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How ANY Woman Can Learn To Make Money on the Internet

Table of Contents

Intro

Using this book

Computer and Internet basics

Chapter 1.

How to choose a topic

Choose what you love

Target audience

Decision making

Research and learn to improve your expert status

Chapter 2-

Business details

Business plan

Licenses and Permits

Accounting

Taxes

Equipment

Office necessities

Chapter 3-

How to build a website

Software and Whole web solutions

Building Basics

SEO

Template page

Web Site Statistics

Collecting names for ezine

Content

Chapter 4-

Finding traffic

Articles

Search engines

Ads and Banners

Viral marketing

Collecting list names

Creating your ezine

Chapter 5-

Revenue solutions

Advertising/ Adsense

Affiliate products

Ebooks

Network marketing

Services

Chapter 6-

Marketing and promotion

Social Network Marketing and Blogging

Expanding business

Chapter 7-

Saving Money, Managing Family, Staying Motivated

Food

Utilities

Bills

Miscellaneous

Managing family

Chapter 8:

Taking Care of Yourself

Keeping motivated and inspired

Stress Relief for Women

Personal Time

100

Chapter 9 -

Web Resources

101

Business support resources

101

Education Resources

102

Budgeting and Saving Money

102

Motivation

103

Organization

103

Quick Start Checklist

103

Chapter 1.How to choose a topic

Choose what you love

The first thing you must decide before actually starting your business is what kind of business you are going to run. That is, what will be your subject matter and your area of expertise? Convinced you aren’t good at anything that will make you money? This is the internet! There are ways of making money through almost any subject, provided there are others interested as well.

Research proves that in order to have the determination and drive to grow a business, you need to have an emotional investment in it. 9 times out of 10 that requires having a passion for what you do. However, a lot of women wanting to work at home mistakenly believe they don’t have a marketable talent or skill. Almost everyone has a profit potential, once they see the opportunities available to them.

First off, you will need an idea notebook. This is a great tool for the learning process, and it will help you keep track of all you learn and decide upon while reading this ebook. It can be as simple as a 79 cent spiral notebook. A highlighter is also helpful to help you pick out the ideas you want to implement. You may even wish to have 3 highlighter colors, that way, after every day’s note taking session, you can highlight with one color, the “No way, that’s not for Me’s”, another color for the “Maybe, I’ll look into it more’s” and the last color for “YES, PERFECT’s!” This will make it easier to put together a business plan later. (Don’t let the idea of a business plan scare you…it is for your benefit only, and does not have to be complicated.)

Now, in order to propel your passion, you need to have a mission statement. Write on the first page of your notebook all the reasons you want to start a business, large and small. Now put the 3 most important reasons in positive sentence form. It may help to brainstorm a list first, and just write down everything that comes to mind. You can then pick out the top three. Be sure to include reasons from a variety of areas of your life. Obviously financial gain will be a big one, but be specific. And don’t forget other areas of your life that owning your own business can positively effect such as your self esteem, pride and self worth.

Now, after you narrow your list down to your top three reasons for starting this business, put it into statement form. Make it clear enough that you can tell yourself exactly why you are in this, for better or worse! An example of a possible mission statement might be:

“I will create a profitable business where I can create a better financial future for myself and my family, create pride within myself, and make a difference in this world and my community.” (Feel free to steal that one if it works for you!)

Your reasons are very personal, and no one will see this but you, but it is important to have this statement written down, to give you strength in the days nothing seems to go right. And trust me, there will be a few. But in the long run, keep your eye on your mission, and you can succeed! Writing your statement in a place you see every day can help keep you motivated. Print it out on your computer in a pretty font, then frame it and hang it in your workspace.

Next, you need to find your passion. In a column on the next page in your notebook, start listing all the things you can think of that you have ever enjoyed. Putting on kid’s birthday parties? Put it down. Reading about fine art? It goes down too. Bake a killer cheesecake? Enjoy reading to the blind? At this point, don’t limit yourself, you will edit later. And don’t limit to things you feel you have a talent or skill for, just enjoyment. (There are many ways to gain knowledge and skill for a business if you truly have a passion for it.) Spend a little time on this, after all, your business future could be on this page!

Ideas for passionate pursuits:

Arts / Crafts Business

Beadwork

Candle and Soap Making

Crochet

Cross-Stitch

Drawing / Sketching

Jewelry Making

Knitting

Needlepoint

Painting

Quilting

Scrapbooking

Sewing

Woodworking

Collecting

Action Figure Collecting

Antiques

Coins

Collectibles

Comic Books

Doll Collecting

Miniatures

Sports Cards

Stamps

Birding / Wild Birds

Freshwater Aquariums

Gardening

Genealogy

Guitar

Home Theater

Magic and Illusion

Motorcycles

Photography

Radio Controlled Vehicles

Saltwater Aquariums

Event Planning

Graphic Design

Marketing

Online Advertising

Real Estate Business

Adult / Continuing Education

Business Majors

College Admissions: U.S.

Distance Learning

Graduate School

Homeschooling

Private Schools

Special Education

Test Prep

Books

Bestsellers

Literature: Contemporary

Celebrities

Celebrity Gossip

Comedy

Humor

Movies

Anime

Classic Movies

Documentaries

Hollywood Movies

Home Video / DVD

Kids Movies / TV

World / Independent Film

Music

80s Music

Alternative Music

Blues

Children's Music

Christian Music / Gospel

Classic Rock

Classical Music

Country Music

Dance Music / Electronica

Digital Music

Folk Music

Heavy Metal

Jazz

Cooking: General

Barbecues & Grilling

Candy

Desserts / Baking

Gourmet Food

Home Cooking

Low Fat Cooking

Vegetarian Cuisine

Drinks / Beverages

Beer

Cocktails

Coffee / Tea

Wine

Design / Living

Antiques

Apartment Living / Rental

Architecture

Entertaining

Frugal Living

Furniture

Housekeeping

Interior Decorating

Gardening

Landscaping

Home Crafts

Candle and Soap Making

Family Crafts

Knitting

Quilting

Scrapbooking

Sewing

Woodworking

Pets

Cats

Dogs

Exotic Pets

Freshwater Aquariums

Horses

Pet Birds

Saltwater Aquariums

Veterinary Medicine

Family Life

Children's Books

Family Computing

Family Crafts

Genealogy

Kids Movies / TV

Kids' Clubs

Kids' Fashion

Toys

Travel with Kids

Parenting

Adoption / Foster Care

Child Care

Fatherhood

Gifted Children

Learning Disabilities

Parenting Special Needs

Parenting of Adolescents

Parenting of K-6 Children

Parenting of Multiples

Parenting: Babies & Toddlers

Pregnancy & Childbirth

Single Parents

Stay-at-Home Parents

Dating / Relationships

Astrology

Divorce Support

Honeymoons / Romantic Getaways

Marriage

Weddings

Seniors

Senior Health

Senior Living

Teens / 20s

College Life

Teen Advice

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Music / Gospel

Christian Teens

Christianity - Catholicism

Christianity - General

Christianity - Latter-day Saints

Hinduism

Holistic Healing

Islam

Judaism

Other Religion

Fitness / Outdoor

Bicycling

Bodybuilding

Climbing

Inline Skating

Martial Arts

Mountain Biking

Paintball

Running & Jogging

Skateboarding

Skiing

Snowboarding

Tennis

Walking

Hunting / Fishing

Fly Fishing

Freshwater Fishing

Hunting / Shooting

Saltwater Fishing

Marine

Diving

Paddling

Powerboating

Sailing

Scuba Diving

Surfing / Bodyboarding

Swimming

Waterskiing / Wakeboarding

Spectator Sports

Baseball

Basketball

Boxing

Cheerleading

Figure Skating

Football

Formula 1

Golf

Hockey

Horse Racing

NASCAR Racing

Pool / Billiards

Professional Wrestling

Rodeo

Sports Gambling

Table Tennis / Ping-Pong

Volleyball

World Soccer

Style

Beauty

Entertaining

Interior Decorating

Jewelry / Accessories

Kids' Fashion

Men's Fashion / Grooming

Plus-Size Fashion

Tattoos / Body Piercings

Teen Fashion

Weddings

Wine

Women's Fashion

Travel

Now once you have a nice long list, narrow it down to your four favorite choices. Obviously this list is full of ideas to get your creative juices flowing.

At this point you may have one or two things that you know are your passion. Perhaps everyone knows you are a passionate skydiver, and that made your top four. You live for it, you love it, and you know a lot about it. Start with this subject.

Notice that I keep mentioning some pretty varied passions…this is just to show you, you are not limited on the net to certain kinds of businesses. If there is a market, and people want to know and learn about a subject, there is a way to make money from it!

Now we are going to take your passions and see if there is a market for them, and a fair chance at a profit. Using a keyword tool such as that at HUhttps://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternalUH or HUhttp://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.htmlUH , and type in the keywords for your subject. Keywords are the words someone might use in a search engine while searching for info on your subject. For instance, TheBudgetDecorator.com’s most popular keywords are “home decorating” and “decorating on a budget”. When I punch those into a keyword tool, it tells me there has been good search volume for those keywords. That tells me there is a market. However, if your subject is “origin and design of obscure Tahitian headdresses”…chances are, the searches are going to be very small, which means, no market.

While it’s important to pick a subject for your business you have passion for, it’s equally, if not more important that you will have people out there who want to be your customer. If your first subject choice turns out to have a small market, no problem, you have three more to consider! Do keyword searches on all four, than see if you can choose one based on the market size, and your preferences. If you can’t, go back to your list and pick four more choices. Narrow the list down, and you will hit on a passionate subject with potential for profit…your new business! Again, at this point, do not be concerned that you do not view yourself as an expert...I will show you how to gain or improve your skills in the next section.

14BTarget audience

The next step in being sure you have chosen a good topic is to figure out who your target audience is. Who will you cater to, and are they on the internet?

Target audience is something you will deal with in greater detail in the marketing chapter, but it’s essential you know there is an audience for your topic before you jump in. No audience, no money, it’s as simple as that.

What I do when I start a new website is first do a search online to see if there are other sites out there on my topic. If there are, you can know there is a market, and you can start to get ideas on how you can create your own twist.

If there aren’t any other sites, it doesn’t necessarily mean there is no market, but proceed with caution. Perhaps you are the first one with the idea, but do some further research to see how large a number of people are interested.

You can research a target audience by spending some time on forums and message boards related to your topic. Don’t even be afraid to log on and ask if anyone would be interested, and in what way.

If you find your target audience, great! If you don’t, then you haven’t wasted money or time trying to run a business you love, but not enough people are interested in.

Also be cautious of having too large of an audience. If your subject is too broad, it will be very difficult to compete with the bigger companies. For instance, my original topic was “home decorating”. That topic has tens of thousands of keyword hits, but also a LOT of competition, some of it from very big corporations. So if you have chosen a topic you love, and the target audience is there but the competition is stiff, find a niche within your topic. For me, it was “budget decorating’. It was what I was most passionate about, and it supplied a need not too many were doing at that time.

There are lots of ways to twist your business model so that your business stands out amongst the competition. Spend some time studying the competitions websites, and figure out what they are not doing that you could do better. Than twist it! A good place to get information on competing websites is Alexa. You can download the Alexa toolbar for free, and then get all kinds of info on any site you visit, including traffic and rankings, what sites they link to, the web owners contact info, and even the speed of the site. All this info can be helpful not only in deciding how to keep one step ahead of the competition, but can help you make contacts later for joint ventures or for promoting products.

Once you determine there is a target audience, you can make the final decision about your topic. You love it, there is an audience, and thanks to your research of other sites, you know where to start looking for your target audience. (I’ll tell you how later!)

15BDecision making

One of the least spoken about difficulties in starting your own business also happens to be the most deadly...the inability or the refusal to make decisions. Some people are born decision makers, you know the ones I am talking about. They never hesitate about what to wear, or what investment to make, or what discipline to dole out for the kids. Maybe you are lucky enough to be one of those people, but most of us aren’t. I have news for you...those decision makers aren’t right more often than you, they just make the decision and move forward with confidence knowing they made the best choice they could at the time, and that’s all anyone can ask. You don’t have to be right all the time. But you do have to do something if you are going to run a business, and you do have to learn to make decisions. The good news is, you can learn!

The first and hardest decision is to actually decide to start an online business. That holds more women back than anything else, because they sit on the fence thinking about it, instead of just making the decision to move forward. To borrow a phrase from a well known corporation... Just Do it! Following the advice in this ebook can help you alleviate many of the fears you have associated with starting your own business. But you must have the courage to make that decision. If you don’t, where will you be a year from now? A lottery winner perhaps? Well, I guess there is that chance, so if you want to hold out for that, be my guest. My advice though, is to think about what you want for your future, and the future of your family, and make a decision based on that.

So, today, you decide.

“I am going to start my own online business about (fill in the blank with your chosen subject)!” See, wasn’t that easy? Now the rest of the decisions just got simpler, because the inertia from making one decision will move you through the rest you need to make. And right now, that’s the only one you need to make. Don’t make yourself crazy trying to figure it all out at once, that’s what this ebook is for! Leading you through, just like I found my way through, one step at a time.

16BResearch and learn to improve your expert status

Ok, so now you’ve decided to start your own online business, and you’ve chosen the subject you are passionate about. Now, you must make yourself an expert. Some of you just thought to yourselves “I’m no expert, I have no education in this or formal training...I can’t pull this off.” Bull.

When I realized I had a passion for the “Homemaking Arts” if you will, I had just had my first son, and had no choice about staying home. My first was a preemie, and pretty ill at that, and he needed me to care for him, no one else would do. So I signed up for a home correspondence course on home decorating. That gave me a basis, and then I just spent time learning. I read a lot, I tried new things, I grew my skills. And because I had a passion for it, my skills reflected that.

These days, there are so many resources thanks to the internet to expand your skills. But those of us on a budget can’t afford to take college classes, or formal training. I am going to use “Knitting” as the example subject for the sake of clarity here.

Let’s assume your chosen business passion is “knitting”. Now chances are, you already know how to knit, or you wouldn’t be so passionate about it in the first place! But maybe you don’t feel “expert” in status.

So, the first thing you do is take your library card and check out every book you can find on knitting. Don’t have a library card? Get one today. Seriously, between training yourself, and learning business, the library is an invaluable and free resource. If your library has online access accounts, have them set you up. In those cases, you can get online, search their catalog by subject, title or author, and place a request. Many libraries lend with others, so you can often request books your local branch doesn’t have.

One trick I like to use when using the online account at the library is to have another window open on my browser with Amazon.com opened up. Amazon tends to have a lot more information on a book than library catalogs, as well as reviews. When I find a good book on Amazon, I then go over to my browser window with the library catalog and search for it there. This saves a lot of time, and gets me books that otherwise might not show up in the library search engine, even though they carry it.

Now use those library books to introduce yourself to new skills, updated techniques, and inspiration from other artists(or other business related peers.) Practice. Learn. Remember how your parents used to tell you, “Practice makes perfect”? Well, nobody’s perfect, but you definitely can improve your skills.

Next, get on the internet, and bring up a search engine such as Internet Explorer. Type your subject into the search bar. You will get listings for sites that offer free information on your chosen subject, so spend some time sorting through them and see what you can glean from them. Make a note of the ones you really like, because not only can they help you develop your expert status, but they also will likely yield information for you later on, on everything from website building to techniques that bring in the highest revenue for your subject matter. They might even someday be your competition, so you’ll want to know them well. Either write down the url, or web address, in your notebook, or save the site in your favorites folder in your browser. Simply click “Favorites” at the top of your browser page, then “Add” and your browser will automatically save that site in memory.

If you have a hard time finding specific information about your chosen subject on the web, that might be a clue as to what you can provide that the others aren’t, so write it down. For instance, you already know knitting is a popular subject, and there are a few sites about it. But suppose you learn about a new technique in a local class at your craft store, but you can’t find anything about it online? That’s something you will want to have on your site, and learn more about, so make note.

Speaking of local classes, there are a great many opportunities in your own area to learn and improve skills for low or even no cost.

Consider free classes offered at craft stores, home improvement stores, and SBA (Small Business Association) offices. Adult education classes are offered in most communities for a small fee, in anything from cooking to a foreign language. Check with your local community college and library system to find other learning opportunities near you.

Learning online or through distance education is another way to get professional skills, though not always the least expensive. See the resource chapter at the end of this ebook for recommended sources.

No matter how you choose to improve your skills, at some point you are going to want to portray yourself as an expert in your field. This does NOT mean you know everything there is to know in your chosen subject! Let’s face it, in just about all facets of life, there will always be someone who knows more. Being an expert means you are adept enough in the subject to start teaching it to others. That is a personal decision, but I notice most women wait too long before they can accept themselves, and promote themselves as an expert. Fortunately, as you start building your online business you will gain confidence from your reader feedback. The first time someone writes you to say... “Thank you so much for the great ideas!” you will finally know for sure in your heart...Expert!

There are some negative aspects to being an expert in any profession. On the flip side, you will occasionally get the odd email from someone very negative, who will seek to make you feel about 2 inches tall, and hardly worthy of your chosen field. My advice for that kind of feedback is this...if there is any truths in their feedback, no matter how rudely they convey it, use it to improve your skills, thank them politely for their input, and try not to take it personally. Even if you think they are right, that does NOT mean you have failed! The failure would be in not learning from it.

When I wrote my first book, and it was available on Amazon, I had a lot of people write some very good and encouraging reviews. And then one day, I checked my reviews to find one that made my heart jump in my throat. Basically they told the world my whole book sucked, and so did I as a decorator. OUCH! But I had to learn to take it in stride, you cannot please everyone, and that one person’s opinion did not negate all the other very positive ones. Criticism hurts, especially at first. But there comes a point when you learn to look at it objectively, and learn from it. You must believe in yourself!

But of course, there are those occasional people who are just off, who are miserable themselves and pretty much just want to take everyone with them. The best and most professional way to handle that kind of criticism is to simply not respond. As much as you might want to defend yourself, especially if you are new to accepting the idea of yourself as an expert, don’t. Delete their email, voice mail, or throw the letter in the trash. And move on with your day.

You will also run across other experts in your field who are much more experienced than you, better even. Learn from them! Think of it this way...if a comedian such as Dane Cook got the chance to work with Robin Williams, do you think he would quit the business? Would he be so threatened he could not do his job? Of course not, he would be thankful to have the opportunity to work with such a great, and that’s what you should do too. The greatest experts in this world were not born that way, they learned. And so can you.

Learn how to handle the negative aspects of being an “expert” and you will feel more like a professional every day.

So now you know what you are going to focus your online business on, with a good solid subject, some decision making skills, some confidence and some skill building. Now you need to show the world you are actually in business, and set up the appropriate legal and financial details to get you off to a great start. Don’t worry, this may be a little on the tedious side, but it isn’t hard. You can do this!