Home Based Business-A Key to a Sound Financial Future?

Have you ever wondered whether or not it was possible to be your own boss and make a good living running your own home based business without a business degree, or any other degree for that matter? Did you know that Bill Gates was a college drop out that started his businesses in his garage? For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past twenty years, Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft and arguably the most successful human being on the planet. I am here to tell you that you don't have to be a rocket scientist, or even an English major with a Bachelors Degree in order to become a successful freelance writing business owner. A what? A freelance writing business.

A freelance writing career is the ultimate home based business. There's no overhead, nothing to sell (except yourself...and no, not in that way), no set hours, and no local business taxes to pay. The only qualifications to being successful is a little motivation, some discipline and the ability to write coherent sentences. You don't even have to be all that creative, though in certain situations, it helps.

I'm going to stop you right here for just a second. If you think that I'm trying to pitch you a get rich quick scheme or tell you a little known secret that will make you millions in just three months with no work, you're reading the wrong article. Running a successful home business requires work on your part, and lots of it. If you aren't willing to invest the time, you should probably find another article to read.

But for those of you that are left, becoming a freelance writer is pretty easy. Step one involves applying for and being approved as an online contributor to several websites. Some of the more common sites for beginners are Associated Content, Helium, eHow, Bukisa, Triond, Suite 101, Examiner, and Textbroker. As you get a little more sure footed, you can graduate to higher paying gigs such as Demand Studios and SEED.com.

Step two involves creating a production goal. As with any other home based business, you need to produce a product in order to get paid. In the case of the freelance writer, the product is articles, usually in the neighborhood of 400 words each. Depending on who you write for and how much money you need to earn, you can reasonably expect to need to produce somewhere between 5 and 10 articles per day for at least 5 days per week.

Step three involves creating readership. This process begins during content creation through the use of a technique known as SEO, or search engine optimization, however there is much more work that needs to be done in order to drive traffic to your content. First, sign up for a few social media accounts such as Twitter, Facebook or Myspace. Every time you publish an article, reference it on these sites. Your friends will be notified and will hopefully go and check out what you have to say. The added benefit is that now there is a linkback to your content, which makes it more valuable to search engines, allowing your article to rank higher on the results page. Also, join a forum or two where you can share you content with other writers. This helps drive traffic directly, creates additional linkbacks and allows your work to be viewed by your peers who can help you grammatically and structurally.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If you follow these tips, you can easily create a successful home based business as a freelance writer without ever setting foot in an institution of higher learning. While you probably won't get rich writing for the Internet, you can earn a good living and if you balance your upfront payments with revenue sharing sites, you can create a passive monthly income that will help you decrease the level of effort you exert each month.

Passion and the determination to succeed are the keys to creating a successful home based business, not a degree.