While cooking isn’t strictly a free activity, odds are it’s money you would have spent otherwise, so this one at least doesn’t cost anything extra.

Pick out a new recipe that is age appropriate for you to make with your children. You can get a kids’ cookbook from the library if you want, or buy one if this is something you’ll do regularly enough. And of course there are plenty of kid friendly recipes to make online.

Make it fun or make it part of  a regular meal, whatever you want.

Cooking is a great way to teach kids about fractions and other bits of math, in a way that isn’t so intimidating. It can also teach them about responsibility, especially if your child is old enough to start cooking on the stove with you.

To really build up your online business you need to find some good niches to work with. That’s not always easy. Getting ideas in many ways is the easy part. Making them profitable is a lot more work.

The simplest place to discover niches is within your own interests. What do you spend money on? Hobbies? Necessities? Are there any you could see building a website on and earning an income with?

Sometimes that gets you a brilliant niche, one you can work with. Other times you need more help. A lot of it.

Where else can you get ideas?

Yahoo! Buzz

Yahoo Buzz is a sort of social site where people buzz up articles they think are interesting. They count votes, comments, emails and searches when they determine which stories hit the top.

This is good if you’re into news topics, but not so hot if you really want shopping topics.

eBay Pulse

Now this is good if you want shopping topics! What are people buying now on eBay? You can see the most popular searches and the most popular stores. Very good if you want to set up a product based site.

Amazon

Check out book titles. They can be inspiring. You can take a broad niche and narrow it down to something specific enough for a small website.

Also check out the magazines on your topic. If there’s a magazine, there’s people looking for information on that topic.

Each of these is a fair indicator that people spend money on that topic. That’s great news, especially if there’s a lot written on the topic you’re interested in. Just make sure you narrow things down enough for the size of site you want to make.

Now What?

Do people spend enough? That’s the next thing you need to discover for the niche you’re considering.

There are ways to figure this out. You can look at whether or not there are a lot of people spending money on pay per click ads in the niche you’re considering. That’s not a perfect test, and we all would love to find that perfect, undiscovered niche just waiting for us. That’s a rare find, but why be in the business if you don’t dream?

Just use the Google keywords tool and you can get a feel for the search volume for the keywords you want for your niche. It will also give you an idea as to how much advertiser competition there is, but the external keyword tool that you can use even without an AdWords account doesn’t give bids.

Related forums can help. Take a look at the questions people are asking and if they talk about products they’ve bought or want to buy. You can get some fair hints as to whether or not people are buying.

No matter how good the indicators, of course, in the end it’s down to whether or not you can successfully monetize the niche. There’s no way to guarantee success. But choosing your niche wisely can increase your odds.

There’s something about working at home that makes many people get a little crazy. Maybe it’s the many sites promising instant, easy money with practically no effort. I deal with people all the time who think that there’s an easy answer for how to earn money from home.

Okay, so maybe there is.

Ready?

It’s called hard work, people!

Only trouble is that it’s not always enough. But it’s the best chance you have.

I’ve been working at home for about 8 years now. I would say I’m moderately successful. Not where I want to be, but not where it would make sense to quit trying either. And some months much better than that. If I could get my income more consistently where I want it I’d be happier about it. I’ll get there.

Not all of it has been running websites. If you’ve read here for a while you may already know that I got my start in medical transcription. Both harder and easier work, really. Easier in that I knew what I was getting for what I produced. Harder in having to deal with a schedule and with the dictation some doctors would give.

Also not nearly as much fun as running my own sites, even comparing a bad day running my sites with a good day of transcription. At least for me. Others do really enjoy the work.

If you want to succeed with an online business there are no shortcuts. Sure, you can read and follow every step in the Super Affiliate Handbook or some other ebook about online business. It’s not going to guarantee that you succeed. The advice in there is good, it will put you on the right path, but making it work is another matter entirely. There are the little details that are up to you, your talents, and your willingness to work hard.

Which brings me to the next secret.

Knowing when to quit and when not to quit.

They’re both important. If you know when to drop a business that just isn’t going to thrive you can save yourself a lot of time and possibly money. Dropping it gives you more time to work on something that will succeed.

If you know when to keep plugging away at a business because you know you can make it succeed and the time and money spent are worth it to you, you also have a better chance to succeed.

Telling the two apart isn’t always easy. They can be very similar and you can delude yourself that a business is one when it’s the other.

As you progress with your business you really need to keep an honest eye on how things are going. Is there real progress? Is there real income potential? Is this really what you want to keep working on? Are you looking for an excuse to hop to the next hot launch or is it really and truly just not working out?

Expect that not everything you try will work out. If everything in your business works out just the way you want it to, I’d love to know your secret. Then I’ll want to know how honest you are being with yourself. There aren’t many people that lucky.

A touch of failure is a good thing. It’s a part of learning. It means you’re taking chances. Just don’t let it overwhelm you. Failing once, twice, a dozen times doesn’t mean that running a business isn’t for you. It means you haven’t found the right one.

Do what it takes.

The path to home business success isn’t a simple one. Sometimes it even involves stopping and getting a job outside the home while working on your business at night.

You wouldn’t believe how often I get people asking how they can start working at home to support their family. Even with work at home jobs that’s a tough one, folks! The jobs are rarely available quickly enough.

Say you want to have a business and I’ll say you need to give yourself some time to build it up.

If you need to earn money from home or your children won’t eat, guess what?

It’s time to find a way to work outside the home. Your family comes before your dream of work at home success. Don’t sacrifice their needs to your dreams.

That doesn’t mean give up. I said it before. It means working on your business at night, on weekends or whenever you have time available. If this is really what you want you had better be prepared to lose some sleep in the process. Sometimes a lot of sleep.

There’s a reason why businesses get compared to babies. They’re both quite demanding and neither cares how much rest you get.

The one thing you should give up on with a home business is the idea that it’s going to be easy. It probably won’t be. Expect to work, expect to work hard and then work harder than that and you’ve just improved your chances of succeeding.

Don’t forget to have fun!

Despite being home pretty much all day, the one thing a stay at home mom needs from a home business opportunity is flexibility. Being home doesn’t mean lounging about watching soap operas and eating bonbons, after all. It more likely means chasing after kids, taking them places and keeping house. It can get pretty hectic.

Starting a home business is a good idea for stay at home moms. It helps to keep skills up. It can bring money in if the efforts are successful. It’s often fun. It’s a good example for the children.

So how do you find something that can cope with all the demands of a stay at home mom’s daily routine? Especially if that routine changes every few months, as it does for so many moms?

Here are some online business ideas and what makes them flexible:

Network Marketing/Direct Sales

Pretty much the classic! Stay at home moms have been getting into network marketing for a long time now, and it shows no signs of disappearing.

There are a lot of things you can do now in network marketing that you couldn’t do in the past, however. The internet has really increased your options. It’s not all about begging your family and friends to join your opportunity anymore.

Check out the 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing to learn more about how network marketing has changed with the internet. And check my direct sales/network marketing opportunity directory to see if any appeal to you.

Blogging

You can’t get much more flexible, although it can be quite demanding if you want to earn a living from blogging.

You can write at whatever time of the day or night, and most blogging software will let you schedule the posts you’ve written as far out as you’d like. You can start for free to see if you’d like it, but I strongly recommend getting your own hosting and installing Wordpress if you’re going to treat it as a serious business in the long run.

You’ll still need to learn how to promote your blog, which can include tactics such as commenting on other people’s blogs, guest posting, article marketing, pay per click and much more.

Virtual Assistant

If you have a lot of office skills, being a virtual assistant can be a pretty good business. You decide which of your skills you want to offer, such as writing, customer service, data entry and so on.

There can be some time specific demands, however, especially if you promise to handle customer issues within a certain time frame or if you need to speak to people on the telephone.

Selling Products Online

This is a huge category. You can sell products you made yourself on Etsy, for example. You can sell products on eBay. You can do drop shipping.

Each of these has its own challenges, but what’s right for one person may not be right for the next.

Selling your own products means you’ll have to get to the post office or otherwise ship products out promptly. You’ll of course have much of the day to handle that, but it’s not something that can wait until the kids go to bed for the night.

Affiliate Marketing

Why sell your own products and deal with customers when you can sell someone else’s? That’s pretty much the idea for many affiliates.

Affiliate marketing can be a lot of fun as well as a lot of work. You can use blogging to sell products, or pay per click advertising, or article marketing, or create a product comparison website, or….

There are a lot of options out there.

The challenge is in finding the profitable niches. They’re out there but it’s not always easy to pick the right one, and it can take time to figure out what works. But you can work any time day or night, and that’s a pretty nice advantage.

Of course, you can succeed or fail in any home business, and there are other flexible options out there. Just because it’s flexible enough to fit your schedule and you enjoy it doesn’t mean you’ll make a living doing it. But it’s better to try than to say it can’t be done.

This is so different for us here in southern California that I just had to share. It started snowing at about 5:30 this morning and continued more on than off until about 10. We live high enough up that we knew there was a fair chance of  a little snow this winter.

Talk about free fun on a Friday!

We woke the kids up, as they had told us that if it ever did start snowing, they wanted to hear about it right away. Wouldn’t have made much of a difference with how long it kept snowing, but we really thought it would quit much sooner than it did.

That’s first thing in the morning, as fast as the kids could get dressed. Snow, and ice beneath it. My husband wasn’t able to get to work on time because his little 3 door Saturn slid too much for him to feel safe about driving. He was able to call in, and finally left sometime a little before 10.

We only saw people driving heavy trucks until after about 8 a.m. this morning. The roads really were slick for a long time.

Selene found it pretty interesting. Obviously we didn’t give her much time in the snow. Too young.

Enough snow that someone down the street made a pretty nice snowman. My kids haven’t figured out how to do a good one yet, but then this was only their second time ever in the snow.

I did get Gage trying to throw some snowballs, though.

Selene had to be the cutest, though. Utterly fascinated. Too bad she’s too little to remember this later. She could tell it was something unusual and she was just plastered to a window every chance she got.

Tea parties these days are the classic territory of the little girl. She dresses up and serves a beverage to her favorite toys and maybe a friend or two.

Nothing wrong with doing this as a family, though.

Take some time and make it a little fun. Maybe make some cupcakes or another treat. If the kids don’t like tea, serve lemonade. Just relax and have fun.

While I most often write about being a stay at home mom, being one myself, I’m quite aware of the number of stay at home dads out there. I’d better be. Two of my sisters have husbands who are stay at home dads.

Which brings up the question. How do you decide which parent stays home with the kids?

Personal Preference

Often one parent wants to stay home much more so than the other. For one of my sisters, it was a part of the deal that her husband would get to stay home with their kids.

You don’t want a parent who is going to be miserable to stay home. They won’t be happy and probably won’t do as good a job at being a stay at home parent as one who really wants to be there. That’s not to say they’ll do a bad job or anything, but miserable shows even when you do your best to hide it. Kids notice.

Income

Who brings in the most income is a simple way to decide. If one parent is unemployed or earns significantly less than the other, it makes good financial sense to have that parent stay home.

But you also want to consider income potential, especially if the current difference is small. If one career has much greater potential in the long run, that’s probably the one to stick with.

And don’t forget stability. Just think of all the people who have been laid off in recent times. If one job is far less likely to suffer that way than the other, you need to consider that factor.

Ability to Earn Money from Home

That I was training to be a medical transcriptionist at the time I got pregnant was a big factor in the decision that I would be home with the kids. We didn’t have to sacrifice my entire income potential to have me there. Instead we sacrificed and continue to sacrifice quiet evenings together after the kids are in bed, as that’s a big time for me to work. But we make it work.

Ability to Keep Up Skills

Most families don’t have one parent stay home forever. You’re both going to want a retirement income, after all. Staying at home can mean taking a break from a career.

That doesn’t have to be all bad. The at home parent can take the time to take classes to update his or her skills. He or she can freelance to bring in some income and keep up those skills. It’s important to make the most of what you have and what you’re going to need to have for your future.

All these considerations assume that you have the financial ability to have one parent stay at home. If it’s going to ruin your family’s finances, think very carefully about what you’re doing. You may need to take some extra time, pay down some bills and build some savings before you can have either parent stay at home.

I’ve been doing article marketing a long time. It’s a favorite tactic, as it doesn’t have to cost money, just time. But you do have to think about how effective it is.

There are a lot of factors to consider. First is simply how well you’re writing your articles. If you’re just writing and distributing junk, of course you’re going to do poorly. Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.

Second is the topic. Some topics are more competitive. Some get more searches. You really can’t say that you should expect x amount of traffic by writing an article about topic y, no matter the quality of the article.

Third is where you distribute the article. There are all kinds of sites you can send an article, and many tactics for doing so. Some people like to use article spinners so that their articles aren’t duplicated across hundreds of article sites. Some prefer to only distribute their article to the top few article sites. And others use an article distribution service to send a single version of an article to hundreds of sites with little effort. And of course you can send an article to individual ezine and website owners in the hopes of publication.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each tactic. I tend to use an article distribution service, and it’s done pretty well for me.

I’m not a fan of article spinning because I don’t trust software to do a good job of changing my content and keeping up the quality. I gather it has improved some since the early days, requiring more effort in rewriting rather than pure computer algorithm, but it’s not my style.

Sending an article to individual ezine and site owners can be quite effective, as you can pick where your article will appear. That’s handy for getting onto quality sites. It’s more effort, and you’re best off saving this tactic for your better articles.

I’ve found that results can be quite variable in article marketing, and it pays to know which ones do well so that hopefully you can figure out where some of the good response comes from.

Most articles will get maybe a few dozen hits a month, but others will go into the hundreds when listed on a quality article site such as Ezine Articles. But let’s be honest here. It’s not how many people read the articles. It’s how many go to your site and from there do what you want them to do.

I have one article on Ezine Articles that has been there a few years and has done rather well, I’d say. 4872 views, 3472 clicks on a link in the resource box. That’s a 71.3% click through rate. Too bad it doesn’t lead to a sales page or sign up page, but there’s certainly something to be learned from it.

In this case the article gets into a common work at home problem, and the resource box links to a page with the solution. It’s a great combination, and you can see that in the click through rate.

That’s the kind of combination you want. A well-written article on a good topic with an appropriate link in the resource box. Ideally one that will lead to sales or subscribers for years to come, which is the one failing of this particular example. But it has likely lead to at least some ad clicks, so I doubt it’s a total loss. Hard to say for certain.

That particular example is exceptional in its click through rate. My next highest has a 58.2% click through rate on the resource box, and plenty have yet to get a single click through. Clearly I don’t have it down to a science yet.

Any time you have access to this kind of data from an article website you should take advantage of it. See which articles are really popular. Which resource boxes get the best click through rates. And if you can, which earn you the most money. Combine this information to figure out what kinds of topics you should be writing on. It will be a big help to your business.

You’ve found that perfect network marketing opportunity. You love the products, you love the plan, you love the people above you. Everything’s looking great.

Now you just need to get people buying products from you and signing up under you. So much to do.

Fortunately, many opportunities allow you to promote your business online. Not all of them do, and most have rules about what you may and may not do, so be careful and follow the rules so that you don’t lose your business.

Start a Blog

Well, it doesn’t really have to be a blog, but some sort of website under your own domain name, with your own words talking about your business and your products is really helpful. Blogging is one of the easiest ways to do that, especially if you aren’t into website design.

Get some quality hosting and install Wordpress on your site. It’s really easy, and if you don’t want to do it manually, most hosts offer installation through Fantastico on the control panel. It’s not a big deal.

You’ll want to find a good Wordpress theme that you can adapt to your own style. You may need to pay for help or buy a theme that is made to be changed around and work through it on your own. But you don’t want to look like hundreds of other sites if you can help it.

Then get started. Write about how to use your products. Be personal. Be honest. Be really honest, as you don’t want to be accused of making false claims. Be ready to back up any claims you do make. Once again, know the rules of your opportunity. And promote the opportunity.

Start an Email List

A blog or website really isn’t enough. You want to sign up with a good email service and have it send updates from your blog to subscribers. Some people may choose to subscribe via the RSS feed that Wordpress blogs come up with, but you really need to offer them the email option. Not everyone uses or understands RSS.

The advantage is that you can offer email-only specials to your subscribers, things you don’t want to necessarily post on a blog because you’d have to take them down when they expire.

The other advantage is that it gives you more chances to make the first and future sales to your visitors.

Hold Drawings

Drawings can be a great way to build your email list and to bring people to your site. Offer a free product in your drawing, and include a catalog when you send it to the winner. There are many websites where you can list your free drawing. Try some and see who brings traffic to your site.

Whatever you do, know the rules and don’t be afraid to ask your upline for help when in doubt about something you want to do. It’s better to be sure that you’ll be all right and not hurt your business.

Read the 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing to learn more about what you should not be doing to promote your network marketing opportunity.

Please note, this is intended as humor. None of this would be a good idea and could get you into trouble if you tried it.

You’ve been thinking about working at home, haven’t you. You want it all, the money, the house, the car, the free time. All without effort. Well, now is the time!

It’s easy! All you have to do is stuff envelopes. Tell people that you’ll send them information on how to start their own business for just $19.95. Get their money and tell them to put up the same ads you just did. They can then do just the same as you. They’ll love you for it. The Postmaster will love you for it. Everyone will love you for it. Even your future cellmate will love you for it.

Once you’ve started that, it’s time to start some data entry. All you have to do is fill in some forms and off you go. You’ll be making money in no time. Pay no attention to the money flying out of your wallet as you pay for the ads that the forms create.

Now just to be sure some money comes in, let’s apply for a work at home job. The application fee just means you’re interested, right? And the software they want you to buy looks great. Really useful. $5000 per month working part time is just amazing. Life’s going to be so good.

Hey, is that a package in the mail? Now who wanted that shipped to them? Overseas? No problem! Just cash that traveler’s check and send them the extra, keeping your share for pay. This stuff is just so easy.

Wait. Google wants to pay you? Yippee! Such a small cost to get started you know it has to be good. Pay no attention to the fine print hidden in the terms of service. You might even be able to do the same with Twitter! Tweet, tweet!

Now is the time to share the bounty with friends. Join a group and all of you gift $1000 to a randomly chosen person. Keep doing that until you’re all rich from those $1000 cash gifts you’ve given each other and don’t forget to bring in some new recruits! Remember, it’s a gift so of course the IRS will have no problem with it.

Isn’t it wonderful how little effort and money all this cost? Now where’s my mansion and sports car?