It’s easy to just slap together a home business and not think that much about where your personal finances and business finances should separate. The extra bank accounts can seem like a bit of a pain. It’s all you after all, riiight?

Nope. Not exactly.

Make Your Life Easier at Income Tax Time

If you keep your business expenses separate, that’s going to make your life a lot easier when you file your income taxes each year. You’ll have a more definite indication for what was a business versus a personal expense.

Having separate personal and business accounts also looks better to the IRS in case of an audit. This can be important. You want to be able to show that the business deductions you made were indeed legitimate business deductions. It also shows that you are more serious about your business, and aren’t treating it as a hobby.

It’s really not hard to open up a business checking account. You can probably do it at the same bank you have your personal account at. They may need to see your business license or other proof that your business name is a name you can legitimately use.

You may also want to consider a business credit card. It makes it easier to make payments for business expenses such as website hosting online and keep track of it as a business rather than personal expense. A business credit card is also good for building a credit history for your business that is separate from your personal credit history. You may or may not ever need credit for your business, but if you ever need it you will really want it.

Your personal credit score is usually used to determine whether you can get business credit for the first time, but once you have a credit history established in the name of your business, future credit decisions for your business can be made based on that history.

Look More Professional

Being able to make and receive payments in the name of your business looks more professional than getting them made out to you personally. It especially looks better if you have clients you’re dealing with. It may not matter as much if you’re getting payments through PayPal where the only thing people see is your email address. That’s a reason to have a professional looking email address. But for other kinds of payments, it really is better to look as professional and serious about your home business as possible.

I know so many people who dream of being able to work at home.  I also know a lot of people who would find it to be an absolute nightmare. How do you know if it’s right for you?

Do You Need to Be Around Other Adults All Day?

Working at home, especially with kids in the house, can be very isolating. You don’t get much time to talk to other adults. For some people that’s not a problem, but for others it’s an absolute deal breaker.

Social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as online forums, take away some of the isolation, but if you really love being around people that may not be enough. They really aren’t the same, although they can be tremendously distracting.

Do You Prefer to Be Supervised?

Some people prefer more supervision when they work than others. I don’t mean boss standing literally over your shoulder type of supervision; I mean the sort where you’re told what to do and when to do it.

Working at home works best when you’re primarily or entirely self motivated. Many work at home jobs require a schedule, but there’s still a lot of self motivation in sticking to that schedule and in really getting things done. It’s very easy to take too many breaks when you’re at home.

It gets even worse if you go the home business route and it’s all up to you. You have to figure out what needs to be done, when it needs to be done and how you’re going to get it done. If you don’t you aren’t going to be very successful in your business.

How Well Do You Cope with Distractions?

Being at home is very distracting. If you have kids, they’re often underfoot and asking questions. The television is right there, and the phone. So is the kitchen and the dirty laundry. Worst of all for some, the internet is waiting to be explored.

If you can’t cope with these distractions and more, you’re going to have a lot of trouble working at home.

Do You Know When to Stop for the Day?

One of the best things about working outside the home is that for many when you come home, that’s it. Your work day is over. Some bring work home with them, but for most the day is over when you’re at home.

When you work at home, doubly so for home business, work is always right there, waiting for you. And if you need extra money it’s going to be really tempting to take on some extra work.

For the sake of your sanity and your family, you need to be able to stop working. Spend time with your loved ones. Quit stressing about what you could be accomplishing and live life a little.

This is a project I’d been meaning to do for a while, and I finally finished it recently. Just occurred to me that I hadn’t mentioned it here on the blog. I’ve updated the look of the forums here.

There are still a few minor tweaks to be done, but overall I’m happy with it. With everything I’m trying to do these days it may be a while before I concern myself with the last of the tweaks. The forums work. That’s a pretty good place to be at… especially since it’s been on the to-do list all too long.

If you’re looking for a place to connect with your fellow at home parents, come on over.

It’s that time of year again, and the brick and mortar stores may have beaten you to it. Are you starting up your Christmas promotions?

Brick and mortar stores are doing so already in some locations, and more will do so in the near future. It may feel early, but if you aren’t ready for Christmas now with your online business, you should be thinking about what you’re doing to make the most of the biggest shopping season of the year.

You can start by checking to see which of your shopping pages need to be updated. Are they offering current products?

Next think about what you would like to start promoting this year. Get those pages and/or sites up and running.

Don’t feel as though it’s too early. Lots of people start shopping for the holidays early. There’s no need to miss out on sales just because you feel that it’s strange to be thinking that way already.

I don’t mean for you to decorate your sites all in Christmas colors, of course. And please don’t autoplay Christmas music when people come to your site. There’s plenty of that in the malls. All you really need is to have your sites set up to make some good money for you over the holiday season.

The trouble with doing a lot of microniche marketing is figuring out which microniches are worth the trouble. You can do your keyword research and come up with some potential good ones, but how do you know they’re going to be worth spending the money and buying a domain?

The quickest, least expensive way I know of is to set up either a Squidoo lens or a Hubpage.

Either of these will let you use affiliate links, within moderation. I believe the Hubpages limit is about two affiliate links, and you need to provide quality content for each. Don’t just copy and paste product information for whatever you’re trying to sell.

People will argue about which of these is the better site, so use the one you’re most comfortable with. Or try setting up a few different products on each, and see what’s working for you.

Where Are the Microniches?

If you aren’t familiar with microniches, this all begs the question of what a microniche is.

A microniche is a very small niche. A single product can be a microniche.

A good place to find microniches is on merchant websites. Find products that are selling well, and create a sales page leading to the merchant’s site through your affiliate link. Amazon is a popular choice, but you can do this for any site you’re affiliated with. Just be sure that the product is popular enough that people are searching for it.

What Should I Say About the Microniche?

The most important thing about trying to sell in a microniche is that you still cannot just be doing the hard sell. Your pages need to be useful both to users and search engines. Be unique. Discuss how the product can be used. Get into the disadvantages. Point out useful resources.

But keep on topic. You should not be all over the place or getting into a lot of other products.

What If It Sells Well?

If your test goes well, find a solid, keyword based domain. Don’t use trademarked terms, as you can lose the domain easily to the trademark holder. Get as close as you can to searches that will be performed.

Write unique content for this site. Link to the product with your affiliate link. Avoid adding anything to the site that will distract from the goal of getting the visitor to go through your affiliate link and hopefully make a purchase.

Don’t write a lot of sales copy. The merchant’s site can handle that, if they’re any good at all.

Get moving. Christmas is coming.