create your own niche, all you have to do is get in front of the traffic/people who are spending money anyway, and get them into your own funnel.

This can all sound incredibly complicated, so here is a simple step by step you can use to find a great niche:

• Make a list of the things you enjoy and spend money on
• Make a list of the problems you spend money on (ex. acne, parenting problems, pet ownership problems
• Browse Magazines: If there is a magazine about it, people are spending money and are interested in it!
• Do some keyword research using Wordtracker’s free tool or sign up for Nichebot (my favorite because it gives you the best data that you can make money from). Make sure your niche has keywords that get a lot of traffic, and hopefully get low competition (that means you can easily target them)
• Make sure your possible niche has affiliate programs so you can make money
• Decide on a niche that you are interested in (because you’re going to invest a lot of time one it) and that can generate money for you.

That’s almost it! Way too many people make the mistake of choosing a niche that no one is spending any money in. For that reason, I want to reiterate that you need to be sure people are spending money before you start spending time on this.

Go to Clickbank.com and find your niche

Go to Amazon.com and find your niche

Go to eBay.com and find your niche

Are there products people are paying money for in any or all three of those places? Are there Google ads that pop up when you do a search in Google for your niche? If so, there is a good chance that people are actually spending money in your chosen niche, and that it’s a good one to go after for you work at home moms.

If you’re stuck, and don’t know where to get started, be sure to join my newsletter, and get two free eBooks I’ve written on how to succeed as a work at home mom!

In previous posts I’ve talked about the importance of getting hosting from a reliable source, like Bluehost.  We’ve also discussed the importance of having your own domain name that is relevant to what your site is about.  One of the next things you need to do is to decide what kind of site you want to have.  Or rather, how you want to set your site up.

There are many different choices these days.  One choice you have is to use a standard HTML template, like what you can find at OSWD.org.  Many different people submit these templates for your use, and there are some really great ones to choose from.  Of course, it helps to have at least a basic understanding of HTML design.  It’s not as hard as it sounds, though there is a learning curve.  I suggest downloading a free HTML editor that has “What You See is What You Get” functionality, such as Kompozer .  You can learn HTML at W3Schools.

Another great option is to use Wordpress.  This blog is created using Wordpress, but you can also set it up so that it looks like any other website.  You can see my Early Childhood Career site to see what it looks like when setting it up to lose its “bloggy” features.  It’s very functional.

If you’re new to Wordpress, there is also a learning curve.  The plus is that you can do things a lot faster, and make changes more easily than with HTML.  It can also be more SEO (search engine optimization) friendly than HTML sites, largely because of the plugins you can install.

I highly recommend and use Firepow to help you get your Wordpress sites up and running (and profitable).  Just to give you a hint, I can set a WP site up using Firepow in about 5 minutes (not including original content, but including article directory content ), whereas without the software it can take me anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 hour.  Definitely check out my Firepow Review for more information (it only took me days to make back my investment in the software.)

Don’t forget to join the Work at Home for Moms newsletter.  You’ll get two free eBooks (Instant Cash for WAHMS and and the WAHM Mindset), and great tips via e-mail

You’ll often see me say that you shouldn’t spend a lot of money to get your online business started, especially until you can afford it. Well, I took that to extremes when I first started out online. Oh sure, I bought eBooks and other Internet Marketing tools, but one thing I was cheap about was buying domain names. This is a huge work at home mom mistake.

The more I heard about setting up your own Virtual Real Estate empire online, the more interested I became in setting up niche websites. I saw that domain names where only around $8 or so, but for some reason I thought it was a brilliant idea to set up subdomains. “I’m saving so much money!” I thought.

(If you’re unclear, a subdomain is set up on a main domain. For example, if your domain was puppies.com you could set up a subdomain so that you would type in fruit.puppies.com. It would be a separate website, but you’d be much better off with fruit.com being its own domain )

Well…this was definitely not the thing to do. For one, it looks unprofessional when you have one main domain with a lot of subdomains in between. For another, Google tends to treat subdomains as being lesser than a targeted “real” domain.

Yes, it could be very tempting to just stick with one domain and set up free subdomains. There also is a time and a place to do that. However, if you’re planning on building a real business and having assets that will rank high in the search engines, you need to have separate domains for your niche websites.

Again, this is not a blanket rule, but for the most part you should invest in your business. Also, if you plan on having sites that you can sell in times of money trouble or when you get bored with a certain niche, it’s almost certain you’ll want them on a separate domain name.

It takes time to build enough traffic to get money coming to your site. If you spend a lot of time building links (submitting articles, setting up Squidoo lenses, HubPages, etc) they will all be going to your subdomain and not to a real domain that you could later sell.

So, don’t make the same mistake I did (thankfully I wised up fast. This would definitely be work at home mom mistake if you want to have your own network of profitable websites.

Don’t forget to sign up for your free Work at Home Mom eBooks to get started building your profitable online business today (you’ll find many more great tips just like this one!)

I have many moms ask me what they can do working from home. There are many answers to that (and you can find several right here on this blog). I would say that no matter which route you choose to go online, you will need to have your own website.

I have recommended Bluehost to host your websites, and you can always get a domain name at Namecheap.com or GoDaddy.com (I prefer Namecheap because it comes with privacy protection…that’s important when you have kids).

While it’s important to have all that in place, it’s just as important to know what you’re going to do with it. You have to have a plan of action for your website. What are your online goals? In a future post we’ll go over business planning, but here is some food for thought for you:

You can:

• Choose a niche topic and blog about it
• Create niche websites covering a variety of topics
• Create an authority site about your topic of choice
• Set up a website for your existing business
• Sell crafts
• Offer services (such as site creation or ghostwriting)

As you can see, there are a large number of different reasons you need a website. The good news is that web hosting is incredibly inexpensive these days (we’re talking under $10 per month). All you need is a domain name (included with Bluehost hosting at the time of writing), and a plan for what you’re going to do and you will be good to go.

The best part is that no matter what you decide to do, there will always be room on your host should you expand your plans or change your mind. I have many different websites out there and there is no problem at all with this since there is so much room on web hosts these days.

What is your website going to be about?

(Psssst…don’t forget to pick up your two free Work at Home Mom eBooks…they’ll help you get started.)