Work at Home Ideas and Resources

Here you'll find work at home ideas, leads, and legitimate business opportunities. The purpose of this article is to help anybody with the desire to find a telecommuting job, start their own business or simply make some extra income. Don't expect someone to make you rich overnight, you have to work hard towards achieving your goals. Get ready to invest a lot of time and energy, be consistent in your efforts, and most importantly don't give up! When there's a will there's a way. Success might not come right away but if you work hard enough eventually it will happen for you.

Ideas you can do from home

As I've come to realize the only legitimate business from home is pretty much the one you start yourself. It doesn't have to be expensive and doesn't necessarily require an investment. Remember, any employer who asks you to pay in order to hire you is trying to scam you. After all, when did you go to a job interview and they asked you to pay "a one-time fee of 19.95" for joining their team of assistant managers, for example? Sounds absurd, doesn't it? Unfortunately Internet opened the doors for all kinds of fraud and people who are trying to cheat us every day and take our money. So here are some ideas you can try on your own, most of them do not require any investment.

1. Start selling on EBay. Lots of people do it every day, and you don't need any special skills. Basically anyone can do it. Lots of people make a living from EBay.
To start off just find stuff around the house that you don't need-clothes, toys, furniture, electronics, small appliances, etc. You can get items to sell from the local garage and yard sales, thrift shops, also you can buy wholesale and sell separately later. A good site to buy wholesale from is Liquidation.com .
You'll be amazed at what people would buy! Of course you need to be consistent in your efforts and not give up even if success doesn't come right away.

2. Childcare: Open your own daycare. If you love children and taking care of them this is a great opportunity for you. Many stay-at-home moms choose this option because they can watch their kids while working at the same time. You have to be reliable, knowledgeable, patient in order to consider this job. Find out if you need to be licensed in your state to provide these services.

3. Cleaning Services: There's a great demand for cleaning services, and this demand will only increase in the future. To do this job you need to have good communication and organizing skills, and be a leader - running a crew requires a lot of energy.

4. Consultant / Planner: Are you good at planning? Believe it or not a lot of people need help planning - from every-day things to weddings and diets. If you have a great mind for details and like to help people this job might be just for you. Especially popular is the dietary consultant job - weight loss, general health, dietary habits - personalized (and paid for) help and advice in those areas are more and more in demand.

5. Blog for money: Create your own blog and put ads in it. If your content is interesting and useful people would want to read it. Driving traffic to your blog is essential for your success as a blogger. You can find more information on that in the advertising and marketing section of this article.
A great site to get the basics from is Problogger .
As of ads for your blog you can check Google Adsense , Chitika eMinimalls , Yahoo Publisher Network .

6. Build your own website: Even if you don't know anything about web design nowadays it is so easy to create a website with the free templates many sites offer, and free hosting. Some of them are:
Interspire.com
Webtemplateszone.com
Templatesbox.com
Mastertemplates.com
Bravenet.com
Freewebsitetemplates.com
20m Free Web Space - free hosting
Freespaces.com
Yahoo! GeoCities
100webspace - free hosting
A great book to learn from is "Dreamweaver MX Complete Course" by Joyce Evans. It's very comprehensive and easy to understand. It comes with a CD and tutorials. That's in case you want to actually be able to design websites.
Again, write useful content; place ads - you can also invite companies to advertise on your website if they like it; if you have any hard to find and valuable information published you can charge readers for viewing it - many webmasters do.

7. Online Store: Open your own online store. Decide what you want to sell, research your competition thoroughly, find a product that's in demand and not too many people offer it. Is there something you can make yourself? Clothes, crafts, home made goods? People are always looking for original and one-of-a-kind products. Some of the most popular are gift baskets, scented candles, and personal cards. Or you can buy wholesale and resell items individually.
You can also open your own online store at CafePress.com as long as you are creative and want to promote your designs. It's completely free.

For many more home based business ideas visit Enterpreneur.com .

Extra Income

This is a database of companies' websites which are hiring, as well as affiliate and referral programs that actually pay you. After months of searching I've found these ones to be real.

TreasureTrooper.com - By doing cash offers you can easily make some extra pocket money. Depending on how serious you are you can even make more than that - some members earn $800/a month. Great site if you have lots of time on your hands.
Cashcrate.com - Works the same way as TreasureTrooper.
PCWorkathome.net - Offers a database of jobs online
Jobvertise - Offers a database of jobs online
Lead Growth - Apply for an independent contractor
SweetCupcakeCandles - Free to join, you get your own website for free, and you can start selling products immediately.
WestAtHomeAgent - apply for a West at Home Agent
WAH jobs - leads for jobs from home
Freelance Jobs - Getafreelancer.com offers a variety of projects
AssociatedContent.com - if you like to write you can submit your articles to AC and get paid for them
Bidascript - freelance jobs
TranslatorsBase.com - Get freelance projects if you know a foreign language
AlpineAccess.com - apply for a job - answering the phone
LiveOps.com - apply for a live-op
Scent-Sations - become an affiliate
WAHM.com - Great source of information, job boards and forum
Guru.com - Get freelance projects in your email for free
Qualitybase.com - affiliate program
SuveySavvy - take surveys in your free time and get paid
Winner2fortune - Tips and leads for earning extra money
It pays to learn - earn cash and awards
Dion Data Services - data entry positions
Cognigen - Become a salesperson; receive a free website, free support, free training
Mommyportal - work from home resources
Bizymoms - affiliate program
Seed Strategy - Marketing Communications
Avon - Become an Avon Representative ($10 fee for catalogue and training materials but at least we are 100% sure they are real); voted #1 company to work for (for women)
Sunoasis - jobs for freelance writers
Tjobs - telecommuting jobs
Freelancewriting.com - writing jobs

Advertise

Advertise your business. Promotion and marketing is a key factor for success. You might have a great business but if nobody knows about it what's the point?
You can place a free ad on Craigslist.org
Many people read it and you can get great results.
Print brochures, business cards, catalogues and promotional materials and give them out. Advertise in your local paper - an inexpensive way to let people know about you and your business. Send out emails - a proven way to get you some customers. Give out small free prizes - after all, who doesn't like getting stuff for free?
If you have a website you'll need traffic - list it in Yahoo , Google , and all other main search engines. Here are some advertising resources:
RealBusinessLeads.com

Scams

As I mentioned above beware of scams and don't pay any money for getting hired. They should pay you, not the other way around.
If that happened to you though you should report them immediately. One way to do it is here: Rip-off Report.com
You can also file a complaint with Internet Crime Complaint Center .
A great forum to visit is Scam.com - you can find information on pretty much every scam company.
Don't fall for those "fully-automated" money-making systems - the only people making money from them are their owners. I personally don't know and haven't heard of anyone who has become rich that way.