How to Create a Membership Site With DL Guard
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From the category archives:
Businesses
How Much Can I Charge Working from Home?
In the wake of a poor economy, working from home has become a popular way to make a little extra money. Starting a home business can be easy depending on the niche you choose. One of the considerations when getting started is how much to charge for your services.
Working from home has its advantages. First of all, there is low overhead. You already pay the bills for utilities, mortgage and food. There are no extra fees as far as the building is concerned unless you install a separate telephone line for business use.
With that in mind, home workers want to set prices that are competitive in the industry, but not so much that they are passed over for the competition. When deciding on prices, avoid setting them too low. You don’t have sufficient overhead, but the goal with any business is to make money. Selling yourself short could put you right out of business.
A good rule of thumb is to examine what is currently being paid to those doing the same job but working for an employer. For example, let’s say that you want to do medical transcription. In an office setting, a doctor may pay his or her transcriptionist $10 per hour. On top of that he pays for medical, dental and benefits for this person. You could charge three or four dollars more per hour for your work and still come in below what he pays for one full time employee.
Don’t be afraid to ask for a higher rate based on your skillset and what the job entails. Anyone working from home is in business for themselves. You work when you want to work and take on as many clients as you wish. Beyond the office setting, your schedule is flexible to the needs of your clients. Performing multiple services for a client even from home warrants a little extra money per hour.
Looking at newspaper ads and online job sites give you some idea of what companies are offering. As a home business owner, your price will be higher to cover your operating costs and the taxes you will pay.
There are jobs that you can bid for on freelance websites. Sites like Elance allow you to bid for jobs with others who want to work from home. Some jobs pay too low to be worth all of the work but there are others that, if you have the skills, can be worth your while. Investigate some of these opportunities to get a feel for the going rate in that industry.
Some common work at home jobs are:
* Secretarial
* Virtual assisting
* Website design
* Marketing managers
When you work from home, you are in a win-win situation. Your overhead costs of doing business are lower and you can ask for a higher rate of pay for your services as an independent business owner and not an employee.
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How to Become a Successful Virtual Assistant
Companies are using outsourcing as a way to lower their costs. This is good news for those who work from home. One opportunity it creates is for the virtual assistant.
What is a virtual assistant? Many might think of them as glorified secretaries but they are so much more than that. A virtual assistant is an entrepreneur that can do everything from sending out letters to managing websites to managing your marketing campaign. They do it all and operate away from the office.
If you are thinking about becoming a virtual assistant, consider a few things first. What is your working background? What skills can you offer that would be in high demand? Do you manage your time wisely?
All of these points are important for the virtual assistant. Your clients will not only be large companies but smaller ones, writers, self-employed individuals, website owners and an entire host of others. Your client base is dependent on the arsenal of skills at your command.
As with any business, you need a plan. Your plan will include what skills you hope to offer to your clients. There are basic skillsets that most virtual assistants offer such as those you would perform as an executive assistant: mailing correspondence, answering emails, organizing documents and such. But, beyond that, is where you will set your virtual assisting business apart from others.
The new virtual assistant offers his or her expertise in a number of growing fields. Companies or individuals with online enterprises need someone to run the website, compound data into various programs, deal with legal or tax issues and many other services. One road to success begins with specializing or nicheing into a specific area such as real estate, medical services, legal or financial services. With your knowledge of the jargon and workings of these industries you become a valuable asset to anyone looking for help.
Get credentialed. There are several reputable virtual assisting courses of study online to get you started on the right track. The programs teach how to set up a business, business ethics and the finer points of operating as a virtual assistant. Formal training lends credibility to your business and inspires trust in clients.
Make yourself visible. No one will hire you if they don’t know that you exist. The best thing about virtual assisting is that you can live thousands of miles away from your clients as long as you are connected in some way. As such, use the Internet to build your business base. Set up a website of your own to advertise your services.
This is your window on the world. Showcase your work experience. Use testimonials from past clients. List what services you plan to offer.
Virtual assisting is a booming business. As an entrepreneur, you are providing a much needed service to others.
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Get Paid for Typing: Data Entry Jobs - that’s right - $100 /day for typing (and possibly more)
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How To Discover Your Online Niche
Having a niche is the key to building an online business that succeeds. A niche, when thoroughly researched and prepared for, is the key to not only great website traffic and a top search engine result, it’s also the key to profits. Therefore, the first step when considering any online business is to discover your online niche. Here are a few tips to get you started.
#1 Make a list of topics you’re interested and/or passionate about. Assuming your online business is a rousing success, you’re going to be writing, speaking, and planning your business almost every day of the year. It really helps if you enjoy what you’re working on.
#2 Once you have a list of topics you’re interested in and/or passionate about, it’s time to see if there is any demand for that topic. It’s time to do a bit of keyword research. Keyword research involves using a few keyword sites like the Google AdWords tool and Wordtracker to accomplish two key things:
You want to see if there is a lot of demand for your topic(s) and you want to see if there is a lot of supply for your chosen topic. What you’re looking for are topics with high demand and low supply. Meaning lots of people are looking for your information and very few websites are providing it. Now if you find that absolutely no one is providing any information on your topic then you’ll want to investigate why. It may mean that it isn’t a viable topic.
Each keyword tool operates a little differently but you’ll see numbers that represent the number of people searching for that topic or keyword and the number of sites or pages that are optimized for that keyword. So if you see that 1000 people are searching gingerbread cookies each day and there are only 20 pages that are optimized for that keyword, it may be time to dig deeper.
#3 Research your competition. Using those same keyword tools and a few keyword tools that help you dig deeper into the keywords your competition is using to market and optimize their site, you will spend some time visiting potential competitors to explore what their niche focus is.
For example, you may visit those website pages optimized for gingerbread cookies and find that only five of them are cookie recipe sites. The others may be parenting sites or just random blog posts. So, you now know that you really only have five competitors and can position yourself amongst them by perhaps narrowing your niche even further.
You could, for example, choose to have a website devoted entirely to cookie cutter cookies rather than all cookies, assuming there is high demand and low supply for that topic.
#4 Finally, analyze your topics based on profitability – which topics have the potential to make the most money. For example, a website based on cookie cutter cookies may be great fun for you but are there many moneymaking opportunities? A website based on a high-end luxury product, like Italian Espresso Makers, may have more income opportunities.
Choosing your online niche is a process. It can take a little while to find a topic that meets all of the criteria we mentioned however, it is time well spent. A well-researched niche topic can help you achieve all of your online entrepreneur dreams.
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When it comes to building a website, your domain name could make it or break it. A catchy domain name can help people remember who you are and easily find you to give them what they’re looking for. By contrast, a bad domain name can make your website hard to find, so they’ll find someone else or give up trying. Here are some quick and easy tips to help you pick the name that’s best for you.
Here are some do’s to remember when picking your name:
- Make it easy to remember. If people remember a website, they’re more likely to go to it. Our brains process tons of information in a day, and most of it we forget. Just because someone’s friend tells them about a great website, doesn’t mean they’re going to remember the name when they get home to check it out.
- Make it related to your site. When you start choosing your domain name, the best place to start is with a few keywords related to your topic. Take these keywords and try to turn them into a name. While you might be able to find an awesome catchy word or phrase, if it’s not related to your topic, people aren’t going to remember it.
- Make it easy to type. There are certain letters that are just harder to type than others. While it may not make the biggest difference, try to avoid letters like q and p. And avoid difficult combinations. If it doubt, have a friend who isn’t the best typist try to get to the sites. If one takes a lot longer or is harder for them, it’s probably best to throw out that option.
Domain name don’ts - try to avoid these common domain name mistakes:
- Names that are hard to spell.
- Misspellings. If you misspell a common word, people are probably not going to spell your domain name right. Correct spellings are easier to remember. If they don’t get it on the first try, they may try again, but more likely they’ll either find another site with the correct spelling, or simply give up.
- Names including numbers. While it might be clever, it’s hard for people to remember, and it’s hard to spread the site name by word of mouth.
- Names that are too close to a popular website. Sure, you might get the traffic from misspellings, but that’s not going to be enough to sustain a quality website.
If you’re stuck finding a good name, try going to a site that sells domain names and entering your keywords. Often, sites will help you find related names that are available. And that way, you don’t have to worry about trying to buy a name that is already taken from someone who doesn’t want to give it up.
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