Work at home articles, Home Business advice

Lots of Work at Home Opportunities, but none of them are easy

by Rick Hendershot, Small Business Marketing Resources, Linknet Small Business Library

Things have changed quite a bit since the world wide web was first introduced in the mid 90s. Yes, that's correct. It has only been a decade or so since the first web browser was introduced and the first website was created.

Since then the internet has created an avalanche of would-be Work at Home Opportunities. Some of these are legitimate. Many of them are bogus. You may find it discouraging to discover that most internet "opportunities" are just attempts to sell you "info-products", and many of these products are just plain worthless. The only money they generate is for the author of the ebook.

For instance, here is an ad that says "Within 2 Hours (after reading this) You'll Know All the Steps That Goes [sic] Into Opening and Operating Your Own Successful Home-Based Medical Billing Business". This one was picked at random, so it is hard to say what it is really about. But the odds are very good that it is typical of most of the other "opportunities" one runs into from day to day.

I would wager that like so many others I have looked at (yes, some of which I have actually bought) this "opportunity" will give you nothing more than a fairly meager helping of general information that is easily obtainable in at least fifty other places on the internet or in a library. Much of the information will be too general to be useful. Some of it will be out of date. It will make recommendations that are impossible to apply, and it will recommend software that is either unavailable or hopelessly outdated.

Does that mean there are no legitimate "work at home opportunities". Not at all. It just means that there are no magic get-rich-quick work at home opportunities. It also means that if you are serious about your search, you will probably go through 10 or 20 products like the one above before you either find something that sounds legitimate and works, or you completely give up the search.

One way to avoid wasting your time with a string of get-rich-quick schemes is to talk to people who have already been through it. Check out forums like the one listed below, or talk to a small business coach, who may be able to help you find the right niche without going through all the pain of experimenting with a series of completely worthless schemes.

Here are some websites that offer Work at Home Opportunity information, advice, resources, forums, articles, and so on.

Work at Home Business Ideas and Job Opportunities
This site comes up high in Google searches for "work at home business". It also has a very high PR. Primarily used to promote the SFI affiliate program. If you want to sell tangible products using a tried and true formula SFI is definitely worth a look. Biz-whiz.com also has articles, link exchange, a fairly active forum. The site has 2000 registered members, so if you have a question you want to ask, this might be one place to ask it.

Alberta Rose Home Based Business Opportunities
This is another highly rated (by Google) work at home site. Oriented towards women. This is an example of a "content-rich" site. I don't know...do work at home people really like this kind of jumble? It looks to me as though many of the "opportunities" here are classic internet marketing: affiliate programs. You get rich by buying things: ebooks, memberships, partnership and then trying to sell them to other people. Obviously people buy this stuff. But as you can tell from the comments above, I am completely disenchanted with this kind of internet marketing.

I will do summaries of other work at home sites in some of the other articles in this series.

Rick Hendershot is a marketing consultant, writer, and internet publisher who lives in Conestogo, Ontario, Canada. He publishes several websites and blogs, including Trade Show Tips, Web Traffic Resources, Marketing Bites, SuperCharge Your Website with Power Linking, and many more.

Linknet Promotions provides online promotional opportunities.For the most current Linknet Promotions products see Linknet Promotions.

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