The top ranked home based businesses change over time. Mail order businesses and the service franchises come to mind. Being recognized as this year’s hottest franchise opportunity or next year’s super hot career to aspire to have always attracted interest in that direction from anyone aiming to be a franchise entrepreneur or the struggling student basing their path on what others think is a super hot career. As far as the top home based businesses, today’s opportunities exist with computers and the internet.Home Based Businesses – Top Picks for 2010SEM/SEO services. Content writers can work with small businesses to improve traffic to their websites using search engine optimization and marketing. There is such an opportunity for home based businesses because the majority of small business owners only know how to operate and run their small business and do not have any time to, first, learn how search engine optimization works and, second, implement it on their website. The market is wide open to SEM/SEO specialists. Since original content rules the web, a website is only as good as the newness of its content. It is not a do it and forget it task.Affiliate Marketing. Being an independent commissioned sales person on the web requires a different skill set than face-to-face sales but the concept is similar. If someone buys a product that you supplied the lead for, you are paid a commission. There are systems to introduce you to products to sell; manufacturers’ provide online marketing materials; and there is no inventory to stock. Find the keyword set that attracts visitors to the products you are trying to sell, get them to buy and you’ve earned a commission. Expect high commissions on digital products and lower commissions on physical products.Drop Shipping. You sell the product to your customer, collect the money, and then place an order for your supplier to ship directly to your customer. The company handles stocking all inventory and shipping all orders. There are plenty of companies willing to drop ship product one item at a time to your customer’s address. Your sales channel can be through online auction sites, your own website, or any other online marketing resulting in sales.Use the skills you already have, the experience in industries you have worked in, the hobbies that you are attracted to and the willingness and desire to create your own home based business to search and learn what will work for you. Just because the three ideas listed above have such a promising future doesn’t mean that it is what you have to do to succeed. Your home based business might have nothing to do with affiliate marketing, drop shipping or working for a small business. You may find that your home based business begins as one type of entity and evolves as time goes on.
Home Based Business Ideas For Women
In today’s economic climate of global recession it is tough to find a job and it’s especially tough when you want to go back to work after starting a family. When we see the words ‘Home Based Businesses’ many of us are skeptical, and rightly so- with all of the scams and fly-by-night get rich schemes it can be disheartening to really find something out there that works, that’s similar to jobs you have before starting a family. This can be especially so when you have small children, which is why it’s important to separate true home based business ideas from ones that do not work.There are several ways to find true home based businesses that work for women, but there are a few that are easy to learn and ones you can implement immediately. Here are 3 simple tips for Home Based Business ideas for women:1) Mindset. When you find a home based business idea for women, and it looks like a solid business and professional opportunity, go for it. You have to believe you can pursue a professional business from home as well as raise children. So, take action and believe you can. But, once time goes by and the buzz of ‘something new’ wears off, make sure you don’t put it to the side and never do anything with it. Over 90% of people give up on new business ventures, especially online from home. Stick with it, and give it all that you’ve got (within the time and energy you have available for working.) If the home based business idea works, it’ll work for you with the right mindset and effort. If not, don’t be discouraged, there are plenty of more opportunities for women to find business ideas online.2) Verify and Vet. When you come across a work from home idea, verify the opportunity and vet those involved in it. Google search the company name, and the names of those involved. Google search the company name and the word ‘scam.’ (But don’t forget to verify and vet those who claim ‘scam’ too, they could just be a few sour apples.) Find out if people are actually happy with the company or service. Also, it’s always a good sign if those involved in the opportunity update and communicate often. It doesn’t have to be direct communication; it can be something like a blog, email, tweets, Facebook posts, newsletter, or forum post. Also verify if they have good customer support and your questions and concerns are dealt with in a timely manner. The more legitimate online opportunities will have more positive reviews than bad, and more available contact and support.3) Resources. Discover all the various resources available to you in your field. Search in your field for business tips and strategies, forums and blogs to connect with others, and listings and directories to advance your goal. You can also find available opportunity for work by searching. The internet is a resource and you have to mine it.There you have it! Three simple tips that will help you find your opportunity to work from home on the internet. Keep your eyes alert for home based business opportunity, make sure the opportunity checks out and isn’t a scam, get involved and stay focused, and you’ll see success in your endeavors. You can work from home and make a living while raising a family, so get started today.
The Finer Points of Internet Auctions
WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?
Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.
The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.
The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.
The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.
HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!
The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.
There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.
Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.
HOW TO WIN!
Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.
The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.
The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.
The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.
HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!
Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.
Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.
Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.
CONCLUSION!
New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.
There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.
It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.