If I were to work from home, the first thing I would need to know is working from home can be very easy and at the same time very disastrous. Well saying that it would be disastrous would be very annoying to most but it is the hard fact that you might realize the hard way if you do not do things the right way. The things you need to know would be

a. Why do you need to choose work from home? If somebody told you that working from home is easy and you could get big bucks then forget it you are going to fail.

b. Suppose that you already decided to work from home and you have a solid reason like you have a baby to take care of or you love doing things on your own (Be true to yourself!!!) let us get to the next point. Prepare an action plan. Decide on what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. Allocate sufficient time for the reason you chose to work from home and dedicate the rest to your work from home job.

c. Decide a niche you can work on. Are you an expert on something? What do you love to do the most? Is those things monetizable? can you make money off your interests? If it does not apply find something which can be monetized and put your maximum effort into learning it. then choose to work from home

d. Start a blog or a website on your own. This is a powerful way to network with people and get your ideas over to others. You can promote yourself and your services and establish yourself as an expert in your niche.

e. Join twitter, linkled in, facebook, myspace and start networking. Get more connections and update your profile on those web 2.0 sites with links to your blog.

f. Join freelancing sites like rentacoder, elance, guru etc.

g. Do work very honestly and do not try to scam people. Once your lies are caught it can never be erased and when it comes to the internet your trust meter says it all.

h. Learn to capture clients and sell yourself.

One of the challenges I have faced is that I cannot keep up with the schedule nor I cannot be very focused at times. this has caused a huge leakage in my income but I am slowly coming around that

One thing to note before jumping into work at home jobs is to read a lot. Research properly before doing something. It will save a lot of time and money. This ear is all about results and hence whichever niche you choose to make sure you know SEO or search engine optimization. the best place to learn SEO would be seobook.com who charge 100$ a month for training. Believe me it is the best place you can go for training.

When you pitch to a client make sure you tell the facts. Do not over hype. This will do you more bad than good. Sure you may win one or two projects but the negative reputation you may get when you fail will nullify your chances of getting another 50 projects.

There are lots of work at home scams. Make sure you do not fall for them. Whenever you decide to go with a company make sure you go to Google or bing or whichever search engine you prefer and conduct a deep analysis of the provider. If possible check out reviews.

I have 2 sets of twin boys that I’m homeschooling, so I work on the blog in bits and pieces late at night. :) Which is fine, I’m a big night owl. I also have absolutely no experience with marketing, so I’m learning as I can. Thanks so much for considering me, and thanks for the offer in the first place!

For me the hardest part of working from home is time management. How do you prioritise certain aspects of the business to spend time on above others? What’s the best way to decide on these?

As I’m sure your aware it’s so much easier to get distracted working at home, than in an office.

Cheers

Mark

I’m currently still a cubicle slave in corporate America, but have been freelancing for years. Recently the freelance nibbles have been turning into huge chomps, and I’m reaching that critical point where I need to decide to make the leap.

The part that’s scary to me is securing a foundation of regular income. I’m a good marketer and I set aside time every day to apply for freelance jobs, so I know the habits are there. I think what would make it easier for me is to start getting referrals from current clients, make sure my site is optimized better (I know it’s not).

What would make the leap easier? This may sound really lame, but some reassurance…that it’s worth the stress, it’s worth the time, and if you stick with it you will ultimately be successful.

I know, no easy way to package that. :)

Wow, where to start…I’ve been working from home on the Internet for just over a year but haven’t had a lot of success with it. I just started a blog because I love writing and think it would be a great way to help others.

Other than that, I’m not sure what would help me the most. Maybe help optimizing my blog or helping me get more traffic. The blog is currently my only income, so I guess I’d like the most help with finding ways to make more money with it.

Thank you so much!
Kim

I appreciate you contacting me personally in my contacts page about this contest. I only get so much messages from my blog’s contact page. :)

I am a freelance web designer and flash artist in our province so I make good money. But not sufficient enough to start a family. Haha. Anyway, I’m seeing myself earning from the internet as my main source of income which is why I’m slowly learning to earn from blogging.

Best Regards :)

To help me fund my ultra cycling races, I added affiliate links. This turned into adding a cycling and outdoor gear search with over 150,000 product entries from over 50 online merchants. I haven’t had much time to work on it and have a lot of enhancements I’d like to make. I really consider it under development and in beta. I’m now to the point of getting about 1,000 unique visits a day from Google. I’m not making enough to quit my day job but I’m making a nice side income.

I’m a software developer so I can write code and design databases but I’ve never done any marketing. I need someone to either do the marketing for me or at least give me some idea where to start.

I’m even reluctant to try any marketing because of the way my site is layed out. If someone goes to the home page it looks more like a personal web site. I’ve considered moving the cycling and outdoor gear search to another domain but I’m concerned I’d lose my ranking in Google since most of my inbound links are to my blog.

I think all of what I’ve said boils down to knowing what changes to make so the cycling and outdoor gear search part of my web site is marketable without losing the traffic I have. Once that’s done, how do I even start doing marketing?

Our concept is cool but need real help in marketing it and getting more people to catchup with us. Your help would come in handy. After all , our business is to brag and let others brag too.

I was very sad to not win the prize package from Darren’s contest. I would be very excited to win this one. Thanks so much for the second chance, Naomi!