Working from the comfort of your own home may seem like a dream for many. However, deciding if it is truly right for you requires some honest self-examination. You can also benefit from the experience of others that have been down this road.
Some people seem to think, incorrectly, that having your own online business is an opportunity to sleep in and do a little work when the fancy takes them. I don’t want to shatter your dreams about working from home, but you must be disciplined and having a successful business takes hard work.
Consequently, if you’re looking for a way to earn some easy money, this article isn’t for you.
Even though it might seem a little intimidating at first, more people should consider this opportunity.
Start an Online Business Working from Your Own Home
Starting an online business is possible for more or less anyone, but many will fail because they give up too soon. You must be determined and passionate to succeed. If you have these attributes, there are many ways to earn money online.
Here are just a few methods you could choose:
- Start an affiliate marketing business
- Start an online store
- Sell your own products or services
- Work as a freelance – writer, photographer, graphic designer, web designer
- Become a virtual assistant
These are some of the different ways you could earn money from home. I am sure you have your favorite.
If not, I would recommend choosing something you are passionate about, then build a website around this passion or niche and promote products through affiliate marketing. I’ll describe this in a little more detail later.
Working from home pros & cons
Assuming that you are considering starting an online business and looking to have increased flexibility and a greater earning potential, working from home could be for you. On the other hand, if you are still unsure, weighing up the pros and cons could help you reach a decision.
Pros
- Control over your working hours to accommodate family commitments
- Spend more time with your family
- No more commuting
- You don’t have to worry about unemployment
- No more need for work clothes
- Maybe some tax advantages – claim for utility costs and equipment
- Flexible hours
- Earning potential is not limited, you set your goals
- You can make a full-time income working fewer hours
- Cheap to get started
- Work from your home
- Be your own boss
- You will benefit from the greater job satisfaction you get from running your own business
- No more 9 to 5 routine
- Holidays can be taken on the dates you choose
- You could be working on one of your hobbies or passions to earn a living – you will enjoy what you do, you will be happier
- Less stress doing something that is flexible = better health
- You will worry less about your work which means you will sleep better
- Having more time you will be able to prepare a proper meal instead of just getting a sandwich or snack. You will eat better
- You will probably have more energy with a better diet and better health
- And the last one you will live longer – with fewer worries, more sleep and a better diet your life expectancy should increase
Cons
- Putting in too much time – if you are doing something you like you may find it hard to limit your hours
- Could put stress on relationships
- Easy to become a hermit and cut off your social connections
- Lack of real human connections
- Must always be motivated
- You have to deal with everything even technical problems
- Household distractions when working – kids and family
- May have to find some sort of child care for the hours you’re working
- No set income
As you can see the pros largely outweigh the cons, although for me the most important points are being happy in what you are doing for a job, living a more healthy life and spending more time with the family.
How to start your affiliate marketing business
As I said before my choice for starting a business from home is affiliate marketing, but before we get started I think it would be a good idea to be absolutely certain that you understand what is meant by affiliate marketing.
What Is Affiliate Marketing – A Simple Definition
Affiliate Marketing is promoting someone else’s products or services. In return, you receive a commission when you send someone from your site to the seller’s site and they buy the product or service.
The concept of Affiliate Marketing is being used by an ever-growing number of companies.
Affiliates are only paid when a sale is completed, so it’s an extremely cost-effective method of selling.
As you can see in the diagram people arrive on your website from Google, social networks, or adverts, they click on a link to a product you recommend and you earn a commission when they buy the product.
What do you need to become an affiliate marketer?
Well, of course, you will need the obvious things like a computer and an internet connection. Nevertheless, I think the two most important things are some good training and support. Without these, you will struggle!
You will also need a website, then some great unique content, and visitors who want to read your content. Add to that hard work, some knowledge about your niche, and patience.
There you have all the ingredients you require to become a successful affiliate marketer.
You may have some concerns that you might not have the skills required, but if you can use a word processor like Word or Open Office and you are familiar with using emails, you have all the skills you need.
If you are concerned about building a website, you should know that with the modern online website builders, today creating your site is very easy and rapid. This article shows how you can create a website in just 30 seconds!
I hope you are reassured that you have all it takes. If I can do this, I’m sure that you can too!
Why become an Affiliate Marketer?
Here are a few reasons why I think it’s a good idea to become an affiliate marketer.
- Doesn’t cost much to set up your business
- You don’t have to deal with the logistics of shipping and storage. These are taken care of by the seller
- Marketing online gives you a worldwide marketplace
- Customer support is taken care of by the seller
- You can work from home
Training and support
For these two items that I mentioned earlier, you really need to get started. I had been looking around for a while and had tried a few programs either scams or programs that weren’t bad, but were just lacking something, then I found Wealthy Affiliate.
This program has everything I was looking for, in fact, I was amazed by all the information they have and the support is simply the best I have seen.
What is Wealthy Affiliate?
This is an internet marketing training platform, that teaches you how to build an online business from the ground up. One of the great advantages of this program is that you can get started without risking your cash.
Getting started course at Wealthy Affiliate
There is a free starter membership (you don’t even need to give your credit card details) that lasts for as long as you like, although you can upgrade to a premium member if you feel you want to take advantage of all the resources available.
Wealthy Affiliate really does make the process of getting started incredibly easy and they take you through the different steps.
- Choosing your niche
- Picking a domain name
- Building your site
- Creating content
- Earning revenue
Other options
Alternatively, you may want to do this independently and get your own domain name from a domain registrar like namecheap.com, then hosting from one of the many hosting providers, for example, bluehost.com, siteground.com, or hostgator.com. They do have tutorials on setting up your site, but after that, you are on your own. The cost of doing it this way will be about $5 per month.
Another possible option would be to try one of the online site builders weebly.com, wix.com, or buildyoursite.com. You can get a good looking site and even for free. Again, they have tutorials on setting up your site, although after that you will be left more or less by yourself to continue your site. Some of the editors have limits on how many links you can have per page which could be a problem for an affiliate site.
The problem with these two methods is that although, initially it will cost you less, what will you do once your sites are set up and online? I know that I would have been lost if I didn’t have the guidance of the training at Wealthy Affiliate. There are many platforms that make building a site easy, however, only one that I know that:
- Makes the process easy and
- Includes training on writing content, SEO, keyword research, social media, and much more
That’s Wealthy Affiliate and you can try their Site Rubix website builder by entering a name for your website below.
Try the free trial at Wealthy Affiliate and benefit from evaluating the two free websites that are available. This way you can experience the WordPress platform, which I have found to be easy to use, very flexible, and is probably the best choice for starting an affiliate marketing business.
You will also benefit from the initial training and you will see how easy it is to build your site. Trying out the platform for free is the perfect way to assess the training and tools available. You can explore the site to see all they have to offer, you will see that it’s a wonderful community with successful internet marketers always ready to help you out.
If you decide to upgrade to a premium member, in addition to the great training and support you have hosting for up to 25 free sites and 25 premium sites, an excellent keyword tool, live weekly training classes, one on one support, and much more. Sure this has a cost, but when you pay your monthly fee of $49 per month (or $359 per year) you will have everything you need for your business and all in one place.
I have been a member for more than 15 months and I have no intention of leaving.
Affiliate marketing conclusion
Creating a successful affiliate marketing business takes time, a little money, and lots of hard work and determination. Don’t believe any program that tells you it’s easy and you will earn a fortune in a few weeks, it’s not possible. Therefore, you mustn’t give up your day job right away.
That said, there is no reason why you shouldn’t earn some money with your business. The most important thing for me is you must never give up. Be patient and keep working, the rewards will come.
I would love to hear from you if you have any experience with affiliate marketing or with any other online work from home jobs you have tried. Or if you have any questions or observations leave them below and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Thanks for reading,
Peter
Hi Peter, I have a website and I had it set up with wordpress. I have affiliates but have not had the time to blog. I guess if I just blog I may make a little cash but not much.
Hi Lisa,
To make money from a blog you need to add content. The amount you make will depend on you getting some good search engine positions and then traffic. This starts with keyword research then writng your content and finally carrying out the on page SEO.
If you successfully carry out these steps you can get your posts to rank and you can earn money from your affiliate links.
Best of luck,
Peter
Hi. Peter. Thanks for the article. Affiliate marketing indeed is a big source of income for website owner’s with maximum visitors. But do you really think it is good for newbie blogger & website owners..? it is very hard for them to promote any kind of affiliate product with new websites.
Hi Aptha,
If someone is prepared to work and put in the time and effort then I think affiliate marketing is a great way for a newbie to earn money online. I think one of the hardest things to get people to understand is that this takes time, many people give up after a few months because they haven’t earned any money from their website. Starting to earn some money in 6 months to a year is realistic. Promoting affiliate products isn’t hard but with a new website as I said it takes time to build trust. If your visitors don’t trust you and see you as an expert then you probably won’t make any sales.
Thanks for dropping by,
Peter
Hi Peter
I really like the home office image that you showed on your article. I wish mine could look like that. Is it your office?
Working from home has its benefits but the nice thing that I like about affiliate marketing is that if you keep creating more articles every day, then your income will grow.
That is a proven fact.
Hi Viljoen,
It’s a nice picture, but alas, my office doesn’t look quite like that. Working from home is great and it has many advantages. However, to be successful you have to keep working and like you say, if you have an affiliate marketing business, you should keep adding content to your website whenever you can. This is especially true when you’re just getting started. If you do this overtime you will see the benefits and your income should grow steadily.
Thanks for your feedback,
Peter
Hi Peter, earning from home is always a great challenge for everyone. But, you’ve made it very simple.
Hi Tamil Arasan,
I think the step by step process of setting up an online business and earning from home can be made quite simple. People can definitely learn the different steps with a good training program. The challenge for me is the amount of work you have to put in, the time it may take and having the determination to continue for several months even though you are not earning any money.
Many people create websites, do their keyword research and add content with a call to action. That means they understand the process, however, they are never successful simply because they give up.
Thanks for your visit and best wishes for the New Year.
Peter
Same to you Peter. Good times ahead!
Hi Peter! Great Article! Working from home is my dream job! I really agree with everything you said. At home you can work on your own pace and time. Most especially there is no boss that constantly scolding you. However I don’t know where to start, Can you help me with it?
Thanks John,
Working from home is a great way to earn a living. Yes, you can work when you like and around your family commitments, but you must be determined and put in enough hours to make your business successful. It’s true not having a boss chasing after you is another of the great advantages.
To get started John, I would take a look at an excellent internet marketing training program, where they take you through the different stages of building your work from home business. The training is step by step, very easy to follow and if you never give up and take action on what you learn, you will be successful. The name of the training platform is Wealthy Affiliate. If you need a hand with anything, let me know.
All the best,
Peter
Hey, Peter!
Firstly, is that your work from home office in the photo? If it is, it’s a great setup 😀
There certainly are many great pros to starting an online business at home, and I can see why some people decide to take charge of their own life!
I can also relate to some of the cons too because I’m also building an online business, and I find it frustrating when there are days I feel deflated and even days when people keep distracting me through phone calls, texts, Facebook messages and door knocking. I need to start turning my phone off and locking myself in the home office, lol.
Affiliate Marketing is the best way I know to make money online because it’s so rewarding when you work hard and get it right.
Wealthy Affiliate sounds like an awesome platform to help people start up affiliate marketing businesses and succeed online. Wealthy Affiliate is only half the battle, and the other half is putting in the time, effort, hard work and dedication to make online success to happen.
Thanks for such an insightful article into working from home, Peter!
Neil
Hi Neil,
No, unfortunately my home office isn’t quite like that yet, but I’m working on it!
It’s easy to see why working online from home is almost a dream job for many people. But we shouldn’t forget it is a job with its share of small inconveniences as you mention. We must remain focussed and not let the distractions put us off course. Locking yourself in your office might be a little drastic, although I know what you mean.
I have found affiliate marketing to be an awesome way to earn money online and I’m still learning everyday. As an online training platform Wealthy Affiliate is by far the best I have found, but as you rightly say Neil, you have to put in a lot of work to make your business successful. There are way too many people who don’t give this enough time, you might make your first sale in one month, six months or even a year. However long it takes, you must keep working on your business, if you stop you will have put in all the time and effort for nothing.
Thanks for your visit,
Peter
HI Peter. nice review. I wish someday I will have working room in my home as same as your’s picture on your site. I am newbie and I don’t know to how to be an affilaite marketing, but I after reading your article, I felt, I can do it. You gave us hope. I want to stay at home, working from home and make money from home. I am tired to be an employee. Do you will help me to achieve my goals? thanks
Hi Christian,
Working from home is great and I am sure you will be able to make it work. I would keep your job for the moment, but sign up for the best online internet marketing training I have found. If you follow the training and take action, little by little you will build your business and start to earn some money. If I can help with anything, let me know.
Best of luck,
Peter
Hi Peter,
Great post, love your Pros and Cons. What I like about working from home is getting up in the morning, having a nice breakfast, taking a little extra personal time and then plopping down to your computer to start your day.
I would agree with you about spending too much time if you are working on something that you are passionate about, but I think that’s how work should be to some degree. If you’re passionate about what you do, then the time flies by.
To me, this is much better than working at a job that requires you to get up early and rush off to work, battling traffic jams and spending a good deal of time commuting back and forth from work. Plus the extra time you have can really add to the quality of your life.
Anyways, that’s my 2 cents. Great read as always, thanks.
Todd
Hi Todd,
Yes, there are many great advantages from working at home and getting up a little later every morning is just one. I suppose, we will all have our favorite reason why working from home is good, I think my favorite is not having to commute. You cut out all those hours of wasted time travelling, in traffic jams or on public transport.
Putting in too much time if it’s something you are interested in, I suppose is easy to do and not really a problem, unless it causes friction in your family life. Perhaps the real problem is striking the right balance to spend time with your family and at the same time advance your business. This can be hard, especially when you start and you still have a full time job.
I think we can both see the advantages Todd and I wish you success with your business.
All the best,
Peter
Hey Pete what a fabulous job you have done here on the benefits of working from home you have laid out the pros and cons very well and made no outrageous promises like becoming rich overnight as some claim. I like the honest and straight forward approach you have taken and given it a dose of realism and explained that it will take hard and concentrated effort to get a home based business up and running. Focus is what is required and that takes discipline and some people may have difficulty with that when attempting to work from home. Because it is really about WORK from home no being at home. Great post and some very good advice for your readers here, especially joining Wealth Affiliate for anyone wanting to build a long term sustainable online income. 😉 .
Thanks Peter. Working from home can be great, however, I wanted to point out some of the realities, that might not be too evident to people thinking about starting a home based business. To create a successful business it takes a lot of time and hard work. As you say, you certainly have to be disciplined or you will never get anywhere. You must start with the right mindset and treat it as a job. Getting some good training will be a great advantage and the best program I have found for that is Wealthy Affiliate.
Hi there Peter,
I have yet to work from home full time, but I noticed the change of lifestyle since my transition 1 year ago. Time is precious, I choose to hang out with the people that matters, I don’t come home late anymore, I sleep early and wake up early to do my blogging work, I read more and care about economic and financial matters that influence us and most importantly, I learn to spend and save wisely.
I feel that these are positive changes that are preparing me for bigger things to come in the future although I don’t know what they are. My life is much more simple now than it was before and I think that really helps me focus on growing my online business.
Hi Cathy,
When trying to do two jobs, it’s true your time is really precious. I am in the same position as you, doing two jobs. However, both my jobs are from home so I’m lucky, but trying to balance the two is hard work and there are some things that I no longer have the time to do, like watching the TV. This was a waste of time anyway, so it’s a change for the better. If we are really focused, we can cut out little things that aren’t necessary and make more time for our internet businesses. I feel these are small sacrifices, if they lead to a successful business that in the long term will replace our normal jobs.
What I like most of all, is that although starting an online business from home is hard work, I find it really enjoyable, I wish I had started years ago!
Nice to hear from you again Cathy,
Peter
I have attempted to learn from Wealthy Affiliates but find it very difficult to follow. I find that it sends me on wild goose chases and I am not even aware that is happening until I try to find my way back to where I was. Has anyone else had this problem?
Hi Edna,
The only thing I found about Wealthy Affiliate that could perhaps be a negative point, is that there is so much information it can be a little overwhelming when you start. I don’t know if this is what you mean about being sent on “wild goose chases”, but if it is, I would say follow the step by step training at your own pace and complete all the tasks. When you’re doing this don’t let other things like Facebook or even the blogs on WA distract you.
It can also be useful to set yourself some simple goals, like one or two posts a week, something that you can achieve. It’s always encouraging when you achieve your goals. Also, don’t expect to earn money straight away, in fact, it’s a good idea to forget about that when you start. The money will come with time, but first you must build trust with your readers and that comes from writing great content.
Some people find it useful to write down what they intend to do every day. If you do this you should be realistic in what you can achieve. No point in pretending you can do loads if you only have 30 minutes per day.
Hope that was useful Edna if I can help you out any further let me know.
Cheers,
Peter
Hello, Peter. The topic of your website is one that I have a huge interest. Working online from the privacy of your home is a convenience, but we must not get too complacent, we must work hard to get it started and to make it successful. Just being comfortable is not what it’s all about.
I like your Reviews on what is recommended and what is not recommended, this is very good information. Telling the visitors that they get the proper training by enrolling in Wealthy Affiliate is another good point you have addressed. You’ve done a great job in getting this information out to the public. Thanks, Peter
Thanks Prince,
Working from home can be really great and is just a dream for most people. You’re right being comfortable is not enough, people must realize that creating a successful business from home will take much hard work and time. So many people stop after just a few months, because they haven’t started earning any money. For people who follow a good training program and don’t give up they will end up making money. You must be really determined to succeed!
Thanks for your visit,
Peter
Working at home is like a blessing in disguise. You can pick your hours, choose the days and do what you want. The perfect job. However Its going to be difficult be cause you have to be your own boss and your income is based on your effort. But if you do its the best job. Good job and hope you help inspire more to make money while at home.
Hi Richard,
It’s true, working from home can be the perfect job. If you can live a better, healthier lifestyle and be happier it must be worth it. Before starting people should really think it through, to consider the positive and negative points for their personal situation. Ideally, they could start before giving up their day job, to create an income source before handing in their notice. If already without, I strongly recommend getting an internet marketing education, this will help greatly. After that, they need to work hard, mustn’t be discouraged because there will some highs and lows, be determined and patient, success will come.
Thanks for your comment Richard,
Peter