It’s not that long until all the holiday craziness will be behind us. As you finish up your holiday shopping, it’s time to turn your attention to planning for the new year, and greater success for your online business..

You don’t have to make grand resolutions for the new year just because it’s a tradition. This is, however, a great time of year to consider where you’re headed and where you would like to be.

What Are Your Goals For Next Year?

Just where are you headed with your online business anyhow? Are you moving in the right direction?

No matter your answer to that question, set goals to keep things moving. Setting goals is a huge part of planning for the new year.

Some people say their goals are as simple as “I want to build a great business online that gets tons of traffic and earns me lots of money.” 

That’s fine. But not really helpful.

A goal must be actionable.

It’s easier to set actionable goals if you use the SMART Goals technique. This means the goals you set must be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-related.

Once you have your overall goals set, you can create milestones that will help you work toward those goals. Think of these as smaller goals which will help you reach your bigger goals.

If you want to earn $10,000 a month, for example, you can break that down into milestones that will help you get there.

Milestones don’t have to be the same type of event as the overall goal. One milestone could be finding five high quality products to promote to your list. Another could be getting a certain number of subscribers.

You can also set a smaller version of your big goal as a milestone, such as reaching $1,000 a month. Just don’t limit yourself.

If you find it too difficult to reach your goals, you may have set them too high. Remember that SMART goals must be attainable. If that’s not working for you, rethink the goal.

Is It Time To Update Your Skills?

When you have an online business, odds are that you have some skills that could use updating or improvement. Things change fast online, and it’s important to keep up.

Consider social media marketing, for example. Most social media sites make significant changes throughout the year.

Twitter, for example, no longer wants users to tweet the same post out over and over again. They want you to use the retweet function or change the content of the tweet. This has changed how you should use scheduling tools with Twitter.

That’s only one example.

Consider paying for courses that will help you keep up to date with the things that matter to you most. Many will include free updates for at least a year, and possibly for life. When you’re trying to keep up with a changing industry, getting updates helps a ton.

And of course you should keep up with your industry to the best of your abilities as well. Exactly what that means depends on the niche of your online business.

Udemy can be a great resource to find courses you want to take on just about any subject. Many of the course creators keep them updated regularly.

You can learn about SEO, making YouTube videos, WordPress tricks, ebook publishing, app development, improve your writing skills and so much more. Now’s a great time to get started.

Is Your Website Up To Date?

It’s amazing how fast information on a website can go out of date. This is a great time of year to see what needs to be updated.

Start with your photo on your About page. Does it look good? Does it convey the impression you want to create?

What about the information you share on your About page? Has anything changed? Are you still happy with the information you present there? Does it have a call to action?

If you don’t have an About Me page on your site, make one. People like learning about the person behind the site.

Next, check your website for broken links. Broken links make your site look terrible.

This is easy if you use WordPress – the free Broken Link Checker plugin can handle it for you. Don’t run this plugin all the time – it’s very resource intensive, but it’s great for the occasional check. Deactivate and uninstall it once you’re done. Be aware that some hosts do not allow the use of this plugin due to how resource intensive it is.

If you have Google Analytics installed, you can also use it to find broken links on your site. Follow the steps offered on this site to see how to find and fix these errors on your site.

There are also a variety of online broken link checkers you can use. Most check a limited number of pages for free, and have a paid version that will allow you to check your whole site.

Finally, check for information that is out of date. What has changed in your industry in the past year? Keeping the information on your site up to date makes you look better to visitors.

Review Your Social Media Accounts

Social media plays a significant role in marketing for most online businesses. It’s affordable, and extremely effective if you do it right.

Start with your profile image for each social media account. Do they convey a consistent impression of your and your business?

In many cases, a photo of you is the best choice for a social media profile. It shows the person behind the business. And while you don’t necessarily have to update your photo every year, it should be reasonably current.

Next, take a look at who you’re following. Cull the ones that aren’t interesting, and find new people to follow who are relevant to your industry. 

Don’t worry about who follows you back – following people on social media should always be about who you find interesting.

Take a look at any analytics you have on each social media account. Tools such as Hootsuite and Tailwind make it easier to see how each social media account is performing. You should do this regularly throughout the year as well.

On Pinterest, take a look at your boards and see how they’re performing? Does it make sense to create any new boards in your niche? Are there any boards that you aren’t really pinning to at all?

Start Organizing For Tax Season

The end of the year means tax season will be upon you all too soon. It’s time to start getting ready.

Start by getting all of your expenses pulled together. Any money you’ve spent on your online business should be listed. Anything you have any doubts on should be put into a special place so you can ask your accountant or bookkeeper if it’s deductible.

Start pulling together your income reports as well. Having all of these things ready to go will make it easier to file your taxes when the time comes. If you’re getting a refund, the sooner you file, the better!

If you have employees or contractors you paid during the year, you need to get the appropriate tax forms ready for them as soon as possible in the new year. You know how much of a pain it is to wait for these forms – don’t make other people wait for one from you.

Get Your Email Under Control

Are you the organized sort who keeps their email organized all of the time, or do you let it slide and have thousands of emails sitting in your inbox? If you’re the second sort, it’s time to clean out your email!

Start by finding newsletters you don’t read, and unsubscribe from them. They’re just clutter.

Next, come up with a system for sorting your emails. I have lots of filters set up so that many of my emails are sorted before I ever see them. It helps a lot.

You can use filters to sort out emails from social media sites and newsletters, so that they aren’t the first things you see. If any are important to you, keep them where you’ll see them promptly, but otherwise get them out of your main inbox.

Create email templates for any responses you give regularly. I use email templates quite a bit, and they significantly simplify my responses, as many questions come in over and over again.

Organize Your Home Office

Odds are that your home office has become cluttered during the year. This is especially a problem if it’s the spot everyone throws things when getting ready for the holidays. It might even be the guest room during the holidays, and not available for you to use for a time… which can also mean a mess when guests leave.

But there’s more to it than that.

Take a look at the technology you use. Is it out of date? Should you upgrade or add on?

Do you have all of the tools you need to make things happen?

Not everything has to cost money, of course. Some productivity apps are free to use, at least at the basic level, yet will help you be far more productive.

Don’t only consider the technology in our home office, however. Consider the furnishings.

A comfortable and functional home office can help you be far more productive and worth an investment in appropriate supplies and furnishings. Anything in your home office that is getting in the way of your productivity should be replaced.

Consider your office chair, for example. This one is a current focus of mine because I found out how incredibly uncomfortable my husband’s office chair is. He doesn’t work at home, so it’s not the priority mine would be, but wow, his chair is hard to sit in for any length of time.

An ergonomic office chair will allow you to work comfortably for longer. If you’re comfortable, you’re probably more productive.

Similarly, a good sit-stand desk will allow you to change positions and still keep working. It can be an excellent investment. There are a number of sit-stand desks that simply go on top of your current desk, so you don’t need an entirely new desk.

Commit To Action

Don’t just think up what you’d like to do. Commit to it. Write it out if that helps you. Keep track somehow of your progress. Hold yourself accountable.

Take a look at the things that have been slowing you down. What has kept you from being productive? How can you avoid the problem in the future?

Committing to action is a key part of planning for the new year. Plans are nothing without action.

In a way, committing to action is much like setting goals, as I suggested at the start of this post. But it’s action that takes goals from dream to reality.

What Are Your Plans For The New Year?

Have you made plans to grow your online business in the new year? What items are most important to you?

The post Are You Planning For The New Year Yet? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

The end of the year is the time to take a look at how your online business has done and decide how you’re handling things next year. Most of it is things you can do at any time of the year, but the end of the year is when most people have the motivation to get things done. Here are a few year end tips for online businesses that you should consider.

1. Think About Taxes

Making the most of tax deductions and reviewing your income is important to do at the end of the year. There are a number of steps here you should take. If you aren’t certain of anything, talk to your accountant to get the best advice for your situation. They will know far more than you or I about what the best steps to take in a particular year are.

First is to look at what you can do now to reduce your tax burden for the year. Have you contributed as much as possible to your retirement account? Does it make sense to fit in an extra mortgage payment on your home? Have you paid all your employees or contractors if you have them?

There may also be things you can buy for your online business that can be deducted on your taxes. Think about what your business needs. When possible, buy new equipment and supplies for your online business before the end of the year.

Don’t forget your quarterly tax payment is due January 15.

You also want to start getting your paperwork together for tax time. Make sure all your paperwork is in order so you can have your taxes prepared easily when the time comes. If you’re expecting a refund, filing early makes a lot of sense. If you’re expecting to pay in more, filing closer to the deadline makes sense. It’s hard to know which situation you’re in, however, if you don’t take a peek early on.

2. Review Your Year

In general, how has the past year gone for your online business? Has it been a good year or a bad one? Somewhere in between? What would you like to do differently in the coming year?

There are almost always changes you want to make in your online business. The sooner you make an improvement in how you do things, the sooner it will help you.

A good year can make you feel as though you don’t need to make any changes, but that doesn’t mean you can let things slide. Online business can change rapidly, and what works well now may not work as well later. Pay attention so that changes don’t catch you off guard.

3. Plan For Next Year

What are your big goals for the next year? What about your little goals?

The size of the goal doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have them and have plans to reach them. Figure out what actions you will need to take to reach your goals. A goal is nothing without action.

You may notice that some of your goals will be hard to reach because of your current limitations. Take action to handle those limitations. Sometimes this will be best handled by hiring a virtual assistant or contract employee to take care of things for you. Other times, you can learn a new skill on your own to grow beyond your current limitations.

4. Clean Out Your Computer

Odds are good that you have downloaded a lot of information you’re never going to act on during the past year. There’s always tons of free information out there. While you don’t see it sitting on your computer most of the time, it’s there, and when you notice it, it becomes a distraction.

All those things you thought you would read but really won’t – delete them. Don’t waste any more mental energy on thinking that you will get to them. Keep anything you are confident you will refer to later and ditch the junk.

5. Clear Out Your Mind

Don’t start the new year full of last year’s frustrations or ideas you aren’t going to implement. Work on having a clear plan on how to move forward.

Start thinking out more of what you can do with the time you have. Most people waste a lot of time thinking about what might be and not how they can get there. Having goals is important, but planning how to get there is more important and more productive than just saying “I have a GOAL!”

Don’t sink into negativity if you’ve been having a hard time lately. We all get frustrated by our businesses at times. Things never go entirely perfectly. But that’s not what you should focus on.

When you have a problem, focus on the solution rather than the problem. If you don’t have enough traffic to your website, you shouldn’t think about that as much as you should think about how to bring in more traffic.

The more you can focus on what you can get done and will get done, the more productive you have the chance to be. Give it a try and head on to a productive new year.

The post 5 Year End Tips For Online Businesses appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

After the hectic holidays, it’s good to get back to working at home effectively. It’s also a good time to look at your old habits and decide which need to be changed or improved. An honest assessment of how you’re working will be a big help in making the new year better than the one before.

1. Know Your Personal Roadblocks

We all have personal roadblocks that limit our work hours, the chances we’re willing to take, the changes we haven’t yet made. Take a close look at what’s keeping you from getting the things done you haven’t managed to do yet. Commit to making it happen, whether it’s working more hours, promoting your website or home business in a new ways, or starting something entirely new.

2. Talk to Your Family

Solid communication with your family about what you need from them to successfully work from home makes a big difference. Remind them about when they’re allowed to interrupt you and deal with new problems that have come up. Family can be both your greatest obstacle and the greatest help in your ability to work at home.

Do the same with any friends who have made working at home more difficult for you in the past.

3. Update Your Goals

Are you accomplishing everything you would like to in your work life? Do your current goals really reflect where you want or need to go?

Take a look at your goals and decide if they’re still right for you. You may want to update some, drop others, and break still others into smaller steps.

4. Review Your Schedule

How well does your schedule work for you? Are you productive at the times you need to be productive?

Consider changing things up if your schedule isn’t working for you and if your type of work gives you that kind of flexibility. Make the most of whatever flexibility you have to improve your productivity.

Your schedule should also include some clear time off. Have times of the day when, short of a crisis, you do not work. You need time to be with your family, friends and to do your own thing. Make sure you get it.

5. Organize Your Home Office or Work Space

How does your home office or work space look? It it messy or disorganized? Now is a good time to get it back into shape. Remove distractions, make sure the things you need are easy to find or reach.

If possible, make your work space more clearly defined, even if you don’t have the space for a home office. Certainly a room with a door you can close is a huge help – my oldest daughter found that out recently when she did some catch up work for school in my office. She was impressed by how much easier it was to work in a dedicated space with the door closed.

6. Work on Your Communication

Many people find communication with employers, coworkers, clients and so forth difficult when they work at home. There are many ways to handle this. You might schedule online or in person meetings. You might text updates regularly. However you need to communicate with anyone you work with, make sure it’s effective.

7. Review and Update Your Tools

Take a look at the tools and supplies you need to do your job. Are they as current as they should be? Is there a more effective option within your budget?

This can include your computer, the software you use, and any other equipment. You may also want to take a look at your internet connection, making sure it’s the right choice for your work and personal needs, and that you’re on the right plan.

8. Update Your Skills

How current are your skills? Is there something you would like to learn that would make you more effective or help you progress in your career or business? Pick something you would like to learn and make time in your schedule to learn that new skill or update an old one.

9. Promise to Take Breaks

Make a promise to yourself that you will take breaks throughout your work day, just as you would in an outside the home job. You don’t have to limit yourself to 15 minutes as you would at other jobs unless your employer requires that strict a schedule, as some do. Take the time you need to refresh yourself. Go for a walk, get some exercise, do something not associated with work. You’ll come back better able to focus and generally more productive

10. Don’t Neglect Your Social Needs

Isolate is a major problem for people who work at home. You don’t have coworkers right there to chat with. If you want a social life, you have to make it happen.

If it works for you, try working at a coffee shop or other place with wifi. Make time to do something fun with other people during your off hours. Chat with friends on social media when you aren’t working.

Don’t let your social time interfere with your work time, of course. Socializing when you should be working is a major problem for a lot of people who work at home. Don’t let it be a problem for you.

I hope these steps will help you plan for a productive New Year working at home.

The post 10 Ways to Work at Home More Effectively in the New Year appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

I’m not really a New Year’s Resolution kind of person, but I do think over what I’m doing at this time of year, as well as at other times. Mostly it’s that December is a slow month for this site usually, as people are doing more shopping and less time looking for ways to earn money from home and so I spend more time reviewing things. By January I have a pretty good idea of changes I’d like to make.

Mostly, I had some notions already. I’m making a real effort to put more images into posts, so things are more Pinterest-friendly. I have a post in mind about how to do that as well.

I’m also working on posting more frequently and remembering to use social bookmarks more, here and elsewhere.

In other words, a lot of time consuming stuff, but very worthwhile. Takes a lot of planning to get enough done each day with three kids in the house – thank goodness they’re pretty good at playing together without me! That’s the secret, for those who keep asking me how I find the time to work with kids in the house. Once they can play without your immediate supervision, your available work at home time can go way, way up. Barring massive arguments, injuries, etc.

I’m also considering a weekend discussion post, which would be intended to discuss topics on parenting, working at home, and so forth. I need to generate some ideas for that one yet, so that I have a variety ready to go, as there won’t always be hot topics just begging for discussion in any particular week.

As with the past few years, I’m trying to talk myself into doing more with podcasting and/or video marketing. That’s a tough one, as I’m really camera shy, awkward about anything remotely resembling public speaking (and podcasting is close enough to that for me!), and kids playing together still mean too much background noise much of the time. It’s one of those things I really think I ought to try out, but can always come up with excuses not to. One of these days, I’ll break through that.

And as always, I look at how my marketing is going. It’s always tough figuring out what I should be focusing on. Social media is a help, but it’s not the only thing. I’m figuring that I should work more on getting some good guest posts out there – it’s just a matter of deciding where, and what sort of post would do best.

That’s how it is when you run a business, of course. There are always a million and one things you should be doing. The trick is picking what you can get done, what you should get done, and knowing when to leave the rest alone.

The post What Changes Am I Making for the New Year? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

It’s the start of a new year. You’ve made it through the holiday season, and maybe you’re ready to get serious about finding a way to earn money from home. You might even really need to find work, depending on how your finances are starting out this year. Does that make finding work you can do from home a great New Year’s Resolution?

Well, probably about as good as any. After all, a New Year’s Resolution is only as effective as you make it. If you don’t take action, it’s just not going to work out for you.

So how do you take action?

That’s always the hardest part, no matter your resolution. You’re starting something new, and you may not be entirely certain how to get where you want to go. You especially don’t want to fall for a scam.

I’ve written before about how to search for a work at home job. If you haven’t checked it out before, and a home-based job is what you want, that’s a good place to start reading. Mostly it comes down to take your job hunt seriously, and expect it to take some time. Most people don’t find outside the home jobs right away, so don’t let it discourage you when finding a legitimate work at home job is every bit as difficult, if not more so.

What If You Want to Start a Home Based Business?

It’s really not that much easier to start a home based business. You have some advantages, especially if you already know what you want to do, but also some disadvantages. There’s no guarantee of any income at all with a business, after all, while having a job means you get paid hourly, on production or a salary, and so know better what you’ll get. You can work hard on a business and still earn little to nothing for months. There are no guarantees with a business.

On the plus side, the flexibility is huge. You decide what sort of business you want to get into, and figure out how to do it. No waiting for an employer to choose you as an employee. That said, do your due diligence on any opportunity you buy into, as well as any necessary research for any business you start independently. The better you know what you’re getting into, the better chance you have to succeed with it.

Odds are great you’ll need a website and domain name. I am very fond of HostGator, the company I host this site with. Even if your focus isn’t online, having a website is a wonderful way to get information to potential customers.

Set Your Goals

Whatever you do, don’t treat all this as a single goal. Even finding a work at home job can be treated as a series of goals which extends beyond merely succeeding in getting the job. It takes time to learn how to deal with distractions while working at home, for example. You can set productivity goals, income goals and so forth. It’s a big change if you aren’t used to it, and some people find the flexibility and lack of direct supervision challenging rather than beneficial.

You need to set even more goals if it’s a business you’re running. There are so many things you can use to measure your progress, from getting your basic business set up, to contacting potential customers, to website traffic, to marketing, income and so much more.

A variety of goals is far more motivating than a single goal, especially when it’s hard to reach. Use your various goals to measure your progress toward your goals. It’s much better to break your big goals into steps than it is to feel that you’ll never reach that big goal because you can’t see the progress you’ve made. It also helps you to think through the steps you need to take in order to reach your goals.

Whatever you do, don’t feel that you have to compare yourself to others. Your circumstances are never the same, even if you start at the same time. You each have different abilities and have probably taken different paths toward your goals, even if they’re the essentially the same. Go ahead and talk to others about what you’d like to achieve, but don’t feel as though you should be doing just as well as someone else all the time.

Overall, any time you’re motivated to do the work it takes to earn money from home is a great time to get started. Prepare to work and see where it takes you!

The post Should Working at Home Be Your New Year’s Resolution? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

While you don’t have to make resolutions if you don’t want to for the new year, this is a great time of year to get yourself organized and decide where you want to take your business over this next year. Have you taken some time to prepare yet? These are some things you should do to get yourself ready for the new year.

1. Get Your Finances in Order

The end of the year means tax time is coming all too soon. If you’re paying quarterly estimated taxes, you have to be ready for those by January 15. But even if you don’t need to do that, you need to get ready for filing your taxes by April – although I’d recommend sooner if you think you’re getting money back.

If you use an accountant or bookkeeper, the sooner you get the financial paperwork they need over to them, the sooner they can take care of you. It’s just less of a scramble if you don’t both have to rush to get things done at the last minute.

2. Assess the Past Year

Was this a good year or a bad year for your business? What went right and what went wrong? Anything you wish you’d done differently?

This is an initial step in setting goals for next year. It’s hard to know where you realistically can go if you don’t know where you’ve been. You have to be sure that the steps you’ve been taking have been effective. If not, you need to figure out what’s been going wrong. Pay special attention to the things that went really, really right, and the things that just plain went wrong.

3. Review Your Business and Personal Goals

While I don’t do resolutions, I do like to have goals. It’s fun to meet them, even when they’re tough. Many relate to my business, but there are goals for me too, such as trying to get in better shape,.

Think about what you’d like your business to do over the next year, and make sure you consider how you’re going to get there. Saying you want to earn $5000 a month is a lovely goal, but if you have no idea how you’ll get there it will be much harder to reach. Make sure you include actionable goals, not just results.

4. Decide What Your Business Focus Will Be

You should always know what the main focus of your business is, and this is a good time to reassess what you’re doing. Do you need to change your focus slightly? What’s working for you? What isn’t?

5. Review Your Networking Strategy

How much do you interact with others in your home business? Are you taking the time to network with your fellow home business owners as well as with potential customers and clients? How effectively?

If it doesn’t come all that naturally to you, networking can be a pain. If it does come naturally, it may be one of those things you have to keep under control because it turns into excessive socializing that takes away productive work time. Or maybe you have it balanced just right. However things are going, take a look to make sure you’re networking effectively, whether online or in person.

6. Check Out the Competition

It’s a generally good idea to keep an eye on what your competition is doing with their business. While you don’t want to exactly copy their offerings, you do want to know how your own compare. Sometimes there’s inspiration in what others do, so long as you make it your own.

Consider the products and or services they offer, the look of their website, their website rankings, backlinks and so forth. You don’t want to be an imitator, you want to compare favorably to them.

7. Pick Something New to Try

Rather than stick to the same old, same old with your home business, settle on one new something you want to do with it. It could be video marketing, a new product or service you want to offer, a new place to network, a skill you’ve been meaning to pick up, something.

8. Par-tay!

Hey, it’s the new year coming up. Surely you get to have some fun.

The post How Ready Are You and Your Business For the New Year? appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

One thing that works well for me is to have generic projects that I work on regularly. At need I switch them to focus on particular sites, or drop them entirely if something special needs to be done, but having regular things I do really helps keep things moving.

Write 5 Articles or Blog Posts Per Day

This is actually down from in the past when I could easily manage 7 in a day. But with a baby I have less writing time, and this goal reflects that.

At that, it’s a really challenging goal to reach right now. A lot of days I don’t manage it because time can be just so tight. That and the baby loves to pull up on my desk and pound the keyboard. Not a good thing when I’m trying to write. How I long for an office door some days!

Writing 5 a day means that I can get all the blog posts for one week, Monday through Friday, done in a single day. If I like, that means the rest of the week any articles written for that site can be for article submission.

Since I write for more than one site, it does not mean that I could write four times as much content for distribution as I do for my site. If I could do that, I’d probably just slightly up the blog posting frequency for a better balance.

10 Blog Comments Per Day

This one challenges me much of the time, but it is a bit easier to schedule. I can read through blog posts with my little Busy Bee on my lap, keyboard pushed in on its shelf under the desk, and figure out which posts I want to comment on later.

It’s nice to have something to do where I can spread the effort out a little. It doesn’t work all the time, and I think commenting earlier is better than later for actual views of my comments, but it helps.

10 Forum Posts Per Day

I’ve been slacking off on this one way too long.

Forums can be a huge time suck, but appropriate forums that allow signatures can bring in respectable traffic if you keep your posts interesting. It’s not so much about advertising as it is building a reputation as a helpful participant in the forum.

Other Link Building Activities

The trouble with blog comments and forum posts is that they can be no follow on many sites. That’s not that bad a thing if you focus on eyeballs rather than search engines, but you want a range of links coming in to your site.

Social bookmarking sites can be useful, and they go well beyond delicious. Seek them out and add your links as appropriate to the particular site. But pay attention to the rules so your links aren’t just dropped as spam.

I’ve quit doing link exchanges long since. They’re rarely worth the trouble. I had a small link exchange directory on this site for a time and the real link to random spam ratio was terrible and I finally deleted the whole mess rather than having to go in and delete spam submissions.

Finding the Time???

The worst of it all is finding the time for all of this. If you have the budget, I strongly suggest figuring out what you can put out to a virtual assistant. Link building can be a good choice for example… tedious, time consuming and really doesn’t need your personal touch. Let someone else have that headache.

Anything that you need to do on your own, figure out when your most productive hours are and use them! Turn off Twitter, Facebook and anything else that might distract you. Let TiVo get your favorite shows if you’d miss them.

If the kids are awake and the weather’s nice, send them outside. If it’s not nice, have them dress appropriately and send them out for a bit anyhow! Well, not into a blizzard or anything, but if warmer clothes are all that’s needed, they can play outside for a time.

These plans are of course only approximate, and will change regularly. But having a general outline has always worked better than a solid schedule for me.

What works for you?

The post My Daily Work Plans for the New Year appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

I’m really focusing this year on building my business, and most especially my income. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean I’ll start hyping whatever the latest big guru launch product is without even checking it out. That’s just not me.

But I will try to be more conscious of products I could be promoting.

I don’t mean just here. This isn’t all I do, you know. I have a couple of new sites that I’m working on that will be more about income. While still providing the kind of information that draws people in, of course. I’m just looking more at areas where people should be actively shopping with these ones.

And no you can’t know the niches. Mine! Find your own and get to work! If we happen to match, so be it but I’m not giving all my plans away. And I will be promoting things here too, of course, as appropriate.

For those of you also starting new websites, I’d like to offer some tips to get you started in this new year.

If You Want Some Help Getting Things Started

Creating your own website from scratch isn’t for everyone. As a matter of fact, even if you know the basics it may not be your smartest move.

That’s where a program such as SBI! can be such a big help. They take you through the steps, from picking your niche and domain name to developing content to monetization. It’s a bit more than basic hosting when you add it all up, but the tools you get compensate quite well, costing less than you would pay for all of it separately.

With their 2.0 version they’ve really increased your ability to take advantage of more of the web has to offer. That is, the ability to have users create content on your site for yo. That can be powerful.

There’s a risk to that too, and you have to monitor what people try to put on your site. That’s really not a hard thing to do. Just pay attention and you’ll be fine.

If You Want a Lot of Help Getting Things Started

SBI! sounding good but you want more help than that? You might want to consider their eLearning program. They’ll take you through the process of getting your site and business started in a 12 week online education course.

The course isn’t all prerecorded stuff. You’ll have weekly live sessions to guide you through the process that SBI users go through to build their sites.
It will cost you more, of course, but if you need help getting things going or just need that push to ensure you keep working at it, this could be a very worthwhile investment.

If You Don’t Need Your Hand Held or Just Want to Go Your Own Way

I’ll admit it. This is my way. I got my start online before hearing about SBI and while it’s a great system (my dad uses it), I enjoy creating sites on my own, in my own way.

In that case, please be sure you pay for hosting. Don’t go the free route if you’re serious about your business. You will come to need the freedom to control your site that comes only from owning it and paying for hosting and a domain name.

I like Host Gator. They’ve been good to me. Their $7.95/month plan gives you quite a bit.

Depending on your skills you can create your own site, hire a designer, start a WordPress blog… there are many options.

I lean mostly toward WordPress blogs. There are advantages and disadvantages, but for me the advantages are sufficient that I only do a little work with static pages these days. You can run WordPress like a blog or like a website with some of the advantages of a blog.

One disadvantage can be finding a good theme. It can be a bit tedious and I often spend hours adapting themes to my own preferences. You can buy themes if you like, and I’ll get into the free vs. paid themes another day.

On the plus side, WordPress is free and there are many plugins, both free and paid that can really increase its flexibility. That’s a topic that really takes some time to write about! Choosing plugins takes a good bit of time.

Some Ways, It Doesn’t Matter Which Way You Go

No matter how you go about building an online business, you’d better expect to work. Your average “overnight” success probably worked years to have that sudden burst of success. It almost never comes easy.

Choose how you get things started based on what you need. There’s nothing wrong with needing a little more guidance to get started. There’s nothing wrong with needing a big push to get started. There’s nothing wrong with winging it if that’s the way you work best.

Just remember that even the best marketers flop sometimes. Success is more likely to come if you keep trying, experimenting and working. If you start a site and give up when you don’t have visitors in a month you’ll never get anywhere.

The post It’s a New Year. Let’s Get This Business Started! appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

I’ve spent a lot of time these past two weeks focusing on getting ready for the new year. Now that it’s here, let’s start planning to make it productive!

For me, the plan is to really work on getting more done with the time I have. Not easy sometimes with a toddler, but necessary!

I intend to do a lot more writing.

I intend to do a lot more blog commenting.

I intend to do a lot more social networking. Ouch, that one’s tough, at least for me!

I intend to work on building better income streams.

These aren’t New Year’s resolutions, as such. It’s a good time to start working on new goals. I don’t particularly care to call them resolutions. People are notorious for giving up on resolutions, and besides, these are long term goals that I’ve had for a long time. I just like to restate them once in a while and this is a good time.

The post Here’s to a Productive New Year! appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.

Happy New Year!

I’ve been thinking on things I can do to help my readers in this new year, and one thing that came to mind is skill building. So many families are dealing with money problems, or facing the possibility of money problems, that now is a great time to really focus on coping.

For some, it’s time to really get serious about a home business. For others, it might be more about building job skills.

For me, it’s researching some of the best and most affordable ways to build these skills, so I can share the solutions I find.

And so I am of course curious as to what skills you would like to build up this year. Just leave a comment below.

The post Skill Building for the New Year appeared first on Home with the Kids Blog.