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Article:
My Own Online Business After A Divorce and Almost Bankruptcy by: Maria Estarellas When I got divorced, I didn't know how I was going to be able to cope with my financial responsibilities which included mortgage, car, my kids's private school plus all the other expenses related to having a family without a husband's salary. I had recently lost my full-time job, had managed to find a part-time job, and wasn't receiving any child support because we had joined custody. With all this happening at once, I was desperate to find some kind of work that I could do from home so I could pay the bills. That's when I decided to look on the Internet. I looked for information on how to start an online business, web design, how to find products to sell and everything related to having a home based business. But guess what, most of the free information available talked about getting a product, promoting it and making money but they actually didn't say how and where to find products, where or how to promote your web site and I was so frustrated that for a moment I thought about forgetting the whole thing and look for a full-time job somewhere else. At this point I knew that I only had one last chance at it so I decided to spend one more day looking for step-by-step information on how to set up your own home business. Luckily, I came across a very impressive step-by-step manual that taught me how to start my business online. If you plan to start your own online business, keep in mind that you have to invest a little money. But hey, the investment is a lot less than starting any other business. My initial investment (after having spent previously around $250 in information that wasn't worth a penny) was $296.90. This included the step-by-step manual, autoresponder, domain, web hosting and search engines. The basic steps to start your own business are: 1. What to look for first?...A Niche Market Some people think that they should look for a product first and then look for customers but in reality, it's the other way around. One of the tools that I use for this is http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ac/index.jhtml and look in the 'Search Term Suggestion Tool'. All you have to do is type a keyword and it will give you a list of related keywords that people have looked for during the previous month. You may be asking, how do I know what keywords to type? Well, I recommend you start by writing on a piece of paper the answer to these questions. What are my hobbies? What are my interests? What talents do I have? Don't leave anything out. Why things you're interested in? Because having a home based business is not only about making money but also about having fun in the process. If you're passionate about what you do, you will suceed. Once you have your keywords, then you go to Google and start writing each keyword in 'search'. You will notice numbers underneath the 'search' box. Just to give you an example, if you type the word 'home based business' you will see 'Results 1-10 of about '13
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