Work From Home

When I started with my “Work From Home” online business I was all fingers and thumbs. So many sites out there saying do this and do that and do the other. I eventually settled down and realised apart from all the stuff you had to do to create websites, Blogs and all the SEO stuff to get traffic you had to get organised.

The thing I first realised was that you had to have organization. You had to organise what you need to do and what bits of software, allied products and tools you need to stay organised

The list and explanations below are essentially in order of requirement at each stage of your development towards your successful online business. You will notice that as this page progresses, software and tools become more and more sophisticated.

This managed progression to sophistication is so that the newcomer does not become overwhelmed with to much learning at the initial stages of his/her development in the online business area. Most of the tools, software and learning are free but there are some areas that I think paying for an item is better for your potential development. All the software and tools mentioned I use myself.

Before you start off there are some basic tools you need.

• Spreadsheet software.

If you already have Microsoft Excel then this can be used for cataloging your progress, listing all you URL and anything that you need to keep track of. I use it extesively for this. If you do not have it word then there is an excellent substitute that you can download for free at openoffice.org If you are not familiar with spreadsheets you can use any sort of notepad software or the like but it is essential that you have something to record your progress and organization.

• Word processing software.

If you have Microsoft Word then great. This is what I use to create anything that I want to write on my website or blog. Why? Because I can use the spell checker, the word count tool and the AutoSummarize tool. I will be explaining how to use some of these in a later page. If you do not have Microsoft word then there is an excellent substitute that you can download for free at openoffice.org

• Notepad.

This comes as standard with Windows and can be accessed through the programs/accessories menu. Once again you will find that Notepad is an important part of creating the content for your work from home website or blog and will be also explained in a later page.

• Graphics Software.

I use two pieces of software which I use to create banners, pictures and to resize existing pictures.

If you Have MS Word you probably have MS PowerPoint. If not that is also part of openoffice.org

One other piece of software you need is IrfanView. With this you can crop and resize any picture or graphic you already have or will obtain. It is free and can be downloaded from http://www.irfanview.net/

• Password Protector.

There are people out there that are always trying to get at peoples stuff. I live in outback Australia and do most of my business online so I find it essential that I have something that will not only hold all the links to my sites but also hold the passwords in an encrypted state. I use a free password protector and have for the past two years. It allows me to copy and paste my userid’s and passwords instead of typing them in on my keyboard, which are often prey to keyloggers. This software clears the use of the passwords as soon as it is pasted into the password field of any site I am login into. The software is called “Keepass” and can be downloaded from http://keepass.info/

The above is the minimum you should arm yourself with before you even start learning what you need to do to start your work from home online business. There are other things you need but we will not bring them up yet until you have learned to create your first “Work from Home” blog.

Yes a “Work-From Home Blog. That is what I have started with. I am not going to teach you here how to do that. There are some very good courses you can subscribe to. I subscribed to one not because I needed to but I wanted to make sure that it covered step by step how to create a Blog using “Wordpress”. Wordpress is a completely free blog engine that is very easy to install. Setting it up to work efficiently to advertise your online business is another thing. That is why I recommend this course. It is called “Start Your Profits Today” and more information can be obtained at “Earn and Learn”

This course will take you from nay to yeah in creating a money making blog and is a good grounding to creating your “Work From Home” Blog. On the other hand you can go to http://wordpress.org and see what you can learn there. You will have lots of fun and may or may not have speedy progress.

The other two things you need for starting your “Work From Home” Business is a domain name. This should reflect what sort of business you are going to get into on the Internet. Help on this is in the course. There are suggestions where to get this. It is up to you but I use http://www.namecheap.com, which is better than the name implies. You should always procure you domain name before signing up for a webhost.

You also need a webhost and once again the course goes through this in detail although I think the hosting suggested in the course is a bit expensive for what you get. I have written a page called “Best Website Hosting” on other types of webhosting for your assessment. I have also always maintained that a person should keep their domain name supplier different than the webhost supplier. This I have done for all my hosts and domain names.

The above is all you need to start off. The course mentions other things that you need to do and I will cover them later. The Next page I will write will cover the tools you need to generate your content for your website and for researching words that are keys to getting your site visited.