Work At Home Column Newsletter Launch
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VivaZine News Magazine is delighted to announce the first free issue of a new online periodical for anyone who wants to run or is already running a work at home business. Work At Home Column NewsletterThe newsletter is complementary to our sister site Work At Home Column and is available now and exclusively from the membership section of VivaZine News Magazine. |
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The Launch Issue Of Work At Home Newsletter Is Free
The WAHCN newsletter is only available by subscription but the first issue is being offered free on our Newsletter page. This first issue contains a wide variety of articles and items of interest:
- SEO explained and its impact on your marketing.
- Thoughts on home page design to maximise your sales message.
- Work at home mums and their unique issues.
- How to squeeze an office into your home.
- An introduction to WordPress.
We hope that this addition to the home business news arena will provide a valuable and ongoing service to anyone who aspires to or does work at home.
Ed @ January 1, 2010
Drop Shipping: Banishing Backorders Blues
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A downside to the otherwise perfect concept of drop shipping is that your supplier and not you is in control of the inventory. So, it is quite possible you could find yourself with a product on backorder and know nothing about it. And if you are one of the many individuals or businesses using online auctions you are potentially landing yourself in hot water if your are unable to provide your customers with their products. Drop shipping is one of the foremost business models that people use to make money online and is particularly suitable to make money on eBay and similar auction websites but there is the ever present possibility of frequent backorders.
The Drop Shipping Backorder Conundrum
The fact of the matter is that stock levels cannot be guaranteed. This is a basic truth in the world of drop shipping. It’s a disadvantage that is more than offset by the advantages of drop shipping. Once the frequency of backorders is reduced the benefits of drop shipping will be that much greater.
There are four simple ways to reduce the occurrence of backorders in any drop shipping business.
Check Quantities On Hand
Monitoring the quantities on hand (QOH) is the important first step. Some drop shippers provide tools that allow their sellers to monitor stock levels. If you are able to monitor stock level trends then do so before listing an item. Normally, you will only list items that have a high number in stock. But also consider the rate at which an item is selling and if it has a low quantity on hand but is selling slowly then it can still be listed.
Take Advantage Of Shorter Auctions
You can list items with extremely low stock by using three day auctions. The shorter auction makes it more likely you will sell the item before the stock runs out. You shouldn’t be concerned about any loss of business due to using a short auction because there is no evidence to support that conjecture and the last 24 hours normally will be the busiest for viewing and bidding, regardless of the duration of the auction.
Terminate The Auction When QOH Reaches Zero
You should continue to monitor stock levels throughout an auction and especially if levels start to fall. If an item drops to zero then it will cause you endless problems if you have sold it after that point, so cancel your auction as soon as the stock level reaches zero.
Drop Shipping To Yourself To Get Stock On Hand
One way to prevent backorders being a problem is to drop ship items to yourself and build your own inventory. It’s worth bearing this in mind for items that are your best sellers. You don’t need large quantities, just one or two to bridge the gap, irrespective of the number of auctions you are holding for the item. When an item becomes out of stock you can use your own inventory while closing any other auctions until the item is restocked.
Regular checking of your drop shipping stock levels and monitoring them during auctions will ensure you keep backorders at an acceptable level and maintain your ability to fulfil your drop shipping orders.
Ed @ October 20, 2011
Telecommuting – A Work At Home Olympic Sport?
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The UK government has given London workers an early reminder about the 2012 Olympics when recently it suggested they should work from home and use telecommuting to ease the pressure on local transport systems during the Games. This brought a rapid response from the Institute of Directors who offered their own advice to Mr Hammond suggesting he should concentrate on delivering a viable transport system and let London businesses decide on when and how their employees work.
On Your Marks, Get Set, Go Telecommuting!
Telecommuting has been extolled as the way to improve the lives of the working person by taking advantage of advances in telecommunications technology and reducing the need to commute to their offices. And who wouldn’t be attracted by that scenario with its promise of a commuting free life and being only 60 seconds from the office?
According to the CBI nearly 50% of UK firms are providing work at home opportunities and the trend is set to continue.
British Telecom was one of the pioneers of telecommuting and 15,000 of their employees are now working from home for at least part of their working week.
HSBC have 35,000 workers in the UK but only 15,000 are able to work from home and these do not necessarily do so all of the time. HSBC still need staff to look after their branches and their customers support centres but for many admin jobs it’s possible to arrange for their employees to work at home, in which case the necessary equipment is provided. In return the company gets improved levels of productivity and loyalty with lower rates of absenteeism.
The Telecommuting Conundrum
More people should be working from home but why aren’t they? Because not every job fits the bill. Not every sector of the UK economy is suited to telecommuting, the prime examples being retailers and manufacturers. And some sectors which might seem to be suitable are excluded because of the cost of providing secure access, call centres being a prime example.
The current and previous governments have all been active in talking to employers to get them to provide a more flexible working environment, in particular for carers and parents (who have such rights already) but the present government is now proposing to extend the legislation to cover all workers, which has annoyed some employers.
The UK Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, has gone on record suggesting that in order to avoid traffic meltdown during the 2012 Olympics, London workers should embrace telecommuting, but the Institute of Directors has responded by telling Mr. Hammond that he should leave businesses to decide on how their employees should work and that he ought to concentrate on getting the transport facilities in place.
Research has show that productivity levels are higher when working at home and the widespread ownership of computers, mobile phones and internet broadband has simplified communicating with colleagues. The benefits are self-evident. The telecommuter is free from the hassle of commuting and can reap the benefits of saved time, less stress and reduced impact on the environment. There is often some flexibility in a telecommuter’s day to enable them to work around family commitments, such as picking up the children from school, which eases their domestic pressures.
However, there are some negatives to telecommuting, the primary one being loneliness from working by yourself for most of the day in your study or living room. Telecommuters need to have regular one to one sessions with their manager in order to maintain their focus and to keep their work profile high, to ensure they don’t get forgotten. Another major problem is what the telecommuter does if their internet connection or computer fails because they will be left exposed, whereas in the office there is someone available to fix it immediately. One way of resolving these issues is to have a flexible working arrangement with staff sharing office and home working, perhaps on a shift basis.
There is plenty of evidence suggesting that home workers have a higher output than their office colleagues but despite that there are many people who believe it to be a ‘jolly’ and some home workers agree that they do waste time at home. British management are still prejudiced against home working which they see as more beneficial to the employee than the employer.
The telecommuting trend will continue but it doesn’t mean the end for the traditional office, where many people prefer to rub shoulders with their co-workers, well away from their personal lives.
Ed @ October 13, 2011
RentMyItems : Monetize Your Home Items
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A new online service called RentMyItems.com that allows people to rent out their unused household items has just been launched in the U.K. and although this is not strictly a work at home business it could provide another source of income for many people.
The idea is the brainchild of Warren Heal who launched the new RentMyItems service on 21st September with his RentMyItems.com website. Warren says “Who doesn’t have something they own that is under-used, or want the use of something but cannot justify the cost of buying their own? We could make money from lots of things we own if we rented them out, and at the same time do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint”.
RentMyItems.com Service
Registration to the service is free for rentors and they can also list their items for free for the first two months, during which time they can earn money by renting to people in their local area.
After two months the RentMyItems.com website will charge a small fee per listed item, currently £1 per month for a single item with a sliding scale based on the listing period.
Items for rent are listed by rentors under pre-defined categories and Post Code. A search facility allows the hirer to search for an item by Town, City or Postcode plus an extended area within a fixed radius. Once an item has been located the hirer is put into direct contact with the rentor who come to agreement between themselves and RentMyItems.com takes no further part in the transaction.
Is RentMyItems.com Safe?
RentMyItems.com are promoting their site as a safe and friendly environment. Rentors have full control over the renting of their items and are under no obligation to enter into any agreements unless they are completely happy with the transaction. Rentors can also charge a deposit to increase the security of the transaction.
RentMyItems.com provide a feedback service which allows hirers to rate the service they have received and to write comments, which are then made available to other users of the site.
So, if you have any unused but working equipment tucked away in the attic or skulking in the garage then get them out, dust them off, and list them on RentMyItems.
Ed @ September 30, 2011
Fine Tuning Work At Home Web Content
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Your work at home business website must be built on well-proven design principles that have stood the test of time for thousand of online businesses. Your website will develop its own ‘personality’ according to its purpose, how it is constructed and the content it is populated with, but its characteristics must never detract from the expectations of its visitors nor conflict with the rules that ensure your business stays on the right side of the search engines.
For example, if your website description or name suggests that your site is aimed at particular topic but much of your site’s web content is about another subject then it will confuse your visitors and deter them from staying.
Orchestrating Rich Content For Your Work At Home SiteIf your visitors don’t understand what your site is about then there’s a good chance that the search engines won’t, and they will reduce it’s ranking accordingly. Search engines use ‘spider’ technology to find keywords in your web content that help them understand its purpose by matching repeated words and phrases. |
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Each increase in the number of keyword matches will trigger an increase in your site’s ranking. This increased ranking will result in your site being seen more frequently by people using the search engines to find the information, product or service your work at home business is offering.
Search engines use ‘keywords’ in the content of a site to determine these matches, so before you develop any content you should write a list of keywords that define the purpose of your online business. A good example of how this might work for a fishing site for example, would be to use keywords such as coarse fishing, salmon fishing, fly fishing, competition fishing etc.
Your website must be relevant to your visitors’ search phrases, to the search engines matching those phrases to your website and to you. When you’re clear about your site’s purpose and you are building a list of keywords you’ll probably need some help, so you might want to think about visiting the following site:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
This site allows you to input the keywords that best describe your work at home business. In return it gives you a selection of keywords or phrases that you might use to enhance the website content that describes your business.
Producing Good Work At Home Web Content
If you are uncomfortable with content writing you could use the services of a specialist in website copywriting or article writing. Hiring freelance writers will ensure that you add professional and comprehensive content to your site. Visitors to your website will be put off by spelling mistakes or obviously silly errors, a situation that using a professional writer can avoid. A good writer should be able to work in tandem with you to create high quality website content from your own ideas about your business. Tell your writer the keywords and phrases that you want them to use before they start their writing. It would also be a good idea to create multiple articles for individual keywords or phrases so that you have a supply of future website content.
When it comes to putting content on your website it really is essential to plan ahead using your work at home business knowledge. Build your main product pages and then add the necessary navigation options to every page on your site.
It should be easy for your visitors to find your site’s most important information. Adopt a two-clicks maximum approach to guiding your visitors to their destination. Your site (and your online business) will be of little use if your visitors cannot find the information they are looking for, so make sure you have a proper navigational structure in place.
If your site doesn’t have some navigational structure then it will be of little use because your visitors will not find the material they are searching for.
Make certain that your visitors can easily link back to the home page of your work at home site.
Ed @ September 26, 2011
Crafting Work At Home Web Content
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This article is a follow-up to a previous article covering the basics of building a website that will promote your work at home business in a professional way.
One further thought on this aspect is that some marketing professionals believe that having a badly presented site is worse than having no site at all, so investing time and effort in building your website is essential for a successful work at home business.
Your website not only needs to persuade visitors to buy from it but it also get them to keep returning and the best way of achieving that is to provide interesting and well-written content.
| If you trawl the internet often enough you will come across many websites that look good but don’t really have anything of real interest to persuade visitors to return and so make the site viable.
In order to provide the right content you have to know your potential buyers and keep your focus on their needs throughout your site. If you don’t your main audience will not see your site as relevant and leave. |
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Having identified your audience you must then create the right content for them, including related topics or products that might be of interest. Your content will need to be refreshed and expanded regularly so that your visitors keep returning.
And on that subject, a lot of website owners are now using forums and blogs to reach their market. It is simple to implement a blog or forum and is particularly effective because it maintains the interest of your visitors who post comments and opinions. However, contributors shouldn’t be allowed to deviate too far from the topics that your website is focused on, so you will need to moderate the content.
Your Work At Home Web Content Can Earn You Money
Your visitors are either looking for information or wanting to buy products. You can make money from information seekers by providing links to resources and products that will pay you if your visitor buys.
Another way of making money is to add a shop to your site that provides specialist goods related to your work at home market. If building an online shop doesn’t appeal to you then you can make an affiliate arrangement with existing online shops and earn commissions from sales made to your visitors from links placed on your website.
When the initial setup costs of your website have been paid and unless you have money available for support, you will need a short-term income while your business is building up, and you can get this by setting aside part of your site for advertising space that you sell, as long as those adverts relate to your work at home business.
These options are not necessarily going to make you rich but they do add value and maintain the interest of your visitors.
Designing Your Work At Home Website
Planning and mapping out the pages of your website is an essential exercise and as well as those needed purely for business, you will need to include pages for administration. The most of important page on your site is the homepage.
Your homepage is your main sales page and it has to be designed so that it sells your work at home business and keeps your vistors interested in your site. Make it quite clear where they can find the information they are looking for. Your homepage must remove from your visitors’ minds any thoughts about leaving your site.
The following pages are mandatory for any business website and should be listed in a menu on every page of your site, especially the homepage:
- Contact Us
- About Us
- Terms Of Business
- Privacy Policy
The names used above are fairly universal because they are succinct and describe the purpose of each page. You will of course be creating many other pages for the content relevant to your work at home business.
You must provide easy and obvious navigation on your website so that visitors can find the information they are after within a couple of mouse clicks. You mustn’t risk them wandering around your site in a vain attempt to find information, otherwise they will get fed up and leave, and probably never to return.
Too many flashing images or brightly coloured text will be disconcerting to most of your visitors so unless there is a strong marketing reason for using them – don’t.
Your textual content is an area where you need to apply some fairly rigid ‘rules’ and in particular in maintaining the same look and feel across your website. You should be using universal fonts such as Arial (sans serif) and Times New Roman (serif).
A Don’t And A Do
Having spelling mistakes on your website is a disaster and looks exactly like what it is – unprofessional. Use a spell checker to verify your text for grammar and spelling then get somebody else to read through each of your web pages before you add them to your website.
It’s important to remember that when writing the content for your website you should invest some extra time to add in appropriate keywords so that it is search engine friendly. An experienced writer can help you produce excellent material that complies with all of the requirements discussed above and you will have made a sound investment in your work at home business.
Ed @ September 25, 2011
