My Free Home Business

CAN A FREE HOME BUSINESS REALLY WORK?

Is there such thing as a free home business that makes good money? The truth may surprise you! A lot also depends on what you consider “good” money. There are quite a few that really do pay you a few pennies here and there for clicking ads and so forth. Once you build a list of people under you doing the same thing, you can make some decent money from their efforts as well as yours. They can be used as feeder programs to fund your search into other ventures that may or may not pay off down the road and there’s nothing wrong with them at all. In fact, I personally know quite a few people that have done very well with that type of home business program!

But there are other home business programs that can generate a great deal of income without building a huge list under you. They still require work, time and patience, but the payoff can be enormous! And there are such home business programs that you can try (and even continue) for absolutely nothing! With that said, I would like to introduce you to one such business…

FREE AFFILIATE WEBSITES

There is at least one company that offers you free affiliate websites to advertise to the world, which makes it a truly international home business. On these sites, they offer reviews of various affiliate products that YOU get paid for whenever someone makes a purchase! While it takes a little time and effort to get yourself (and your business) set up the way you want it, you can earn money on these sites for years to come! They offer GREAT training designed to help make you and your home business successful! The products they offer have been carefully researched, and the reviews are professionally written. The only obligation YOU have to make is in committing a little time and effort to make it work for YOU…just like with any other real business.

Contrary to what some of the gurus may have you believe, there is no get-rich-quick on the internet. Those that tell you they made $50,000 last weekend probably really did…but what they didn’t tell you, is that they have a list of hundreds of thousands (or millions) of potential customers they email all at once. With this home business program, you don’t need a list to make money. You will build one, as time goes by, but you’ll be building it from buyers that are buying the products your affiliate pages are selling…and they’ll be buying because THEY came looking for YOU!

Stick around a while, and follow along with me…together I’ll help YOU learn how to make money with YOUR free home business…

FREE HOME BUSINESS

While we’re looking at tools to use to promote your free home business, it would be a mistake to avoid mentioning PPC, or pay-per-click. I don’t want to spend too much time on this one, as it does cost money, and if you’re not careful, you can end up spending a lot more than you make! The whole idea behind finding  legitimate free home business opportunities is NOT spending money to start! Of all the tools we’ve looked at so far, most, if not all, can be done without spending so much as a penny…even though most of them also offer upgrades.

Pay-per-click is a little different. If you use pay-per-click it WILL cost money, and you really need to know a little about what you’re doing to use it successfully. As time goes by, I’ll post a little more info on how to use it. (Freesitesignup offers full training on pay-per-click, as well as the many other marketing tactics.)

The basic idea behind it, if you’re not familiar with it, is that you pay for each visitor that clicks on your advertising link. It can work well IF you have your own product, and IF you do your keyword research and  IF you’re careful with your budgeting. It’s a great way to get some fast traffic and some quick sales.

The drawback, if you’re doing affiliate marketing, is that you may have to wait a month or so to get paid…but you’re paying for your traffic as your visitors are clicking your links. In other words, you’re paying for traffic today, but you may not get your money back (even if you’re making sales) for another month or so. You need a little cash upfront to devote to your PPC campaign.

Pay-per-click, if you’re new to marketing, and especially if you have little or no money to tie up right at the moment, is something you would be wise to put off until you have a steady income coming in. You don’t need to be raking in thousands of dollars a month, but you might consider holding off until you have at least enough coming in each month to support your campaign…and even then, budget carefully and keep an eye on the progress. PPC can eat your money up really quick!

It’s a great way to market…people do it successfully every day…but don’t jump into it right away, and don’t jump into it with both feet! Use some of the free methods to build a little business. If you have a little money you’d like to invest, invest in some of the other advertising means that won’t jump up and bite you. Maybe an upgrade or two in an inexpensive traffic exchange, or a solo ad in a related ezine. Something with a set price that you can budget for. It’s a lot easier to spend $5 a month on a traffic exchange upgrade than it is to spend $20 a day on PPC…unless, of course, you’re bringing in the kind of money that will support your business until the cash flow is in your favor.

MY FREE HOME BUSINESS-THE ULTIMATE TOOL

This is, without question, one of the most powerful tools you’ll run across to use in promoting your free home business. Quite simply, it’s marketing your product or business using articles! Article marketing can be very effective, and like your blog, it’s gonna hang around awhile once you get it online! Your articles can bring you potential customers long after it’s written!

Can’t write so well? That’s not a problem as long as the content is helpful to those you’re trying to reach. After all, you’re not selling your article, you’re selling yourself and your business! Post a few articles online! Do a little bit of keyword research (my free home business can help you with that if you’re not familiar with it!). Distribute those articles to a few directories, and the traffic will begin to flow! Word of caution…don’t expect to get thousands of visitors overnight! But with persistence and consistence, and a little decent content, you really would be surprised at how much traffic you CAN get!

A couple of my favorite places to submit articles are GoArticles (which will allow you to place affiliate links in the body of the article) and EzineArticles (which does NOT allow links in the body). Both are free, of course, and these are two of the big ones! There are many others, and they are very easy to find…again, if you google “article directories” you’ll come up with more places than you could possibly ever submit an article to!

Another alternative to submitting individual articles to individual directories, is an article submitter. You can find ‘em all over the net. You may find some VERY expensive ones, and you’ll find some very inexpensive ones. Personally, I can’t see shelling out a LOT of money for one, but a modest investment would cut your submission time and increase your traffic. A submitter is not something you HAVE to have in order to get traffic through your articles! It’s a matter of time and convenience, and nothing more. Once your business is creating a profit for you, you might want to consider one…until then, you really don’t need to invest a lot of money to start an online business!

Take a few minutes and type down a few thoughts…thoughts that may seem like common sense to you, might be a revelation of wisdom to someone else! Never assume your information isn’t valuable. Just like GoArticles and EzineArticles…you may likely have heard of them, and even use them already…but there are a lot of people that will read this post that have never come across them before! And those folks will be learning something very valuable to help them along in their pursuit of financial freedom!

Convert your articles to blog posts and your blog posts to articles! Chances are, those that follow your blog probably haven’t come across your articles. Same applies to those who’ve read your articles! There’s a good possibility that they haven’t yet run across your blog! An added benefit is that ezine publishers often pick up articles from these directories to send out as part of their newsletters! If you happen to have one of yours picked up, you could get some GREAT free exposure! That’s why it’s important to be as informative and helpful as you can. As you learn, share it with others! There’s more than enough to go around to everyone!

More tools to come….

MY FREE HOME BUSINESS-MY HOME BUSINESS BLOG

Ok, we’ve been covering some ways to get traffic to your website, because every free home business needs a home business blog! This is one of the most effective tools you’ll find available to you…and best of all, it’s totally free to do! If you’ve been following along for any length of time, you’ll see that I’m not a professional writer. I just come on and make a few notes, share a few thoughts, or offer a few tools or ideas that you can use in building your own international home business! That’s all a blog really is…sharing your own thoughts with others!

It’s not terribly hard to submit your blog to search engines, blog directories and more. If you simply go to google and type in “search engines,” for instance, you’ll come up with a list so large that you could never possibly submit your blog to all of them. Same with blog directories! Once your blog is posted, it’s there forever! You can submit it to as many or as few as you like! There are services that will submit them for you, free of charge, like pingoat. You simply go to the site, type in your blog, click a button and it’s gone! The thing is, once you’ve posted, it’s DONE! Your posts from last week, last month, last year will still be there next week, next month and next year!

That’s what makes blogging such a powerful tool. If you’re consistent in adding a post or two a week, you’ll slowly see an increase in traffic. As time goes by, and you continue adding to your blog, others are linking back to it (and a lot of other technical stuff), your search engine rankings improve and you begin seeing better and better results. Link everything  back to your blog! Don’t advertise your product, advertise your blog!! It works! It takes a little time, but it WORKS!

You don’t have to write a lot. You don’t have to write well. You just have to write it! There are a ton of free sites that will help you set up, host and maintain your blog, for absolutely no cost. Blogger, is one…Wordpress is GREAT…and there are others. They’re all pretty simple once you play around with them a little. Most of them will have tutorials to help you out if you need it. It’s a great, long-lasting FREE way to have a very powerful promotion going on for your business!

With that said, it’s one of my two favorite methods of promoting…next post, we’ll take a look at the other!

PROMOTE YOUR FREE HOME BUSINESS

There are still an awful lot of ways to promote your free home business that we haven’t even touched! This is just one more of the more popular ways…classified advertising! I use classified ads on a somewhat limited basis and I’ve seen some results from it. It’s not one of my favorite methods, by any means, but I do, on occasion, throw a few ads out there!

Classified ads are like most anything else…you can find a TON of free ones! You can find em by the gazillions, if you like! You can purchase submitters that will submit your ad to hundreds at a time…or you can do it yourself, one by one. It’s entirely your choice! If you’re a big fan of the classifieds, I would suggest you might consider a submitter IF you can afford it. Otherwise, you might be wise to enter a few by hand at some of the gazillions of free sites!

One place you may wish to check out is USfreeads. You can join free, but of course, your options are somewhat limited. BUT…for just $10 a year, you can submit 25 ads a month, or for about the same price each month, you get unlimited ads! I’m hoping to have some other great options coming for you soon…also totally free…so be sure to stay posted on it!

I could list quite a few classified sites for you, but again, if you just do a search on google, you’ll find a list that never ends!!!

MY FREE HOME BUSINESS

If you’re just embarking on the journey of starting up your own free home business, you’ll need to choose at least one way, if not several,  to promote your business to the world…especially with an international home business, such as freesitesignup! We briefly covered safelists, so moving on, we’ll talk a little about traffic exchanges.

Basically, a traffic exchange is just what it sounds like…it’s a site that’s been set up to give you traffic in exchange for visiting the sites of others. Personally, I’m not a big fan of either safelists or traffic exchanges, but there are folks who have done quite well with both. Again, you can join most of them for free, and if you choose, you may always upgrade to a paid membership. The advantages of the paid memberships are in time and traffic, of course!

If you’ve never used a traffic exchange, you simply get credits for the sites you visit (or the money you spend), and in return for your credits, you get a certain amount of traffic. There are a couple of reasons I don’t care much for them, myself…though, again, some folks have done well with them. One is the amount of time you have to spend visiting other sites, unless, of course, you upgrade. Another is that a good number of people are visiting your site just to get their own credits. They really aren’t interested in your offer, they just want to get another visitor to their own site!

The third, and most important reason I don’t like them is that they can be very distracting. In order to be successful in your free home business, you need to do one thing above all…focus! Be persistent and consistent. Traffic exchanges can be really distracting in the sense that, if your business is off to a slow start, you can be easily tempted to jump from one home business program to the next because of the hype you’ll find on the sites you visit. That, my friend, is the biggest no-no you can commit. In the online world of business, it’s the cardinal sin!

You’ll never invest the time into one primary business to give it the chance to be successful. Pick ONE home business program, and ONE only. Then stick with it. Ignore the temptations. All home business programs are designed to get you interested and get you involved. Most will promise you the moon in less than a week. The reality is, and pay close attention here…IT DOESN”T HAPPEN THAT WAY! I can promise you, that, no matter what they say, you won’t click a button and have money rolling in just because you exist and send in thirty bucks. Or a hundred…or several hundred…

The success that you do have with traffic exchanges will generally be from the “program jumpers.” A very few may drop in that turn out to be great business partners…but most of them are already promoting their own business. Because they jump from one program to the next, none of their venture are working out, so they’re going to try yours for a week or two…then they’ll be gone to the next one. Remember, most of these folks aren’t looking to join your business…they’re trying to get you to join theirs. And if they ARE joining yours, it’s because…what? Theirs isn’t working, or they haven’t given it the time to work.

Based on the sheer numbers of folks that use traffic exchanges, it’s only reasonable to conclude that a certain number of them will be interested in your offer, whether they stick with it for a week or a lifetime. Based on that one simple fact, and the fact that a certain number of people are going to use traffic exchanges anyway, I’ve included a link to one, and only one traffic exchange. If you’re gonna use one, use the best!

If you’re one of the folks that love traffic exchanges (and there’s not a thing wrong with them…my personal preference is to use other methods), Traffic Swarm is the cream of the crop…THE traffic exchange of traffic exchanges! If you’re foaming at the mouth to join as many exchanges as you can, just google “traffic exchanges” and you’ll get more than you could join in a lifetime…lol.

The upside to the traffic exchange method,  is that if you have a little spare change you’d like to invest in upgrades, then you can make a little spare change by signing up others below you. There are those on the world wide web that make a nice monthly income from nothing but marketing traffic exchanges! The fact that I don’t care much for them as done absolutely NOTHING to decrease their popularity!! 

If you’re gonna try one, try the best one there is…Traffic Swarm. If you catch the exchange fever, and gotta have more, you’ll run across several being advertised on the Swarm, I’m sure! If you still can’t get enough, just google it. You’ll never reach the end of the list!

Stick around, my friend…soon we’ll be getting to MY preferred method of marketing!

HOME BUSINESS BLOG-MY FREE HOME BUSINESS

Today, I’d like to share with you just a little on how to promote your free home business.  Of course, there are as many ways to promote your free affiliate websites as there are people to promote them! I’d like to share a few of those with you today, along with the pros and cons of each one.

The first way I’d like to touch on today is email marketing, or safelisting. Rule #1, you do NOT want to start sending out a bunch of random emails to people you don’t know without their permission. You know, as well as I do, that nobody likes to be spammed (plus it’s illegal)! There are ways, however, to send emails out to folks you don’t know WITH their permission! One way to do this is with landing pages, which we’ll cover later. Today, though, we want to look at safelisting.

Safelists are lists that you can join that are full of people that have agreed to receive your emails. In return, you agree to receive their emails. While this can be an effective way to get your business out there, keep in mind that the same people that are receiving your email, agreed to do so in order to be allowed to send YOU their offers!  While you can join most safelists for free (of course, most of them offer upgrades), the free ones are often ineffective.

Once you upgrade, you can email a lot more members a lot  more often. Another benefit of upgrading is that you often receive a LOT less email! The typical set up is this: Free members can email free members once a week, and receive emails from everybody in the list. Upgrade to “pro” and you may be able to email all free and pro members two or three times a week…and receive emails only from the pro and “executive” members. Upgrade to “executive” and email ALL members of the list as often as you like…and receive emails only from other executive members. The upgrades are normally fairly modest in price.

Obviously, the executive memberships are far more effective if you decide you want to try safelisting. Whether the lists are free or paid, the list is already there for you. You can have an instant list of thousands! The downside, is that it’s very competetive, and can be very expensive if you upgrade in a few of them. If you’re making money from them, it’s worth it, of course, but if you’re just starting out or if you are on a limited budget, it might not be a wise investment. Personally, while I do use a few of them, I don’t spend too much time or money on them.

I will share with you a few that I do like, though, and that I’ve found to be fairly responsive. Number 1 on the list is:

ListJoe is a great list to start with. It’s a little pricey to upgrade, but worth it IF you want to make safelisting one of your preferred methods of marketing. If you’re not intending to do much with safelists, I would recommend you starting as a free member.(Actually, it’s more of a list builder than a safelist, but it works much in the same way…but it has the added benefit of building your list, too.)

List-twister is another good viral list builder. It’s still fairly new (and fairly inexpensive to upgrade), and as it grows, so will your list!

Herculist seems to be a pretty good safelist to start with. Of course, you can join as a free member, or upgrade to different levels. Either way, it currently has a list of around 56,000 members. I’ve been a member for awhile now, and it might be worth your taking a look.

TargetProBlaster is another one I use, mostly because there’s a lifetime upgrade of only $10 to send out emails to a list of around 50,000 currently.

One of the absolute favorites on my list is the Pearls of Wealth safelist group. You can join any or all of them. Most of them are free to join, and you can join as many or as few as you like. If you’d like to try the safelist submitter, feel free to do so, as long as you understand there is a monthly membership fee (that you can cancel at any time). The Pearls lists are generally pretty responsive, and are all over the world (which is great for your international free home business!). I would recommend you joining a few of them for free and getting your feet wet before jumping into the submitter, unless it’s something you can easily afford. Another great alternative that I’ve used a few times is that you can send out a one time ad to all lists for $5. That might be something else you’d like to try before you commit to a paid membership. See how it works for you.

Just as a note of caution here, if you happen to run across these blasters that charge you $20-30 for a lifetime membership to “blast” your ads to millions a day…STAY AWAY! I’m sure there are probably a few legitimate ones out there, but I also know that many of them are just wanting your thirty bucks. I’m not talking about some of the safelist submitters (which are different altogether) like Pearls of Wealth, or  iPostAd…but about the blasters that promise to send your ads to 150-700 million people a day for a one-time lifetime payment. It’s your money, but…

Safelists can be quite effective. I’m not a huge fan of them, although I do use them on occassion, too! Don’t rule them out totally, but don’t get too hung up on ‘em either! There are other ways (totally free) that work just as well or better!

LEGITIMATE FREE HOME BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

The age old question: Are there such things as  legitimate free home business opportunities? The answer may surprise you! First of all, let’s look at the reason you’re investigating this avenue in the first place. Maybe you were laid off and in today’s economy, it’s pretty tough to find a decent job…or even a not so decent job. Maybe with the economic turmoil, you just need a little extra cash! Don’t despair…and don’t run around throwing money at a lot of different programs that promise to bring the cash rolling in with the click of a button!

Back to the question: Are there really such things as legitimate free home business opportunities? There are a surprising number of “free” home businesses, that (not so surprisingly) really aren’t free. They may be free to join, but they often require you to upgrade or maintain a certain dollar amount in monthly purchases to qualify to receive your money. The money YOU earned! In spite of those guys, there really and truly are a few legitimate free home business opportunities on the internet! We’re not talking about the survey thing, or the clicking ads for pennies type thing, but real, true, honest-to-goodness home business programs that can earn you a substantial income!

Most of these offer upgrades too, but don’t REQUIRE them, like many other “free” opportunities. Of course, the upgrades offer the potential to earn even more money, but it’s a choice that YOU make. You can honestly remain “free” as long as you like and still receive your earnings…and with a little time and effore, those earnings can be rather lucrative!

Likewise, you can spend as much as you want on advertising or promoting your new business…but it’s really not necessary if you’re willing to put in a little time and effort in learning about the free ways. Yep, it may take a little longer and require a little more effort, but it’s just as effective, and in the long run, the advantages lie with the free ways. They can self-produce for you over a very long period of time, simply by putting in a little work in the beginning.

Even the free home business programs may cost a little bit to start up, though. We’re not talking about a major investment, but even with a free affiliate website, for instance, you’ll need a place to host it. There are tons of hosting services out available for very little cost…usually less than ten bucks a month! And you might be interested in getting your own domain name…another small investment. It’s really easy to find those for well under ten bucks, too!

A lot of internet business folks recommend autoresponders, as well. Do you HAVE to have one? Not at all. Especially if you’re selling affliate products! That’s a choice you have to make for yourself, but it’s an investment that you might want to consider at some point down the road, especially if you’re selling your own products or trying to build a list. Another twenty bucks of so a month. You can easily do without the autoresponder, as many affiliate programs will have their own, but even if you go all out right off the bat, with the domain name, the hosting and the autoresponder, you’re looking at forty dollars or less a month to operate your home business. There’s NOWHERE else where you can do THAT!

Are there really such things as “legitimate free home business opportunities“? You bet! You just have to take a little time to find it…

LEGITIMATE FREE HOME BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Looking for legitimate free home business opportunities? I have to say that I’m breaking one of my own rules here! I’ve attempted to focus on just one amazing opportunity (freesitesignup), but I’ve come across another home business program that’s just as incredible! Actually, in a way, I suppose the two sort of go hand in hand! Whether you work from home or not…maybe ESPECIALLY if you work at home…you still need a good solid health care package! I don’t need to go into all the reasons that health insurance is a poor choice, even if it is a necessary one!

With that said, I’ve decided to promote an incredibly amazing medical savings program, along with freesitesignup, just because it’s so fantastic! Not only does it offer a great many benefits (it rivals many of the best insurance companies out there!), but it, too offers a free home business program that’s really awesome!

Check it out, if you get the chance! Especially if you don’t have any medical insurance, or if you’re paying more than $100 a month in premiums to cover your family! It is NOT an insurance company, but rather a medical savings program that really, truly rocks with intensity in the benefits it offers! Best of all, you can save on medical, dental, vision, hearing, prescriptions…all in the same low priced package…and pre-existing conditions aren’t an issue because it’s not insurance…it’s a savings program that anyone can join and take advantage of! (And don’t forget to check out the possibility of getting your own free affiliate website, too!)

A fantastic tool to promote along with your home business at freesitesignup! Getting paid to help others is truly an incredible blessing!