Home business opportunities are virtually everywhere you look online. And the promoters of each home based business opportunity often claim that the opportunity they promote is the best business opportunity to join. This often makes it difficult for newbies to make the right choice, the choice that best suit their situation. This article takes a look at the four broad categories of home business opportunities so you can identify the option that suit your circumstances and therefore make informed choice.
The four broad categories of home based business opportunities are:
1. Opportunities that involve building an information rich web site from scratch and thereafter monetizing the resulting traffic
2. Opportunities that involve joining affiliate programs that offer unique affiliate links for promoting the affiliate product or service
3. Opportunities that involve joining a network marketing home based business opportunity that offer free distributor web site to members and
4. Opportunities that involve getting paid a fixed amount for completing a set of tasks online
Let's take a closer look at each option above.
The first online business opportunity involves building your dream online business from scratch.
The right process requires you to do the following:
identify your passion
brainstorm topics that fall within your passion or interest using appropriate brainstorming software
identify a profitable niche that matches your passion or interest
Assemble low competition keywords that define your niche
Draw up a site blueprint
Design your web site
Write content for your web site using the low competition keywords brainstormed earlier
Promote your web site massively online
Add income generating streams to your web site
Cash your money month after month
If you conclude that the above process is tedious and time consuming, you're probably right.
But why?
It's because it's business... it's online business. And online business takes time, effort, and creativity just like offline does.
The second home business opportunity mentioned above is affiliate program marketing. With this type of online business, you join the affiliate program of your choice and promote the affiliate links you're given using a blend of online marketing techniques. Some online marketing techniques will produce more results than others. So, you need to track your sales promotion efforts or campaigns to determine what works and what doesn't for the specific affiliate program you promote. Then drop campaigns that don't work and do more of what works.
The third category of home based business opportunities are MLM home business opportunities that offer members free distributor web sites to promote the MLM business opportunity. As with the affiliate program model, members of this type of MLM business opportunity promote their member web site url and register new team members using the tools on the member site they were given.
The fourth online business opportunity involves completing a set of tasks in expectation of being paid a pre-determined amount.
This kind of opportunities include:
paid to write
paid to attend to customers (online customer service jobs)
... and other such online job opportunities.
WARNING: Verify that the internet job opportunity you're interested in is legitimate before you join!
Each of the home business opportunities described above have their pros and cons.
Option 1 above requires you to do a lot of work without immediate reward. With this type of online business, you're basically writing an online book or journal. And you don't get paid for writing a book until it's finished and it starts selling, right?
In simple words, this option is a long-term business where you build traffic or your own customer base through content writing and marketing. This is a tedious but rewarding way to build a long-term business. With this type of home based business you own your traffic or customer base. And when you own your traffic, you own your business.
Option 2 is affiliate program marketing. This system involves selling a product or service by finding a market for it. Depending on where you advertise or promote the affiliate programs, you can begin to make money right away.
Here's one thing to remember though.
Not everyone makes money from promoting affiliate program products despite spending a lot of money in advertising.
Why?
It's because affiliate program marketing success requires a set of skills. To succeed, you need to learn the skill-set that guarantees success. Option 3 is much like option 2. You get paid for promoting a network marketing opportunity.
However, unlike most affiliate program opportunities that are free to join, virtually every network marketing home based business opportunity require members to join with a registration fee. Besides the registration fee, members must buy at least one pack of the MLM product they promote every month to stay active and qualify to earn commissions (at least in most programs). This means there is a maintenance cost for most MLM business opportunities.