My Work From Home Kids
While on the verge of doing work from home one day, I came across a forum post tackling about one of the major challenges faced by home-based working parents – their kids. Curious and interested, this bubbly brain of mine decided to read on and engulfed a lot of funny yet meaningful experiences and lessons brought about by people torn between their work from home and parenting.
Chances for the said situation to become part of my reality are by far low, if not very low as of now. Still, I can only imagine what they have to go through as they try to make sure their kids don’t come in the way of their work from home. But then, even if I don’t have to deal with “Mom, I’m hungry!” or “Dad, can we play ball?” stuff, there are other species of ‘kids’ I have to live through right now and probably, you know or might have known them too.
Kids on the block
Friends. Romans. Countrymen. Yes, at the height of your work, they pop in and say “Watcha doin’?” or “Hey girl! Wazzup?” And there goes Mr. Focus flying away like a bird that was freed from its cage with no intentions of coming back whatsoever. That’s just the start. Wait till you find yourself drifting away from the computer and being stuck in a long, long conversation you’re not even aware of. Hypnosis. Totally. Or you may still be in front of the monitor but doing a different thing like searching for celebrity news, playing some online games or checking out your MySpace accounts with your friends. The ending? These kids from your neighborhood (peers for short) eventually get tired or realize that they have interrupted you far too much or have something else to do that they pop out from the scene as quickly as they appeared. This leaves you just hanging there, slowly recovering from the sudden outbreak and coming to your senses and to your work from home.
Kids that really hurt
Kid, a verb synonymous to “gull” and “fool” to which my point is one hell of a challenge people of the world wide web face everyday. They range from smalltime pranks by someone who just enjoys irritating others to serious, intentional scams, hate mails, spams and all by those greedy and mischievous. Stop kidding us, will you?
Kids at heart
One person to deal with is yourself and the kid in you. That kid who wants to play instead of work. That kid who wants to do something else other than work. That kid who tends to be lazy sometimes. That kid who wants to go out and bathe in the rain. That kid who is so simple and innocent not minding the harsh world beyond. Sigh! Sometimes, it’s just hard to create a balance.
Real kids or not, we have one way or the other to deal with how they affect our entire work from home. As long as we stood firm with our goals, we’ll be fine. Oh what the heck! Who am I kidding?
Forum Post meets Article
For those who are into article marketing or article writing as their work from home or part of it, it’s important not to mix up things that should not be mixed up like articles and forum posts.
One fine moment when I was on the verge of my work from home experience specifically crawling through forums, I happen to stumble upon one thread which quite caught my attention. It was around 400-500 words and occupied most of the screen space plus you need to scroll down a bit to read the remainder of it. Well, maybe it was just a really long inquiry on something or an update packed with details that can’t be missed out. So, I read on. To my surprise, it WAS an article and the added irony is that it’s about article writing or article marketing.
The article versus forum post issue has been on the edge of debates and discussions for quite some time but the majority seems to be in favor of putting a thick line between the two. What’s for forums should be for forums and what’s for blogs or sites should be for blogs or sites. Period.
But how does a forum post differ from an article? The world wide web offers a quick rundown of their differences.
Length
Usually, articles consist of not less than 300 words. Articles with 400-700 words are said to be very effective and have greater chances of being approved in article directories and be read thoroughly by online readers. On the other hand, forum posts are generally shorter since they only ask something, give an answer or generate a brief topic to be discussed most of the time. Yet, this doesn’t apply always because forum members oftentimes post an inquiry with numerous questions in it and some added text that the words may sum up to more than 200 or 300. Also, when forum people provide answers to these long inquiries or information on a topic, what more or less happens is that their posts tend to be quite lengthy too or shall I say more detailed. Of course, that’s understandable. However, if forum posts can have as many words as those of the articles or even more, the latter can never be less than 250 words for the directories will surely turn them down. We don’t want that to happen to our work from home, do we?
Structure
Forum posts are somehow casual and conversational in tone but nonetheless informational. Articles are more often than not formal in nature and have several known and distinguished elements which include the headline, the lead, the body and the conclusion. But when it comes to forums, one doesn’t have to bother thinking what headline fits appropriately or how to conclude this and that. You just type it away, hit the ‘Reply’ button and that’s it.
Purpose
The common purpose of articles and forum posts is to provide links leading back to your site. Specifically though, forums are haven for inquiries, answers, opinions, suggestions and discussions. Meanwhile, articles exist mainly to attract readers through its content which may be informational, entertaining or both.
Maybe this forum-post-and-article-confusion is no big of a deal for some. But you just can’t afford to take for granted every important detail in your work from home no matter how small or huge it is, right?
Work From Home ‘Sin-narios’
While we enjoy the wonderful perks of work from home opportunities, we tend to acquire a mindset that is not too healthy nor too acceptable. I’m not trying to be biblical or whatever but, in a way, the home-based online business world becomes too much of a deal that it gets the best and, apparently, the worst in all of us.
The Sloth Scenario
“Yes! Now that I work from home, I don’t have to wake up early and rush to the office. Ho-hum. It’s almost noontime but I’m still sleepy. Oh well, what the heck! I’m home. I’m the boss. I think I’ll have few more hours of sleep. Tsk! It’s already 6 in the evening and I’m hungry. I still have work to do here. I’ll just grab a bite and start off. It’s just two hours but I’m already getting tired staring at the monitor trying to come up with an article. I think I’ll just take a quick nap (which ended up for more than five hours). Zzzzzzz…”
The Lust Scenario
“I’ve been researching and writing for quite some time and my eyes are getting heavier by the minute. The coffee seems no use. Maybe if I try watching ’some’ videos in the net for a while, I’ll be more awake than ever.” Need I say more?
The Wrath Scenario
“What? This was a scam? Again? I’ve been scammed ten times already. It seems like this whole work from home and make money online opportunities are nothing but a sham. Wait till I get my revenge. I’ll destroy affiliate forums with posts and replies of hatred and disgust with the idea. I’ll send several hate mails to those people. Or I may involve myself with these scams and fool others to get even. Curse you all!”
The Greed Scenario
“Wow! I never knew that work from home can provide me with this huge amount of income. I have more than enough now but I think I can still earn more so that I could buy more things. More! More! More!”
The Gluttony Scenario
“I can’t think with an empty stomach. I really need something to eat while working on these articles and this blog. What? I’m still hungry. Oh well, there are much food and drinks in the fridge and besides, this is why I decided to work from home so I can eat whatever and whenever I want to and how much.”
The Envy Scenario
“Hey! What about this kid who’s already making it big with this line of work? I also work from home but why am I struggling to have what he already has in just three months? That’s not fair! Why can’t I do that? I’ve sacrificed more than enough yet I gain nothing much but this kid whips it up with no sweat and earn a lot? What’s up with that?”
The Pride Scenario
“Nah! Those e-books and forums and stuff didn’t really help me. I’ve come this far out of my own doing. Why should I thank them? What for? I did this because I was the best and that’s it.”
Photo source: Flickr.com
Checking Out Article Checkers
The world wide web provides a huge banquet of resources that one can utilize in his or her work from home and online business endeavors. From search engine optimization (SEO) tools to article directories to URL submission sites to social bookmarking sites, whatever you need, there’s a great probability that you can find it in the Net. And yet another useful tool found is the article checker. Try articlechecker.com.
Article Checker What?
Articlechecker.com is a site that allows you to see to it that your articles’ content is genuine and original. This site is downright simple and user-friendly. It does not contain several exaggerated images and unnecessary flash animations and videos. It just directly caters to your need of checking if the articles you have written as products of your work from home aren’t a duplication of something or hasn’t been copied by others without your consent.
Article Checker Simple How-To
All you need to do once you are in the site is paste the body of your article in the text box. Then select the top search engines where you want to compare your article content from. When you hit the Compare button, the process of checking eventually starts. Afterwards, the results will be given in the form of a table with percentage. The table shows what words or phrases in your article have been found to be existing on the web and how many sites contain those words. It is said that a percentage between 5 to 15 or lower is a good sign that your articles are not mere outputs of the ever famous copy-pasting method. Numbers higher than that however is a totally different story. If that’s the case, you will need to rewrite those articles or else, you might not be able to carry out your work from home smoothly and effectively.
Why Article Checkers Exist
Since there is a strict law on copyright infringement, content duplication and plagiarism these days, the growing needs to verify the originality of an article has provoked software and site developers and programmers to come up with sites, tools and software resources that can check a write-up’s authenticity. The bottom line is to prevent content duplication for there will be not-so-great consequences if ever certain rules are breached.
Two Main Pros of Article Checkers
Basically, the benefits that article checkers offer are the offensive and defensive blow on content duplication. The defense mode can be seen as the capacity to know whether or not what you have written has striking similarities to what was already published on the web. This is possible through article checker tools and by doing so, you will be opted to write authentic articles thus shielding yourself from any possible complaints or lawsuits that may come your way. On the other hand, article checkers can be used as an offensive strategy against people who are illegally copying and editing your work or writings. You can easily track them down by using these article checkers.
It’s always best to maximize the tools that we have and put them to good use so that we could also expect the best results out of our work from home.
The Power of Three
There are surely a lot of benefits that work from home can offer. Some of these perks include being your own boss, not worrying on what clothes to wear to the office, benefits in terms of taxes, not having to travel to work, less stress, etc. But everything boils down to two very important things and that is time and income. Working from home provides you flexibility with time and larger income opportunities, be it affiliate marketing, article writing, auction selling or data encoding.
We can fully understand the profit that we can get when we work from home in the following observations:
Let’s say the world is composed of three different people from three different walks of life
Teens – they have all the time and energy but no money.
Workers – they have the money and energy but no time.
Oldies – they have all the time and money but no energy.
What was stated above is very much true. Now, what happens when we place the concept of working from home in the picture? Then there would be some changes in the scenario.
Teens who work from home either as a full-time job or part-time can actually gain a considerable amount of money in it. Since they have all the time and energy, they could use this as leverage to earn extra cash for their dates or shopping spree. Sad to say, most teens tend to possess microscopic bits of patience and they exert effort on things and deeds that are mostly useless and insignificant. That’s why there are only a few from this generation who wholeheartedly embrace doing online businesses and working from home.
For workers, they need not to worry about spending more quality time with their family or friends because if they give up their day jobs and start to work from home, they will be gifted with flexible hours and a fair income or even greater. Workers undergo the most crucial stage since they work their butts off, putting a lot of time and energy in their jobs in order to get good salary and afford a decent living.
Finally, the oldies don’t have to think about exhausting energy working from home. All they have to do is sit in front of their computers, whip up a number of online marketing strategies and they’re done for the day.
Work from home proved to be as advantageous as office work and for some, better. It’s just up to you to choose what suits you best.
The True Flavor of Affiliate Marketing Success
They say you’ll be amazed how you can be successful in the affiliate marketing business. They also give you an impression that it’s unbelievably easy and a piece of cake one never expected it to be. Well, it’s quite true and reasonable when affiliate marketing experts or even novices tell you that what they’ve discovered about work from home and making money online is in its very sense superb and in a way not really that hard to deal with. But don’t be misunderstood by this. Some first-timers get frustrated when they found out the reality of being successful in affiliate marketing. So what is really the true flavor of affiliate marketing success?
When champions of this kind of online business say that it’s easy and simple, they don’t mean the effortless A-B-C or 1-2-3 thing. Nor they encourage you to have a mindset similar to that of joining a lottery or such. It’s like expecting the clouds to pour out raindrops of cash whenever you want it to. What they mean by saying easy is that it can be very surprising to reap out great results from just investing a considerable amount of time, effort and resources. Take note – a considerable amount of time, effort and resources. That is what work from home is all about.
The common misconception of everyone is that you don’t have to stretch a single muscle or move a finger when it comes to work from home specifically affiliate marketing and still, earn millions in seconds. Talk about wishful thinking. Of course, like any other areas of endeavor, one has to put in some sweat and a penny or two, maybe more if necessary. This is what you call hard work. This is where perseverance comes in. There’s no such thing as a free lunch as they say.
So one may ask, why tell everyone it’s damn easy when it’s really not? Actually, it is, if you’re a person of dreams and determination armed with good strategies and available resources. Then it’s really just a piece of cake.
Affiliate Marketing Bugs
The business of affiliate marketing and the realization of doing work from home had served a great deal of perks to a number of individuals throughout the years. It has been one of the many alternatives people turn to in generating income either full-time or just a sideline. It promises excellent results provided one is on the right track and is a certified bag of patience and hard work. Being a hub of huge and bright opportunities, it can’t be avoided that the affiliate marketing arena will also be flooded with a lot of parasites. These are persons, things or factors that prevent potential affiliate marketing champions from enjoying the success they deserve. So what really are the common affiliate marketing bugs and how do you make sure they don’t mess up with what could be your lucky break as an affiliate marketer?
Bugs as they are, affiliate marketing scams are serious pests to deal with. They are like merciless hunters waiting for those newbies who work from home to fall for their trap. These mean predators search the net for anyone who is foolish or ignorant enough to be their prey. Do not be that person! Your weapons against these rats are a bunch of research work and the right amount of skepticism. Affiliate marketing scams often exhibit the following characteristics:
They are too good to be true. Earn so much in just one night? Get rich right this instant? Unless it’s a lottery then you might be dealing with something fishy here.
They have one thing lacking or another. Check out every detail that’s needed. A legitimate affiliate program should include certain information and aspects such as a site, contact details, testimonials, products or services and others. You shouldn’t even stop at that. Dig deeper for dirt.
They have shorter life span. Usually, this kind of affiliate marketing bugs don’t last long. More or less, they thrive six months on the web and then disappear all of a sudden. Once everyone becomes aware that it’s a scam, they stop involving and eventually the program will just die away. The secret here is to try to observe which site has a longer and better track record or history.
They require some fees before giving out information. Except for multilevel marketing (MLM) which is one of the many reasons why work from home is possible, it doesn’t seem right for an affiliate program to ask payment first before allowing you to access a page, retrieve instructions or even sign up. For all you know, there might be nothing worthy behind that door. You just realized you paid for something insignificant.
Though most affiliate marketing bugs are external like these “scammers”, the real culprit lies within. Sometimes, people themselves are the ones responsible for the downfall of their work from home or online business. Here are the inner bugs that might be crawling beneath your skin:
Misconception. Some thought they knew what they were doing until they realize that they were on the wrong course. In affiliate marketing, you will know that you’re not doing right if you don’t get enough traffic which results to low or no income at all. This means that you need to change your strategies and techniques. That is if you can afford to waste your precious time, money and effort. You can always stir away from this unpleasant scenario by doing your homework well and seeking advice from reliable experts.
Level of patience and effort dropping. If you’re the type with a small threshold of patience and who isn’t that much of a worker bee, then you’ve got an affiliate marketing bug in you. Yes, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to earn a fair income or higher through affiliate marketing but that is if you have the guts. This kind of business demands a lot of hard work and patience. Extra effort plus extra time equals extra earnings all brought to you by just doing work from home.
Trigger-happy on sign-ups. There are really some hands ready to fill out text boxes and hit on the sign-up button without even knowing what or who. Why so excited? You have plenty of time to check out and study what needs to be studied. Use it. Remember, researching should always come first.
Unable to cope up. Well, you’ve got good techniques, you know what you’re doing, you’ve done your homework, you’ve got traffic and good profits but you could’ve done better. Imagine how vast the Internet is and how many competitors are there racing to the top. Will you just settle for mediocrity? Can you go the extra mile?
You can always get bugged up in any business endeavor, not just in this one. They’re everywhere and you can count on it. Nonetheless, you can always find right ways to spray on and kill these affiliate marketing bugs dead. That will surely make your work from home more productive and “bug-free”.
Welcome to work from home girl!
Hello everyone,
and welcome to work from home girl! This is the place where I’ll give tips on how you can work from home and earn cash online, just like I do every day!
More soon!
