Most people don’t have a lot of money to spend on running their home business. They need to be more practical and really think about where their money goes. These are some low to no cost activities you can do that may help you to build a home business.

Most are more time intensive than money intensive. That’s a trade you often have to make. If you have the money to risk on making things go faster you can go that way. If you don’t have the money you’re going to have to spend the time.

Shoestring 1: Blog

Blogs are highly affordable to run, even if you pay for hosting and a domain name. They take a lot of time to build up, but can bring a lot of targeted attention to whatever you’re trying to sell, whether it’s a product or a service.

Shoestring 2: Article marketing

Article marketing isn’t easy. You have to write a lot of articles in order to succeed. You have to submit them to at least one of the top directories, possibly to several. You can automate this through sites such as Content Crooner or by buying article submission software.

Shoestring 3: Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking can build a great number of links. There are hundreds of sites out there where you can bookmark pages from your website. They’re not terribly strong links for the most part, but they’re still links.

Shoestring 4: Social networking

If you want to put a little more effort into particular networks, social networking sites can be great. You can create accounts on sites such as Twitter and Facebook and promote your products.

This is challenging in the amount of time it takes. You get more followers by giving good information, not just promoting your business. You can get plenty of followers by following other people, but if you aren’t getting them interested they won’t do you any good. You need numbers of engaged followers, not just followers.

Shoestring 5: Blog Commenting

Commenting on relevant blogs generally doesn’t bring a lot of traffic, but can bring some. It can show your knowledge in your industry. Just keep things relevant to the topic you’re commenting on and don’t constantly be promoting your site.

Shoestring 6: Forum Participation

Participating in forums can really help to bring people to your site, so long as you can leave links to your site in your signature line. As with blog commenting, you need to keep things relevant to your site and not be too promotional. Forum owners hate that and you’re likely to be banned and have posts deleted.

Shoestring 7: Squidoo Lenses

Creating a lens on Squidoo can feel as though you’re making content for someone else, but it’s also a way to build links to your own sites while earning a little income. They’re a little picky about certain topics, and have rules about how many times an individual lens can link to a particular domain, but within those rules they can be useful.

Some people build their entire business around Squidoo lenses.

With enough shoestrings for your business, you have a chance to tie up a pretty nice business. Keep working at it and you might go far.

If there is one thing that changed my life more than any other thing, it would have to be becoming a mother. This won’t surprise anyone who has had children. Being a stay at home mom really emphasizes the challenges. Thank goodness for the rewards.

Children change your life. Not just in the ways you expect, such as having to get up at night to feed the baby, watching him or her grow, spending money on the many things kids need, and so forth. They change your life in ways that if you weren’t a parent would probably drive you crazy. That’s just kids.

It will be years before you take your privacy for granted, even in the bathroom. Little kids won’t stand for it most of the time. You’re behind that door and they’re going to find out what you’re doing. Then they’ll tell you all about their latest imaginary adventure or what’s happening on their favorite show that they’ve watched more times than you can stand.

You’ll also discover how fascinating potty talk can be when you’re potty training your child. Not only will you talk freely about bodily functions to your child, but to other parents as well. And they’ll even get excited about it with you.

If you changed your name when you got married, that change of identity is nothing compared to the change when you become your child’s Mommy. That’s how you’ll be identified by your’s child’s friends and many of their parents for years to come.

Perfectly clean home? You mean for more than a few minutes while the kids are awake? Not likely! Some days it seems like kids just have to look in a room to make it into a disaster area.

Perfect hair, makeup and clothes? You’re begging for the baby to get sick, aren’t you? Probably just as you’re ready to head out of the house.

How about a sick day? Check your temperature, because you must be feverish. Sick or no, the kids need to be taken care of, and if it’s mommy they’re used to, it’s mommy they will try to get even if daddy is home.

On the plus side, there are few things as wonderful as being snuggled by your child. It doesn’t matter if you both had a really rough day. Kids can make it up to you with one quick hug. And if that doesn’t get your energy back up at the end of the day, have a little chocolate, a hot bath or another indulgence after your kids are in bed.

I make no promises as to how this all works in the teen years. That’s an entirely different game.

No matter how much you love your website, viewers are going to see it differently. There are many things you can do to your website that you might think will help that in fact put visitors off. Annoy them too much and not only do they leave quickly, they don’t come back.

1. Start with a splash page.

I remember in my college website design classes my professor was huge on splash pages. He thought they were a great way to introduce a website.

Real world?

Splash pages are annoying. Search engines don’t like them. Visitors don’t like them. Plus you don’t have that much control over where people come into your site, so not all visitors will see your fancy schmancy splash page.

But when people type in your domain name they don’t want to have to click through to get to the actual website. There’s no need for that pretty Flash animation sharing what your site is about. Just start your site on the home page and skip the splash.

2. Slow loading.

People are impatient. They don’t want to wait for the content of your website to load. They want to get what they’re after quickly. More than 7 seconds, plus or minus depending on the individual’s patience, and they are away from your site and off to another.

3. Confusing navigation.

Ever get lost driving somewhere? It’s frustrating.

The navigation of your website shouldn’t give that lost feeling. They shouldn’t feel as though they need to ask for directions on how to get to different parts of your website. It should be consistent throughout the site.

4. Too many ads.

You know how many ads are in your typical magazine or newspaper? People don’t put up with that many online. Don’t overload your site with ads.

A large part of the annoyance with online ads is how intrusive they can be. It’s not like print ads. Online ads can talk. They can be animated. They can quite simply drive people nuts.

Overuse of ads, even when tolerated, can even lead to “ad blindness,” where people don’t notice ads at all. Keep your use of ads to appropriate levels if you want them to be effective.

5. Site appears to be out of date.

When was the last time you updated the copyright notice on your site? Have you made reference to the day or year anyplace else on your site?

Having a date on your content can make it appear to be out of date. There’s a simple piece of PHP code you can put on pages to make the year update itself, which is handy for copyright notices.

<? print(Date("Y")); ?>

But if you’re calling something new for 2010, November or whatever else, it will look outdated if people are looking at it outside that time frame. Make sure you change or remove dates when they start to look a little old.

Blogs can find this particularly challenging, as most put a date on the post. If you have evergreen content on your blog it can help to periodically update it or consider having it be on an undated page rather than a post.

6. Website appears incomplete.

Don’t say your site is “under construction” or anything like that, even if it is. Most sites are a chronic work in progress.

If a page isn’t done, don’t put it up yet. You can add it in when it’s ready to be seen by the public. You really aren’t drawing people in by saying that something is coming soon unless it’s something really important to them. If they’re just casually shopping on your site or seeking out particular information, they aren’t going to be that interested in waiting for the update.

If you’re trying to build anticipation, give plenty of information. Make it interesting. “Coming soon” just doesn’t cut it.

7. Irrelevant content.

While a website as a whole can cover a huge range of topics, keep individual pages on topic. Don’t switch from a discussion of the butterfly eggs hatching in your back yard to discuss who you’re voting for in the next election, unless you’re really good at relating politicians to butterflies.

Random ramblings rarely work on a website. Most people just can’t make them that interesting. You’re far more likely to come off as incoherent.

Running a website is a lot of work. It’s very rarely a case of set and forget. Take some time to put in the effort needed to create a really great website.

I came across this post on Locker Gnome about the biggest Internet scams of 2009. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 20% more complaints of internet scams in 2009 when compared to 2008. And guess what? Despite the notoriety of work at home scams, they weren’t the biggest category.

That doesn’t say anything about how bad work at home scams are, of course, just that they aren’t the most heavily reported type of fraud reported to IC3.

What is really amazing to me is that the dollar loss when up so significantly. In 2008, the dollar loss reported was $264.6 million. In 2009, it was $559.7 million. Rather a significant increase in dollars considering the complaints increased 20%. Some complainants lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while more than 20% lost less than $100.

The most heavily reported were email scams that mentioned the FBI, and this made up 16.6% of crime complaints. Non delivery of merchandise or payment was next at 11.9% of complaints.

Work at home scams certainly made the list of common scams reported to the IC3. While the report doesn’t specify numbers, it noted a wide range of work at home scams ranging from high pay job offers to survey scams to check cashing and money order scams.

The check cashing and money order scams I would say fall into the overpayment fraud categorization. This is hard to figure out until you get far enough into the report to see how they define everything. That would make them 7.3% of complaints. That’s pretty amazing to me to see just how widespread such fraud is.

An interesting one I hadn’t heard of is a survey scam where they ask for a photocopy of a payroll check in order to participate in a survey about employer/employee relationships. The interesting part about this one is that it is the employer who loses money, not the person sending in the copy of the check. The scammers use the account information on the photocopy to write fraudulent checks on the employer’s account.

The report overall is interesting, just to see how many kinds of internet scams there are. It’s easy for me to focus on the work at home scams, since that’s an area I work in. But there are many more scams online that it pays to be aware of.

This is shaping up to be quite the interesting battle. The New York times printed an article called Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand, and it has many mom bloggers furious.

I can’t say I blame them. Much of the article is condescending. Little mommy bloggers making money. How cute.

A part of the problem is that it appears in the Fashion and Style section. Considering the effect mom bloggers are having on marketing, the business section strikes me as far more appropriate.

The comparison to a Tupperware party or a kaffeeklatsch is no doubt intended to be cute, but many mom bloggers find it to be more condescending. They clearly don’t like that mom bloggers are including earning money in what for some reason ought to be a purely social hobby.

It’s a common problem for moms. Work outside the home, you’re neglecting your children. Stay at home, you’re lazy. Find a way to do both, well you’re just terrible! Negligent, lazy, and how dare you make a living doing something you enjoy.

Moms blogging goes beyond parenting and gossip. Sure there’s talk about diapers, parenting skills and rough days. But there’s also work on our favorite causes. With our highly personal voices, there’s great connection with readers, and marketers love that.

Are there legitimate concerns about honesty when some bloggers review products? Absolutely. But that goes for all kinds of blogs. It’s just that you hear about it when they talk about mom blogs. It’s why disclosure is so important.

We’re very fortunate that it is so possible for moms to have such a voice online these days. I’d just like to see it taken more seriously by others in the media.

So far that’s not happening. You just have to take a look at the articles the New York Times has posted about mom bloggers  to see what I mean. Kelby Carr has a great list in her post, Newspaper Bias Against Mom Bloggers, and it’s not just a problem with the New York Times.

There’s a lot of great reading available out there about this article. Here are a few I’ve found. Share your favorites in the comments if you like.

New York Times Biased Against Mommy Bloggers?

Honey, Don’t Bother Me. I’m Too Busy Writing With a Toddler In My Lap

Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Writing a Mildly Annoyed Letter to the New York Times.

Why did you start blogging? My views on the New York Times article

and of course Kelby Carr’s article linked above in my post.

Lots of people talk about the great things about running a home based business. And don’t get me wrong, it is mostly great for me. But it has its downsides too.

1. Long hours

Yes, long hours for most people who have home businesses. Sure there are some people who manage to keep really short hours, the whole four hour work week kind of deal. But that’s not the typical experience.

Most home business owners, especially in the beginning, work long hours. They get up early in the morning or stay up after everyone else is in bed. They work weekends, holidays, whenever they can get a moment.

It’s incredibly difficult for most people to completely put aside their business when they love it. Even on vacation you’re likely to want to check your email or make sure your sites aren’t down. If you want to get completely away you’re probably going to have to hire a virtual assistant to take care of things for you.

On the plus side, it’s time you’re managing. If you need to be there for your family, you can do it. If you need a break, you’re the only one you have to convince to take it. That’s not always easy, as you may find yourself to be a harsher taskmaster than any boss you’ve ever had. But do go easy on yourself sometimes, okay?

2. Uncertain income

There’s nothing so wonderful as earning an income you can live off from home. But when you have a home business, you have no guarantees that your income will be steady at any level.

Some ways that’s a good thing. Your income can go from “ouch!” to “wow!” very quickly sometimes. But it can go the other way too.

This makes it vital that you keep savings available for those times that your income just isn’t where you need it to be. You have to prepare for the bad times and enjoy the good.

3. Expenses

When you own a home business, you pay for everything. Your training. The costs of operating your business, such as hosting and advertising.

Depending on your business model, these can add up quickly or be pretty easy on your budget. But they’re all yours!

4. Feelings of isolation

This one gets a lot of people in the early days. You’re at home, with no immediate co-workers, unless you count any children around. You can easily miss adult interaction.

There are many ways to get virtual interaction during the day. You can join appropriate forums and make friends. Use Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. Just don’t overdo it or you will find that you lack time to get real work done.

Be sure you get out with friends you can see in person too. Virtual friends are great, they can be wonderfully helpful and give you great input, even be there for you in a crisis, but time out with people in person is good for you too.

5. Lack of health benefits

This can be a big one. If you don’t have a spouse with health benefits, you have to find a plan on your own. These can be expensive.

6. Always with the kids

This is one of the big reasons why many parents choose to start a home business, but kids are one of the challenges as well. Sometimes you need to get something done for your business, and the kids just aren’t cooperating. They need you, they start fighting, they get sick, they do something or other that makes it more challenging when you’re really trying to get a project done.

Good thing you love them so much, right?

They’re a positive also. You’re there when they need you. If you want to do something with them, you get to.

One of the most important things to remember when you’re running a home business is that you can turn many negatives into positives. The same things that make working from home so hard are also what make it wonderful and great. Don’t let frustration stop you.

7. Hard to get sick days

Sure, you can take a sick day any day you want when you work at home. The question is, will you?

Just as with the tendency to work long hours, many work at home business owners will keep working even when they’re sick. It’s a home office, it’s right there!

On the plus side, even if you do work when you’re sick, you have more control over the pace of things. You might be fighting to beat a deadline, but you can figure out how much work you are up for without a boss breathing down your neck or talking to clients face to face.

When you have a home business, it’s important to realize that while you have more freedom, you also have more responsibilities. This can lead to overworking, missing out on fun with your family and other problems. Even though it’s difficult, make sure you’re taking time off as necessary.

Creating content for your online business is challenging. It’s hard to come up with new ideas day after day. But have you thought about repurposing content you’ve already created?

I don’t mean rewriting the same article over and over again. It’s already hard enough to avoid that trap when you’ve been working on a topic for a while. You can easily forget some of what you’ve written in the past and write something new that is very similar.

But writing content isn’t the only game in town. You can repurpose content you’ve already created for use in marketing your site.

Podcasting/Audio

Some people love to learn by listening. It’s how they learn the best. You’ll need a microphone for your computer and some software such as Audacity to create it. There are many sites you can use to distribute your podcast. You can even share it on iTunes.

The tricky part is coming up with information that’s long enough to be interesting. That’s a rather different length from most articles written for websites. You may have to combine a couple to come up with a good length.

Video

Sites such as YouTube are incredibly popular. They get millions of visitors looking for videos on all kinds of subjects. This is great since some people are very visual learners.

If you have Windows, you probably have Movie Maker already installed. Macs also have tools to help you make videos, and are generally better at dealing with high definition.

You will need either a good webcam or a small digital camcorder if you want to be in your videos. The Flip video camera is very popular.

You can in essence read your articles to make your videos. I suggest having visual aids when possible. If you’d rather not star in the video, you can make them be a sort of slide presentation, or do a product demonstration without showing your face. You have plenty of options.

Brainstorming New Content

If you’re struggling with new content ideas, repurposing what you already have is only going to take you so far. Eventually you’re going to have to come up with something new.

Brainstorming can be a big help. There are many ways to do this, and hopefully you’ve learned one in the past.

An easy way to go is to write down one idea. Then start expanding on it. This can generate several individual articles or even an article series. Just see where it takes you.

Reading other people’s content can also help. I don’t suggest copying, but see what it makes you think up. I recommend sitting on ideas generated this way for a few days so that your writing is not much influenced by whatever you were reading at the time. You want to be original.

Carrying a notepad and pen everywhere you go is also a help. This lets you be ready any time an idea strikes. You may not be able to write the whole thing at the time, but you can get main concepts down.

This one particularly helps if you sell a physical product that you can look at in local stores. Take a look at who’s buying what you’d like to sell. How is it presented. I wouldn’t take notes in the store, of course, but use your eyes.

A little repurposing, a little creativity, and bit by bit you can get past even a bad case of writer’s block and start creating content again. It’s a lot more fun than being stuck.

You’re excited. A company has just contacted you with an offer for a work at home job, and you’ve been searching for weeks or even months. Finally all your hard work seems to be paying off.

There’s just one problem. They want you to pay for a background check, and you aren’t quite sure you remember the company name. Or maybe you do kind of remember them, but you can’t find any good information about them online or anywhere else.

What do you do?

It’s a sad fact that there are many work at home scams out there, and a popular one is to get people to pay for a background check for a job that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, a very few legitimate companies also make potential employees pay for background checks, making it very difficult to know for certain what you should do when asked.

Your very first step is to start asking around if someone else knows of the company.  Many work at home message boards have very knowledgeable members who can help you figure out if you should consider taking the chance.

They’ll probably tell you no unless the company is well known.

There’s a simple reason for such skepticism. Most often such offers are scams.

Sure, the cost of a background check doesn’t seem like much. It’s not hundreds and hundreds of dollars, after all.

But that’s what they count on when they send you the job offer. They’re trying to get past your “I can’t afford to lose that much money” radar and give you the feeling that you can afford to risk a small amount if it means you’ll finally be working at home.

When you’re looking for a work at home job, no matter how frustrated you get with the difficulty of the entire process, it’s vital that you not let your guard down. Don’t suddenly start trusting an offer just because you really, really need the job. You have to be a skeptic. It’s the best protection you have.

Your best bets are to always stick to reputable companies that are known for hiring at home employees and resources that provide screened opportunities. If you go beyond these resources in your search, increase your skepticism.

There are legitimate work at home jobs listed even on sites such as Craigslist where anyone can place an ad. But the lack of screening means that scams do get through.

You should be wary if they ask for any money at all. You should be wary if they want your bank account information, even if they say it’s for direct deposit, doubly so if you haven’t actually received any pay at all yet. You should be wary if the pay is oddly high for the work you’ll be doing.

You just plain need to be careful if there’s no proof that you’ve found a legitimate company.

Sadly, a healthy mistrust of unproven opportunities is a good thing when you’re job hunting at home. It can save you a lot of money and heartache.

Lots of people want to make money from home. Lots of people try it. Lots of people fail.

Why is that?

1. Not thinking opportunities through.

Many people fail to make money at home because they don’t think things through when they pick an opportunity. They go with the one that looks like it will make a lot of money for them.

This makes it easy to fall for scams or to end up trying to do something you really don’t enjoy. In either case, you probably won’t earn much of anything.

You’re better off really thinking things through before starting any kind of work at home, be it a job or a business. Do your research on it. Know how you’re going to get started. Understand where the money is coming from.

Never be afraid to ask questions about any opportunity. Anyone pushing you too hard for a sign up is likely to be hiding something. Ask around, don’t just stick with one person’s information.

2. Not giving it enough time.

Once you’ve gotten started with an opportunity, you have to give it some time before you earn money, more likely than not.

Many people don’t recognize this. They don’t earn money immediately, so they go try something else.

You can’t give up so easily. A part of making a living from home is giving it time to work. You wouldn’t expect a brick and mortar business to be profitable right away (or if you did, you’d probably have trouble convincing the bank that you knew enough to get a loan for it). It’s the same with home business except that your costs are far, far lower. Give yourself and your business some time.

3. Claiming to know things you don’t.

There’s a philosophy many people have of “fake it until you make it” that can really slow your efforts at earning money down.

Why fake it in an area you know nothing about when you could more quickly “make it” in an area that you are more knowledgeable?

There’s a time and a place for “fake it until you make it” and starting your first business really isn’t it. While you can get away with a lot online for a time, you can ruin your business if you get caught.

That’s not to say you can’t learn enough to run just about any sort of business online in a short time if that’s what you really want. But why limit yourself to rehashing someone else’s information?

It’s also easier to work in areas you know well. You won’t constantly be in search of information you can use to build your business.

That doesn’t mean you won’t constantly be learning things in any home business. You will be. No matter how much you know about your niche there’s something new to learn, if not about the product then about how you’re marketing it, building your site and so forth.

4. Trying to do too much.

There’s a lot to do to run any successful business from home. You need to know your limits so that you don’t overdo it.

Don’t try to learn a bunch of new marketing techniques all at once, for example. Start with one. Master it. Then add another. You’ll do far better.

Doing too much also means knowing when to hire help. A virtual assistant can be a huge help in doing some of those routine things that you really shouldn’t spend time on yourself but need doing. You should be focusing on the parts that need your personal touch, not the basics.

5. Letting the bad times get you down.

It’s rough when your business isn’t growing the way you want it to. It’s even worse when your income shrinks. That doesn’t mean it’s time to give up.

There are no guarantees when you run your own business. One day your earnings may be great. The next you’re spending more than you’re bringing in. The next a once great income source vanishes. That’s how it goes sometimes.

You can’t let the bad times get you down. Keep working at it. You have options.

You do have to know if you need to give in enough to get a regular job so you can keep a roof over your head and food on the table, but even that doesn’t mean giving up. It means fighting all the harder in whatever time you can give your business and building back to where you want to be.

Earning money from home isn’t easy.  Anyone who says differently is not only selling something, but they’re not telling all the truth. Expect to work. Expect to struggle. Being ready for a challenge will serve you well in the long run.

And there are still no guarantees you’ll earn a single dime! That’s business for you.

Deciding whether to continue with her career or be a stay at home mom can be a painful decision for new mothers, and even for experienced ones. There are two dreams, each pulling you a different way.

One is the dream of always being their for your child. Of handling all the needs of your family at home. Being there for every first. Helping your child learn. Making almost every meal at home and being praised as the perfect mom by your admiring family.

The other is the dream of your career. The work you may love, or the dream that you will someday work your way up to that dream job. Bringing home enough money that your family can have all its needs comfortably met, and enough wants fulfilled to really enjoy life.

How to choose between them? It’s not always a pleasant decision.

Consider Finances First

While not what you may want to be thinking about, your financial situation is vital to whether or not you can be a stay at home mom. Will your family have enough money to get by, or will such a decision leave it struggling?

There’s a lot to consider. What would your family’s financial position be without your income, without cutting costs? What sacrifices are you willing to make? Do you know for certain that you could find a way to work at home to bring in extra money if you needed to?

Don’t forget to consider costs that will automatically be cut if you stay at home. You probably won’t eat out as much. You’ll probably simplify your wardrobe. Your tax situation will change. You won’t be commuting, so your car will be driven less.

If your family can’t make enough cuts to make it on one income, you may be stuck for the time being continuing with your job. If considering other factors makes you desperate to stay at home you can continue to work outside the home while working hard to find a way to bring in an income from home.

Which Do You Really Want?

What you really want from your life is important. Will you really be happy without your career? Changing your identity to “your child’s mommy” is a big change, and not always an easy one. Does that idea bother you?

Of course, even working outside the home a part of your identity quickly changes to “your child’s mommy,” if not right away, then when your child gets older and starts making friends. But it can be harder when you’re a stay at home mom and don’t have an outside the home career to talk about.

On the other hand, you may want to be there all the time for your child, and not have to worry about how you’re going to manage to take time off work when your child needs you. This may be the thing you’ve dreamed about even more than a successful career. Being a stay at home mom may exactly suit what you want from life.

Being financially dependent on your husband isn’t for every mother either. It’s rough sometimes knowing that your family has one income. Never mind that theoretically it’s just as much yours as his. There’s a difference emotionally to a lot of people.

The Needs of Your Child

I’ve put this last, but certainly not least. Sometimes the needs of your child outweighs all other considerations.

For most children, so long as they’re in a good situation they can grow up to be happy, healthy, productive adults whether their mothers stayed at home or put them in daycare. Show your children that you care for them and love them, and your decision can be right either way.

But sometimes things aren’t that simple. There can be health issues creating problems. You can have trouble finding adequate daycare. Things can simply work out sometimes to where you have to find a way, any way, to have one parent stay at home, and most often the mother takes that job on.

Take Time on Your Decision

Deciding whether to work outside the home or be a stay at home mom isn’t something you have to decide overnight most of the time. Take some time. Figure out if it’s going to work for you. Don’t drive yourself crazy, but have reasons for your decision and understand that you may have regrets for whichever path you don’t take. That’s just a part of life.

And enjoy your family!