Traffic Generation For The Work From Home Mom: A Direct Sales Must

So what if you already are a stay at home mompreneur?  I've got some valuable tips for you too!  A lot of moms out there are already set up with an at-home business.  They've forked over some money to begin selling Avon, BeautiControl, Veema, or any number of the products now on the direct selling market.  The company with which you signed up provided you with a website where you can send potential customers and clients.  You are of the mindset that if you build it, they will come.  I hate to burst your bubble, but the internet is NOT the field of dreams.  If you build your baseball field (i.e. website) out in the middle of a corn field (the internet), nobody's going to be sitting in your bleachers, that is not unless you know how to build traffic to your website.

A website without traffic is a useless sales tool for your direct sales business.  This is where a lot of direct sales businesses will bite the dust.  After they exhaust methods of selling to friends and family, their "business" sort of dries up and blows away.  The truth is that building traffic to your website is somewhat like pushing a big boulder up a hill.  In the beginning of your traffic building campaign, you must work extremely hard to get the big rock moving.  If you work hard and put your efforts in the right place though, that big boulder will eventually crest the hill and begin moving under it's own power and that, my friend, is a beautiful thing.



There are several ways to get traffic to your website.  One thing that you must always keep in mind is the quality of the traffic that you'll need to your website.  There are services on the internet where you can pay a fee to basically have them send a certain number of visitors to your website.  If this is the path that you decide to take, you'll want to make sure that the traffic that you get is highly targeted quality traffic.  After all, you don't want some innocent bozo that's looking for a beer can hat to be directed to your Mary Kay site.  That kind of traffic will not convert to sales and basically you'll just be wasting your time and money.

You can also go the route of buying advertising through Google Adwords or buy advertising space on other blogs and websites.  This can be a very effective means of advertising your website, but again I caution you to do your homework before using services like Google Adwords.  You must understand fully what you're getting into when your money is on the line.



Personally I like generating free traffic.  Generating inbound links to your website are a great way to build traffic.  To generate links, you can trade links with other website owners, or blogs.  Again, this is effective, but it takes a great deal of manpower to get every single link to your site.  My favorite means of generating inbound links is to write articles.  I write articles on areas in which I have expertise or in areas where there is high demand where I can research the subject thoroughly.  I then submit those articles to article directory websites like EzineArticles.  In the resource box on each article I include two links to pages within whatever website that I am promoting.  Once the articles are published by various webmasters, my links begin growing exponentially.  This type of leveraging of your time and resources is the way you must think to be a successful stay at home mompreneur.  More links equals more traffic.

You may not have the time to spend writing articles or may not feel confident in your writing abilities and that's perfectly fine too.  You can hire writers at a reasonable price to write articles for you via Elance or even Craigslist.   A quality article will cost you a bit more money to have written but you can usually get a good deal on a bundle of articles.  Articles related to the content of your site or that would compliment your website will bring you a higher quality of traffic than completely unrelated articles. 

Search engine optimization is another way to build big time traffic to your website.  This is a highly effective way to build free traffic to your website but it's a difficult nut to crack for most beginning webmasters.  Basically the concept is that you sprinkle keywords throughout your website that get a high number of searches per month and a low number of competition.  Google offers a keyword research tool to use in order to help you in your research.  To achieve and maintain a high ranking in the search engines, you will likely need unique content, a website that builds in content over time, and strong linking to your website.  There are so many ins and outs to the process that it may be worth checking into hiring someone with experience in search engine optimization to help you in your endeavors.

As with anything in your home based business, find something that works and do it over and over again.  Don't waste your time or efforts with any type of marketing that is not giving you the results that you desire.  Most importantly however, is to do SOMETHING.  Even if whatever you do is wrong, at least you've learned what not to do and you can move on to try something else and if you keep doing this over and over, you'll eventually find your way to success.

Fast, Easy Cash Opportunities: Idea #2

Here's a money making idea that would work great for the spring and summer months.  Now, I love to find a good bargain.  I get a huge thrill when I do.  It's like some kind of adrenaline rush that I have become addicted to.  Because of that past time, I like to check out local thrift stores and yard sales.

By frequenting the thrift stores in my area, I'm able to determine which days of the week and which months of the year are better for finding the best bargains.  I know that in my area, a lot of the department stores and furniture stores will donate brand new merchandise to the thrift stores right around the end of the year.  I also know that you can find the best bargains on off season merchandise at any store.  Using that knowledge, I can acquire brand new items for a ridiculously low price time after time.

You'll need to do a little bit of research before you go on your shopping spree.  Make a plan to determine where you want to resell your items for profit.  A very good tool for conducting your research is Ebay.  By looking on Ebay at various auction items, it will be relatively easy to determine which items are selling and at what price.  Using that information you can determine whether or not the items that you plan to buy will be profitable and/or currently in demand.  Once you are armed with this vital information, it's time to go shopping!

You have a couple of options once you find your items at a rock bottom price.  You can resell your items using Ebay, UPillar, or Craigslist.  You can even open up your own storefront using sites like Yahoo, but I would discourage doing something like that until you have a proven track record for profitability.  The reason is that sites like Yahoo do have monthly fees for utilizing their storefront software and those fees can cut severely into your profitability, especially at first.

Another option for reselling your items is to send them to local consignment shops.  You'll first need to find out their policy on payment percentage and on how long they will keep the merchandise.  Most consignment stores will keep your item 60-90 days.  You'll want to make sure that you can pick up your merchandise after that time period if they do not sell.  If this will be your sales strategy, I recommend visiting consignment stores in your area and inquiring in person about their policies and about what items they need.  They'll have a very good idea of what items are selling and what items aren't.  Again, useful, free information for you.

In my area, there are several home decor-type consignment stores popping up all over.  Yard sales and craigslist would be great places to pick up some great bargains to resell at those types of consignment shops.  Once you get the hang of this, you'll see that that possibilities are absolutely endless.  I actually had a neighbor come tell me the other day that she had visited one of the home decor consignment shops in our neighborhood and she saw a baby carriage she had sold at a yard sale a few months earlier.  She sold the carriage for $5 at the yard sale and the consignment shop had a $40 price tag on it.  Somebody could potentially make a 300% profit on that one item if the consignment shop splits the money with the owner.  Not too shabby in my book!

Step 2 To Becoming A Mompreneur: Know Yourself

Now that you're in the right frame of mind for success, it's time to plan out a path.  Most moms think that the legitimate opportunities to earn money from home are just few and far between or even non-existent altogether.  The fact of the matter is that opportunities to work from home are all over the place and the biggest problem that you might face is deciding in which direction you want to go because of the vast array of opportunities that actually do exist.

Today we want to focus on our interests and your homework assignment is to make a list of things that you like and areas in which your natural talents lie.  I also want you to make a list of your areas of weakness.  My lists would look something like this:
     

      Natural Talents

• Artistic
• Finding Bargains
• Marketing
• Sales

         Areas of Interest/Hobbies

• Shopping
• Website Building
• Search Engine Optimization
• Blogging
• Networking
• Beaches/Travel
• Children/Babies

       Weaknesses

• Lack of Patience
• Short Attention Span
• Temper
• Math

Now these list will be highly important in leading you in the direction where you are most likely to be successful.  You may want to keep the list in a place where you can refer to it over and over again.  For any business venture that you consider now or in the future, you'll want to consider your list very carefully.  The areas in which you have the highest chance for success are when you can combine your areas of interest with your natural talents.  You want to either avoid business opportunities that involve your weaknesses or partner with someone who is strong in the areas in which you are weak.

Consider the items that you listed as hobbies.  Ask yourself if there is a way to make money from those hobbies.  For example, on my list of likes I have listed shopping and on my list of natural talents I have listed bargain hunting.  I also have listed sales under natural talents.  Now I would ask myself how could I turn my hobby of shopping into a business while using my natural talents of bargain hunting and sales?  One of the things that I could do is to buy name brand baby clothes on clearance (out of season) and hold them until they are in season.  Then I could either sell them on Ebay or Craigslist for profit.  I actually know of several people who would specialize in buying just Gymboree baby clothes (because the demand was very high).  They would buy the clothes on clearance and then had set up an Ebay store specializing in Gymboree clothes.  Now that would be something that I would likely enjoy, but I'm not sure that I would have the patience to wait until the clothes were in season to get started.  There are, of course, other factors that you would need to consider as well such as time investment, money investment, expenses and potential profit margin to name a few.  We'll get into each of those things in a later blog.  For now, take some time and brainstorm to begin your lists!

Fast, Easy Cash Opportunities: Idea #1

I realize that starting up a business is not for everyone and let's face it, there's an awful lot of work involved in building a business whether it be online or a brick and mortar business.  I realize that some of you want to get started now bringing in cash.  In today's economy some of you moms may even have reached the point of desperation.  I feel your pain.  That's why over the next several days I'm going to give you some ideas for making money relatively quickly and painlessly.  Sounds good, huh?

I know that when I began my stint as a stay at home mom, I first began finding quick money making opportunities before I began building my online money makers.  Some of the things that I used to make quick cash, I still do today because they're just so easy and take up so little of my time.  I actually enjoy doing them, so why stop?  As a stay at home mom who wants to bring in money, you may find that you want to utilize several of my tactics.  Just pick and choose what works for you and go from there.

I have listed several fast money making links on the right hand side of this blog.  The list is by no means complete, however.  I'll continue adding as time goes by.  I just rattled off a few off of the top of my head.  Check the list out periodically for more items.  I'll be going over most of them as we go on to explain how you can make money with each one.

Let's get right to it though.  One of the things that I have done over the years is to sign up on the databases of several market research and survey companies in my area.  Most larger cities will have several of these types of companies to choose from.  Register with as many as you can to ensure that you will continue to be bombarded with opportunity after opportunity to make quick cash.  I think I am registered with about six or seven different companies and I get calls and emails just about daily for money making opportunities. 

By registering with market research companies you may be asked to fill out a questionnaire that will provide information that will let the company know which studies or surveys that you may qualify for.  That way you will only receive invitations for opportunities that you have already been prescreened for.  Many of these companies will pay cash as soon as you are finished providing your input.  Be sure that any market research company thoroughly explains to you #1) what is expected from you #2) how long the research will take and #3) how much and when you will be paid.  If a company does not wish to disclose any of those things, you should not participate in any studies with them.  There are too many reputable companies that have no problems providing all of that information.  After all, your time is your most valuable resource.  Don't let anyone waste it.

To find various market research companies near you, I suggest visiting Greenbook.org.  On that site, if you search market research companies by location, it will list just about every research company in your vicinity.  Then go to each website and sign up on their database or you can email or call them to ask to be included in their database.  Now all you do is sit back and wait for the cash making opportunities to roll in.  See?  Now how easy is that?

Step 1 To Becoming A Mompreneur: Change Your Mind

You must change your mindset NOW!  You have to believe not only in yourself and your abilities but that working from home successfully and raising your children CAN be done.  If family or friends tell you that you are crazy or they give you 100 reasons why you cannot be a stay at home mom and make money from home, do not listen.  Surrounding yourself with people who are supportive and believe in you is vital in being a successful person in general.  Perhaps it's time to take inventory of those people in your life who only know how to criticize and spew negativity.

Homework:  What?  You didn't know there would be homework?  Relax, it's an easy assignment.  I want you to find 5 minutes of quiet, alone time. I realize that I may be asking the impossible here, but just try.  If you have to lock yourself in the bathroom for five minuets, do it.  Next I want you to visualize yourself being a stay at home mom and working from home.  Visualize as many details of it as you possibly can.

You should really do this at least once a day for the next two weeks.  Believe it or not, you may unconsciously have the mindset of a person who believes that they will never be successful in their own ventures.  Many of us grew up with both parents working outside the home or with our moms who stayed home and cooked and did laundry all day.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, however, it can lead you to believe subconsciously that that's what we're supposed to do and that's the only way to support our families.  Your thoughts and beliefs play a very important role in what we are able to accomplish in our lives.  Our thoughts and beliefs can either propel us forward or hold us back.

First Things First...Why Most Women Do Not Ever Work From Home

I have been inspired to create this blog by various acquaintances and friends who have been searching for ways to make money. They, like me, have a great need for extra income and very little extra time on their hands. Let's face it, finding legitimate ways to bring in money while running down a 16 month old, isn't as easy as one might think.

One question that has plagued me for quite some
time is why can't women have a successful career AND stay at home? Actually I do have some experience in this subject, although I wonder why other women have such a difficult time. I am slightly biased on the subject but women are incredible creations of God. I mean, we can direct our kids to clean their rooms while cleaning an unidentified stain out of the carpet while talking on our cell phones. Why is it that we can't take care of our children AND make money? We are amazing creatures whose talents are never ending. Actually I already have the answers to these questions. I KNOW what holds most of us back from succeeding in the work-from-home world. The answer is within ourselves. You have to BELIEVE that you are capable of making money from home.


You see most women have searched for a legitimate opportunity and once they run across several scams, they then BELIEVE that no true opportunities exist. What's more is they don't believe that they can actually do it. I can attest to the fact that it can be done because I have, indeed, done it. I continue to find ways of making legitimate money from home and continue to entertain new ideas for creating wealth from home. The opportunities are out there, all over the place actually and in this blog I'm going to share various opportunities that I find along with bits and pieces of information that will assist any mom in her quest to be a successful "Mompreneur".


I have, over the years, acquired pretty considerable knowledge about marketing, search engine optimization, website building, traffic generation and lot of other information that I will share on this blog. I'm also considering tackling a money making venture in a few weeks and blogging about every aspect of what I do and the results of my tactics. I think it will be a fun way to document my experiences and share with you the knowledge that I acquire first hand. I'm excited to begin this adventure and hope that you will follow along by subscribing to the blog. Meanwhile if there is any specific topic or question that you would like to see addressed on this blog, I encourage you to email me at momshavedreamstoo@yahoo.com. Hope to see you around!