quickbooks

If you are looking for a great program to help you with your bookkeeping needs for your work-at-home business, I suggest that you take a look at Quickbooks.

Quickbooks is such a valuable tool for me. I use it to do all of my invoices. I can even email the invoices directly to my clients through Quickbooks or I can print them out to be mailed. I can then enter my payments received. I also use Quickbooks to keep up with business mileage. This is great when tax time comes around.

I can even put my bank account and credit card information in Quickbooks and keep track of all of my transactions.

I could not begin to go over all of the Quickbooks features. It has so many, but if you are starting a business, Quickbooks can definitely be a valuable tool for you as well.

start your own blogging business review

I have previously mentioned Start Your Own Blogging Business by the Entrepreneur Press and J.S. McDougall, but it is worth more time than I have given it.

Start Your Own Blogging Business is by far the most informative book that I have read in a long time. I feel like most books are usually so vague, and tell me things that I already know, when I am usually searching for answers. That is not what this book does. It gives answers to all of the questions that I had about blogging.

The book is divided into five chapters, which are as follows:

• Chapter 1: "Planning Your Blog"
• Chapter 2: " Publishing Your Blog"
• Chapter 3: "Profiting from Your Blog"
• Chapter 4: "Becoming a Business"
• Chapter 5: " Final Thoughts"

Every chapter is very informative to me, but the most helpful is chapter 3. It gives information on how to begin your blog, generating traffic, and creating revenue. These are the things that people want to know about most often, and it does a great job addressing each topic specifically. It tells you where to go and what to do! Finally!

The book is not too long, only 88 pages (excluding the glossary and index), and it is an easy read. It took me no time to read at all, mostly because it kept me interested. For only $12.21, this book is well worth the money. So, if you have an interest in running a blogging business, grab this book. You won't regret it!

business in a bad economy

You may be asking yourself how you could possibly start a business with the decline of the economy. How could you possibly make any money?

Well, you can. Have you ever heard the terms cyclical and non-cyclical? I learned about these terms when I was learning about investing. Cyclical stocks are simply stocks that usually go up and down with the economy. These are stocks that are often times "luxury" items. They are items that people do not need. Therefore, if the economy is bad, they may give up these items for a little while.

For example, if you have been considering purchasing a new boat, but the economy goes down and your money gets a little tight, you will probably hold off on buying that boat for a while.

On the other hand, non-cyclical items are things that are considered a necessity. A few of these things include: food, water, electricity, prescription medicine. These are things that people must have and are not likely to stop purchasing.

So, how can this information help you? Well, apply this information to your business. The economy is not looking very good right now. In turn, you may want to consider focusing your business on products or services that people have a hard time living without.

Think about what you can do to help people in this bad economy. What is something that people really need that you are able to provide? Not only will you be helping people, hopefully, you can make a little money at the same time.

search engine optimization

Are you wondering how to obtain that top spot for your site on the big search engines? Well, I can assure you, it is not easy. Actually, unless you've got lots of money to spend, that top spot may just be impossible.

I know. I should be encouraging!

I am not saying to quit trying. You may be able to do it, but something that you can definitely do is get on that front page of listings! That is still VERY good.

My first words of wisdom to you on this is to do your research, and when you think you know everything there is to know about search engine optimization, start again. Why? SEO changes constantly. There seems to always be something new - a new way of optimizing or a new way the search engines rank sites.

There is no way possible for me to tell you everything about SEO in this blog. With that said, I am going to give you a few tips:

• Create quality site content.
• Research good keywords for your site (Use keywords that people search for, but keep in mind how many other sites already have these keywords. I love www.keywordtracker.com. They even have a free trial).
• Use these keywords often in your site, but don't get ridiculous. Use them in your page titles, file names, image names, etc.
• Do not run your words together in your file names. Use a hyphen (not an underscore).
• Try to get other sites (relevant to your topic) to link to your page.
• Finally, submit your site to directories and search engines!

There is so much to say about search engine optimization. I could go on forever. The most important thing is to just to your homework. Good luck!

starting your work-from-home biz - yikes!

Starting a work-from-home business can be very difficult. You still have the other exciting elements of your life, such as laundry, cooking dinner, PTA, driving kids to school, and my personal favorite - paying the bills!

While you may not want to give up these thrilling components of your life, you may have to be kind enough to share them with other members of your family. Remember, no matter if you are man or woman, you have certain responsibilities in your life, but it is okay to ask for help. Your family and friends care about you. I am certain that they want you to be happy. They want you to be fulfilled.

Just ask for help. Call a family meeting, and explain to your family what you want to do. They will love to fill included. Then tell them that you are going to need a little extra help from each person. Make a list, and assign everyone with tasks. Hopefully, they will be ready to pitch in and help.

Just remember - Even though you sometimes believe you have superpowers, you are not superwoman (or superman). Besides, you will need those powers for other things, such as MARKETING!