Top 5 Home Business Opportunities for 2011
We are rolling along into 2011 already. The year is flying by as they always do. If you had plans to start or expand a home business this year but have been putting it off the time to go for it is right now! Before you know it the year will be over and you will be making plans for 2012 instead. There are plenty of great home business opportunities and other ways to become your own boss, so don’t put it off any longer.
To get you started on the right path, here are 5 of the best home business opportunities for 2011, in no particular order…
1) Network Marketing – Some people love it, some people hate it, and some people can’t decide either way. But it seems like everyone at least has some sort of an opinion about network marketing businesses, aka multi-level marketing or MLM. You have probably even had one pitched to you by someone in the past or maybe you have joined one before.
Whatever your opinions or experiences might be, one thing remains a fact, and it is that network marketing is one of the easiest, fastest, and most popular ways for the average person to start a home business. There have been more millionaires made in this industry than in any other in history. If you are looking to get out on your own and start your path towards residual income and financial freedom in 2011, you might want to consider network marketing as one of the best ways to do it.
A word of caution though, you do need to be very careful when choosing a network marketing opportunity. There are plenty of great programs out there that are perfectly legitimate. But there are also a lot of scams, schemes, and other shady business practices going on in this industry. Look past all the hype, watch for red flags, and do a lot of research before jumping into something.
2) Affiliate Marketer – This is undoubtedly one of the easiest and cheapest ways to start a home business. There are affiliate programs for pretty much every niche you could possibly think of and almost all of them are free to join. I have never seen a market where there wasn’t some product or service at least somewhat related to it that you could promote as an affiliate marketer. And rarely do you find any that actually cost to join, although sometimes they do.
You can also use free blogging platforms such as blogger and wordpress to start a site. Then, you can use free internet marketing strategies to promote them. So basically you could build a successful business without spending a cent. Although I do recommend getting your own domain and hosting, and spending some money on a few resources to help you along the way, but it’s not necessarily required. That’s what makes this such a popular way to make money and why it made the top 5 business opportunities list.
However, just because it’s easy to get started with affiliate marketing, and can be done by spending very little money, if any, doesn’t mean you will be able to simply join a program and be cashing in the next day. It does take a lot of learning, time, and hard work to build a successful affiliate marketing business. You still have to put in the necessary effort just like everyone else.
3) Professional Blogger – Another one of the best home business ideas for 2011 and probably for many years to come is becoming a blogging professional. There’s a virtually unlimited amount of topics that you can make money blogging about. If you have a passion or specific knowledge about something that other people are interested in then you can become a professional blogger and earn a living writing about it.
You will need to research the niche and various topics within it before jumping in so you can be sure there is an audience out there. You don’t want to waste your time writing and trying to build a business around a blog topic that nobody has an interest in. You also want to be sure that you aren’t choosing a niche so competitive that you will never be able to get anywhere with it.
Two of the most important parts of succeeding with a business like this are consistency and perseverance. It’s always easy to stay motivated at first but it takes time to write a lot of content, build up a solid readership, get high search engine rankings, daily traffic, and eventually a great income. The hard part is sticking it out until all of that happens. You need to be determined and continually work at it for quite a while before it will begin to pay off.
4) Online Business Consultant – With each year that passes the internet becomes more popular for starting home businesses online. But most people don’t have a clue how to get started or where to go after they do start. So there is huge money to be made if you want to teach them what they need to know.
They need to learn everything from niche research to setting up a blog/site to SEO, link building, marketing, social networking, copy writing, building a list, and everything else that goes along with internet marketing. There are a lot of people and even corporations that will pay a lot of money for help with that stuff. If you have the knowledge and skills then you can definitely do very well as an online business consultant.
This isn’t really so much a way to get your home business started because you will obviously need to already have plenty of experience in order to offer your consulting services. However, it is a great way to expand on your current business and create another income stream for yourself. This opportunity will only increase in popularity in 2011 and for many years to come.
5) eBay Seller – There’s really not a whole lot to say about this one. Just about everybody knows what eBay is and has used them for buying or selling items. For many years this has been one of the most popular ways to start a home business to make money online, and that is no different this year. You could technically be up and running today if you really wanted to.
You might think all the ideas for succeeding as an eBay seller have been taken but there are still plenty of opportunities to do very well with your own eBay home business. Admittedly it’s probably not quite as easy as it once was but it’s not impossible either. At the very least it can be a great way to get your foot in the door of the online business world.
One thing you must remember is that no matter what home business opportunity or idea you choose, it will take a lot of time and hard work to build it. Read that last sentence again because it is very important! The chances of you becoming successful in a month or two are slim to none. It rarely happens no matter what some marketers try to make you believe.
You need to be ready to put in 6 months to a year, or even longer, of consistent effort before you see any significant results. Too many people think they can just hop on the internet or join some system and be rolling in the money quickly and easily. That’s not going to happen. Any business takes a lot of time and hard work to develop.
Now, you know the top home business opportunities for this year, so get up off your butt and get started right away! You could be on the path to financial freedom by the end of 2011.
Top 5 Work at Home Jobs for 2011
It’s a new year full of new opportunities for anyone willing to get out of their comfort zone and begin a work from home career. With each year that passes the internet becomes a bigger part of our lives and that creates an increase in online jobs you can do from home. The world is changing and will continue to do so. This is your chance to get ahead of the game and take advantage of what’s available to you in this new digital world.
Of course, there are many options available, and the “best” one is impossible to say because everybody has different preferences and needs. However, I have discussed 5 of the top work at home jobs for 2011 below to hopefully help you make an informed decision. They aren’t listed in any particular order.
1) SEO Consultant – With the growth of the internet and everyone coming online for business and personal reasons, it is more important than ever to be able to get websites ranked highly in search engines. Most people don’t have a clue how to do search engine optimization (SEO) properly nor do they have the desire or time to learn. They need the services of an SEO specialist to help them out and are willing to pay good money for it. If you have the knowledge and skills to get high rankings on the major search engines (mainly Google) then you can work from home as a search engine optimization consultant and earn great money.
2) Web Designer – As with above, the increase of people and businesses coming online makes the services of a web designer more in demand than ever before. Most people and companies don’t know how to create a website or have the time to learn. They would rather pay someone to do it for them and do it right the first time. If you can design and build web sites you can make a very good living from home in 2011 and beyond. This is certainly one of the best work at home jobs right now.
3) Blogger – There are actually a couple ways you can make money blogging. One is to start your own blog(s) in a profitable niche then work towards building up the traffic, readers, and rankings until you can monetize it. However, that is not really so much a “work from home job” as it is your own online business as a professional blogger.
The other way is to actually hire yourself out as a blogger. With so many blogs online now there are countless opportunities for someone willing to be a blogger-for-hire. A lot of people don’t have the time, energy, or ability to keep their blogs updated consistently so they will pay someone to help them out with the writing duties. This can be a great way to earn money online without having to build up your own blog.
4) Freelance Writer – These days just about everyone needs articles, blog posts, website content, information products, sales letters, press releases, and many other things written. But not everyone is a good writer or has time to do all the writing themselves, or maybe they just don’t want to do it. If you were to work at home as a freelance writer, you would have more jobs than you could handle as long as you were good at it. This is another one that will continue to grow in 2011 and years after.
5) Social Media Marketing Coach – This is the newest, the least known about, and probably the least saturated of the five work at home jobs on this list. Social media is all the rage right now but relatively few people know how to truly use it properly and effectively for business marketing. So there is huge potential for those who do. One of the hottest ways to make money online in 2011 is being a social media marketing coach for internet marketers, small business owners, and even large companies. If you got the skills they can definitely pay the bills.
So, there you have it, the top 5 work at home jobs for 2011 and each of them could also be turned into your own online business or help you learn how to make money from home other ways. As I said, it’s impossible to say what the absolute top five are because everyone has their own needs and preferences. However, these are certainly among the best of the best. Hopefully one of them fits within your expertise. If not, then get started learning the one that interests you most and you will be working from home as your own boss before you know it!
The Boring Way to Make Money Online
You are here reading this right now because you want to learn how to make money online. That’s great! I hope you come back often and tell your friends about us. Although, you might not like what I am about to say…
The best way to make money online also happens to be incredibly boring and tedious at times.
Yep, that’s right, nothing glamorous about it and you certainly won’t get famous doing it. But it works and works very well. That’s all that matters!
So, what is this wonderful yet boring way to make money online?
It goes a little something like this…
1) Find a niche – Do keyword research until you find a niche worth building a website about. This has to be one that doesn’t have too much competition so you can actually rank highly on search engines for it without spending years trying. It also needs to have a good amount of profit potential. That basically means enough people searching for the keywords who are going to spend money.
2) Build a website – Once you have found your niche it’s time to build a website. There are a few different types of sites you can build and the type you choose will depend on what your niche is targeting. The most common are blogs and static sites, but there are others.
3) Write content – You need to get a good base of content on your site right away. Usually somewhere around 10 posts/pages are sufficient to get you started. These can typically be written within a few hours depending on how much knowledge you have of the niche or how much research you need to do. But adding fresh quality content is an ongoing thing that will need to be done periodically for as long as you have the site.
4) Get backlinks – This is very important. Each of the steps above is mostly just to lay the foundation so you can start building backlinks. There are many different ways to get the best backlinks possible and it has been covered enough here on this blog and on many others, so I won’t get into it right now. Quick tip: Backlinks from people linking to you naturally are the best and to get those you need high quality content.
5) Rinse and repeat – Do it all over again with another site and keep doing it. Just remember that high quality content is always needed.
Here’s a little diagram to help you visualize the steps (courtesy of the keyword academy)…
There’s nothing fancy or glorious about those 5 steps and they can be quite boring at times, yet that is the best way to make money online. You can cash in on a virtually unlimited supply of niches and the income keeps adding up until you are really raking it in.
The best part about it is that once the initial work has been done with each site, you can move on to the next and continue to earn money from it with very little extra work. The search engine traffic keeps coming in every day like clockwork and you keep earning every day without do any extra work on the site. You just keep building your online empire and your income keeps increasing. That’s what you call a residual income!
Now, in order to do this, you need to quit doing all the “fun” stuff that isn’t earning you any money. Stop trying to figure out how to make money with Twitter. Stop sitting on Facebook and Myspace all day. Stop worry about how many times your posts make the front page of Digg. Stop hitting all the social sites every day. Stop reading every blog post you come across trying to find the next big thing that is going to make you rich. Stop focusing on building a bunch of RSS subscribers for your blog. Stop reading email and forums all day so you don’t miss something. Stop buying into all the hype of big name bloggers and internet marketing gurus. Stop joining membership sites and purchasing every new make money online system or product. Stop… Stop… Stop!
Okay, I think you get my point. None of that is really helping you build your internet business and actually make money for you. Yes, some of it does help a little and some of it is entertaining, but it’s mostly a waste of your time! No problem taking a little time out of your day for some of those things as a sort of break. But don’t get sucked in or you’ll end up wasting away your day without doing anything really productive. Your days might be a little more lonely and boring but your bank account will thank you.
Personally I would rather be a little bored sitting at my home computer working when I want, with a bank account full of money and enjoying my life, than trying to become the next big A-list blogger, having fun with social media sites, but broke as hell and going about it all wrong. Or worse, slaving away at a regular job that I hate and barely getting by on the money I earn. How about you? You do actually want to make money, don’t you? Then listen to what I am saying here!
By the way, this 5 step system is the same one that Court and Mark over at The Keyword Academy teach as well as what Griz teaches at his free make money online site. They are masters at earning money online and they are also great at teaching others how to do it.
That’s about all there is to say about it. Close the social sites and A-list blogs right now and start using this system so you can really start making money online. You’ll be glad you did.
The Best Backlinks for Making Money Online
There’s no doubt that getting backlinks (also known as inbound links or inlinks) will greatly help improve your search engine rankings. That fact was proven long ago and continues to be true today. There’s also no doubt that having top rankings on the major search engines will give you targeted traffic and increase your earnings. Actually one of the best ways to make money online is to build websites around various keywords and get them ranked highly on search engines by filling them with tons of high quality content and getting lots of backlinks.
There are a lot of ways to get backlinks. Some of these ways include:
- Quality Content (so people naturally link to you – BEST kind)
- Article Marketing
- Guest Blogging
- Web Directories
- Blog Directories
- Forum Signatures
- Blog Commenting
- Link Exchanges
- Social Bookmarking Sites
- Link Bait Posts
- RSS Directories
- Press Releases
- Backlink Services
- Web 2.0 Properties
- Social Networking Sites
…And several more. The point is that you will never run out of places to get backlinks and you should never stop working for them. They are extremely important to your success at making money online.
Getting almost any backlink to your website is better than nothing but certain inbound links are a lot better than others. If you can get these particular links they will help you exponentially more than any other type. So, you should spend a larger portion of your time going after these backlinks.
So, without further ado, here are the criteria for finding the best type of backlinks for making money online…
1) From a Related Site – Generally the rule is that the best inbound links are from websites that are related to yours. That means they are in the same or similar niche and the content is related to what you have on your website. For example: A link from an internet home business related site to your make money online site would be great.
2) Keyword Anchored – You definitely want keyword anchored links whenever possible because the anchor text tells the search engines what to rank you for in their results. For that reason the anchor text should include the main keywords you want your website to rank highly for on Google and other SE’s.
For example: If your website is about making money online then you might anchor your links with keywords such as; make money online, earn money on the internet, money making, how to make money, ways to make money online, and other similar phrases. Be sure to vary the anchor text because it’s not good to have them all the same. You should also have plenty of links that are not keyword anchored but that will happen naturally so you don’t really need to worry about it right now.
3) From an Authority Site – A link from a highly ranked site in your niche is very beneficial to you. These are typically called authority site links and they will help your rankings quite a bit.
4) High PR Site – PR is short for “Page Rank” and that is one way that Google measures the importance of a web page. When you have a backlink from a website with high PR it will carry a lot more weight than one from a site with low or no PR. This will give you more “link juice” and help improve your rankings even more.
5) Do Follow – It should go without saying that part of the criteria for the best backlink is that it is a “dofollow” link. If the “nofollow” tag is applied to your link then you are getting very little benefit from it as far as search engine rankings are concerned. You need do follow backlinks to help you make money online with SEO.
6) One Way – A one way backlink is when a site is linking to your website for whatever reason without you giving them a link back. These are very high quality and are typically considered to be the best type of inlinks you can get because they are natural.
That’s basically all there is to finding the best backlinks for making money online. If you get a backlink that includes all six of the criteria listed above then it is about as perfect of a link as you will ever get. The more you can get like this the better, and it won’t be long before you see top search engine rankings and start earning more money from your website!
Start Your Own Affiliate Program
The following resources are excellent places to go to if you would like to start your own affiliate program and make even more money online by leveraging other people’s work.
* My Affiliate Program – lets you start your own fully customizable, completely unique Affiliate Program in less than 24 hours. Nowhere else do you get as much flexibility and control than with My Affiliate Program. Get set up for as low as $499. Starting a two-tier affiliate program is also made easy with My affiliate program.
Affiliate program details: On a sale of My Affiliate Program Software, you make a quick and easy $159! “With second tier commissions, you’ll have the chance to earn even more money when your visitors sign up to be our Affiliate Members. Each visitor that clicks through to our site and signs up to become an Affiliate Member will be placed in your second tier — which means you’ll earn 5% (40$) on each sale they make!
* Share a Sale – By signing up with Share a Sale you will not have to do any technical mumbo jumbo, they will do 99.9% of the work. Starting an affiliate program with Share a Sale means that you will only pay your affiliates when they actually produce real results for you. Possibly the most exciting element of Shareasale is that we enable your e-business to do all of this without any significant investment in hardware or infastrucure. If you are interested in generating more interest and sales from your Website, Shareasale is a good fit for your business. Affiliate program pays 1.00$ per new member you refer and $100 dollars per merchant that you refer. Visit Today!
*Assoc-Track – “Two months has past since you installed the associate software on my site and I have made well over $30,000 from my site. This is simply unbelievable!” We can show you how Associate Programs will get people to advertise for you for free. You only pay them if they send you a customer who buys your product. If they generate zero sales, you pay them nothing. It is absolutely the most powerful way you can sell your product or service online. Assoc-Track also provides an excellent option for creating two-tier affiliate programs.
* ClickXchange – Click, Lead, Sale and % of Sale programs. Create a program for your site! With this service you can start your affiliate program for only $100.00. They have many members so you can be sure that you will have people joining your program. They specialize in pay per click programs. This is also a good affiliate program to join because you make two-tier commissions from people you sign up into ClickXchange.
* Aff Manager – Ready to join the online affiliate marketing revolution? Would you like sales and profits that continue automatically, even while you sleep? Aff Manager is the affiliate software application that allows you to manage your own Affiliate program with amazing benefits – even if you know absolutely nothing about programming. You pay only a Low, One-Time Cost. Aff-Manager has NO setup fees, NO leases, NO commissions, and NO renewals. You own the software and run it on any server you choose. The affiliate program pays $75 per sale. Takes 2 sales to get a check.
*Cyber Trakker – gives you total control of your affiliate and marketing tracking systems. Integration of e-commerce, shopping cart, affiliate tracking, hit tracking and site administration all under your control. You track the affiliates, orders and information. You keep the profits. two-tier program pays 25% on 1st tier plus 10% on 2nd tier. The selling price of the products are $1999, $499, $249.
* Affiliate Toolkit – “The Practical Guide to Creating and Managing a Profitable Affiliate Program” provides a complete blueprint to help the affiliate program manager launch a successful affiliate program. This is a two tier program that pays 20% per sale plus 5% on your second tier. You will receive monthly payments, 9,999 return days plus extra commissions on other ‘upsell’ products.
* Pro-TRACK – Join the affiliate program and make 15% on each sale you refer and 5% on each second tier referral on sales of new affiliate tracking software. This software really makes it easy for anyone to start a superbly supported affiliate program, and this software is affordable so you can afford it, you can stretch your payment for Pro-Track over over 5 months.
* Interneka Affiliate software – an affiliate tracking system, which allows anyone to start their own affiliate program. If your website or company needs more sales then this product is the answer for you. You can get a ton of free advertising with your own affiliate program. The affiliate program for selling Interneka Affiliate software is two-tier and pays 30% per sale and 5% second tier. Average sale is $300. There is also a pay per click program.
* Commercial Networks – An Affiliate Tracking Program which looks interesting! SalesDoubler is marketing software that can help you to increase sales on the Internet without annoying your prospects with an unwanted commercial mail. SalesDoubler hires, spreads and keeps track of your Advertisers/Dealers and their sales. Offers a Two-tier commission structure of 15% of all sales plus 5% of sales from sub-affiliates. (The program costs $399.00 to purchase – participation in the Affiliate Program is FREE).
* FreeFiliate – a full-featured affiliate program tracking system. You can set up your own affiliate program for FREE with this company. Earn 25% per lead that results in a FreeFiliate Premium Account. Even if you refer a merchant that sets up a free Standard Account, you will get the commission when that merchant upgrades to a Premium Account, regardless of how long it may take for the upgrade. You will also receive $5 for each free standard account when it is registered.
Starting your own affiliate program is one of the best ways to make money online!
