"I believe wholeheartedly in the importance of being a Mom who chooses not to work outside the home in order to be available for my children. However, I also have experienced the effects of a single income and it's not pleasant," explains one stay at home mom. Stay at home parents are finding it increasingly difficult to support their family on a single income. Their alternatives are not appealing either. They could return to work full time, they could pursue a part time job or they could look into a work from home opportunity. In most cases these options will help financially, but they will take away from the one very important value for stay at home moms and dads- being an integral part of their child's early years.
Returning to a full time career demands more than 40-50 hours a week. It creates the demand for a babysitter, it creates more stress for the parent returning to the work force and it creates a sense of failure for both parents. When a family has decided to take one adult and make him/her the full time parent, any resignation of that situation results in a feeling of incompleteness and failure.
Taking a part time job presents many of the same issues as a full time job. Often the stay at home parent has errands to do, loads of laundry to wash, meals to cook, and sports games to attend. A part time employer usually needs their employee to be flexible and available throughout the week. This is just not possible for the typical stay at home mom and dad. Part time work often leaves the parent feeling dull. Who wants to file papers for their local dentist or stuff envelopes with insurance plan papers?
The last option stay at home moms and dads have is the ability to work from home. Typically these jobs revolve around some sort of MLM, or multi-level marketing. Stay at home parents often find themselves choosing between selling the latest makeup product or herbal weight loss supplement. Neither brings joy and neither brings much money.
The Internet has created a large chasm of work at home business opportunities as well. Doing a Google search for "work at home businesses" will yield tons of results. The problem is that most of these are scams. They are get rich quick schemes. These are opportunities that promise gigantic results with little or no effort involved. Potential work from home moms and dads should be wary of these companies because they suck time and money from you and your family.
Doing diligent research will yield a few online opportunities for work at home parents. Below are 4 steps that have proven effective in online businesses. You may view the actual results of these 4 steps by visiting http://proof.sitesell.com/mylife.html. Hard core, verifiable proof is the very first thing you should ask for when researching a work from home or online business opportunity.
Step 1- Content
Creating an online business should be about passion first and foremost. Pick a few things that you know and love. It could be orchids, fire trucks, fitness, or libraries. Whatever it is that you love and know something about will qualify.
Let's take fitness as our example. I love fitness. I create a website all about fitness. I write about working out, how to eat, how to see results without using steroids, etc. I make all of my web pages visitor friendly. I talk to my visitor in a normal conversational tone. There is no greasy sales pitch- just great content that answers my visitors question or solves his problem. After all, that is why my visitor came to my site. To get information!
Step 2- Traffic
I now have a website all about fitness. It provides excellent information that my visitors will love. Search engines will love it too and here's why. Have you ever done a search for something on Google or Yahoo and the only results were spam? They were just websites designed to sell you something? Of course you have. We all have.
Search engines are constantly looking for websites that provide real information. That is what makes their customers (you!) happy. If the search engines can find a great online business like yours, they will rank it well within their search results. They will want to because it makes them look good.
Step 3- Pre-Sell
When you create your online business, you will create content that is easy to read and answers your visitor’s question. Your visitor will now view you as an expert in your field. She will build trust and confidence in you because you are not trying to sell her a product. You are giving her what she wants- information and answers to her problem.
Step 4- Monetize
Believe it or not, this is the easy part. Building friendly content rich pages is the hard part. By now you have 10, 20, or maybe 100 pages all about your passion. You are ranking well at the search engines because you answer the question or solve the problem of your visitor. You have built trust and loyalty with your customers.
The next step happens naturally. When you create a new product or service, you already have a base of raving fans to market to. These raving fans already know you and already trust you. If your new product or service speaks to them or helps them they will buy from you. Why wouldn't they? They already trust you. That is the key ingredient.
Work at home moms and dads have a hard time generating a second income while maintaining their core values and beliefs. Often times they drop tons of cash and waste loads of time on dead end work at home options. Doing research is the first step. Learning about business and online businesses is the second step. Take a look at how these four steps create successful online businesses over and over again. It is absolutely possible for a parent to stay at home and raise the family while producing a second income.
Copyright 2005