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One way to get the word out about your business is with business cards.  You can hand them out, and leave them places to get your business known.  One way to cut the cost of business cards is to create them yourself.  You can easily download some free business card software, and use one of their templates to create your own business cards.  You can then go to a place like Staples, buy business card paper, and print them yourself.  That is the most inexpensive way to go. 

If on the other hand you don’t want to make them yourself, but don’t want to pay a lot either, you can use VistaPrint.  They will send you 250 free business cards, you just have to pay for shipping.  What is the catch you ask?  On the back, it does have a small ad for VistaPrint at the bottom.  I am looking at one of mine right now, and the exact words on the back are ”Business Cards are FREE at www.vistaprint.com!”  I have gotten these myself, and am happy with them.   The quality of the card is nice, and they did a great job with the business cards.  You can choose between 42 designs, and can add the text that you like.   If you don’t want the ad, and want to be able to choose from more templates, you can pay $9.99 for their premium business cards, where you will get a choice of 300 designs.

I have found that it feels more professional when talking about your business to someone, to just take out a business card and give the person one.  Maybe that will get them to visit your website, or to pass it along to someone else.  You never know!Š

When starting your own business, sometimes it takes a little while to get things off the ground.  During that time, you might go out to eat a little less, not buy certain things that you would like, or vacation less, just until things pick up.

One way to get a little something extra with just a few minutes of work is by joining MyPoints.  They give you points in exchange for reading and clicking on their emails, which have offers from different advertisers.  You can also shop through them, but even just by getting and clicking on their emails, the points add up.  Once you get a certain amount of points, you can exchange them for gift cards to many, many places, such as Barnes & Noble, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Circuit City, Olive Garden, and so many more.

It’s really a great way to be able to “splurge” a little while things are tight.  While you might not go out to dinner often, when you get a $25.00 gift card, you can go out one night without thinking about it…or you can go buy a nice book about starting a business.  You can even use the points towards a vacation, such as Hilton HHonors points, or Hyatt or Marriott certificates. 

It only takes a few seconds of reading an email and clicking on it to get the points, but MyPoints does add up, and I’ve gotten quite a few gift cards in the past few years through them.  It does take a little while to add up, but I would say I get at least 2-3 $25.00 gift certificates a year, and love it!

You’re the boss!  I am sure almost everyone has had a job where they were told to do something that they thought was a waste of time, and didn’t make sense.  Of course, since they were the boss, you had to listen and do it.  Not when you work for yourself!  If you think something is a bad idea, you don’t do it!

You also don’t have to sit around waiting for your 7-8 hours to be up to go home.  If you want to get a certain amount done before the end of the day, and you get it done in 4 hours, you can stop after that if you want. 

It really can be great to have your own business, since all the time and effort is going into something you want.  Plus, no matter how hard you worked at your job, you probably got the same pay.  With your own business, the more you work, the more you can make!

I have to tell you, one really nice benefit to working at home is making your own hours.  While I try to work pretty normal hours, I sometimes take a break in the middle of the day to run errands.  It’s really great because if you time it right, people are at work and school, and not on lunch break.  You can go food shopping, run to the mall, or go anywhere else you need to, all without a line, traffic, or crowds.  It’s also a lot easier to make appointments for anything - doctors, dentists, to get a haircut, etc… since you can go anytime, instead of being available only a few hours each evening or on weekends.

Plus, then weekends are more relaxing, since you got those errands done in the middle of the week.  It’s not a reason to quit your job, but it is a really nice little benefit!

While this doesn’t exactly fall under the category of running your own business, it is a nice way to pick up a little bit of extra income.  There are many companies that offer Mystery Shopping jobs.  Here is a list of a bunch of them to get you started.  It’s really great.  You get to go to a store, restaurant, hotel, apartment complex, etc… and buy something, eat, or whatever makes sense depending on the store, and what they want you to check out.  You then report back to the company, letting them know about the service you received, the food (if it’s a restaurant), and things like that.  In turn, you get a small fee, or a product (if a store), or food (if it’s a restaurant).   Sometimes you get the food and a small fee, which makes it even nicer.

While it in no way could replace an income, it is a nice way to get a free meal, or pick up a few extra dollars every now and then.  You can choose the ones you’d like to do, based on their availability. 

Personally, I enjoy doing the restaurant ones.  It’s nice to get a free meal every now and then, plus I like the fact that I can report back on the service to make sure that the restaurants are offering good service.  I have to admit though, more often than not, the servers are all very kind, and I have very rarely had a problem while doing a mystery shop. 

So while this can’t exactly replace an income…while you are starting up your business, here is a way to get out for a little while, and earn a little bit of money.

You may have heard about Squidoo lately.  It’s a social website where you can make lenses on any topic, and others can take a look at it.  It’s really great for two things.

First off, you can have multiple ways to monetize your lens, and you can make money.  So you don’t even need a web site in order to make money!  There is Google AdSense, where you will get a portion of the money earned.  You can also add modules where you can earn money.  Some of these modules include Amazon products or other stores.  By spending a few minutes creating a lens, you can earn some money.

Secondly, this is a great place to advertise your websites and get traffic.  If you add links to your website, or an RSS feed, you can get people to go to your websites!

Setting up a lens doesn’t take much time, and doesn’t require any programming knowledge at all.  So it makes sense to spend the time, since you can get a lot of out it!  While I created my Squidoo lenses recently, I have already gotten some traffic out of it, and am sure I will be seeing more in the future!  In the future I will give you tips on how to get your lens to be ranked higher.

JP Schoeffel also really knows what he is talking about when he talks about AdSense, and about making money on the web.  He is the creator of Niches-In-A-Box, where every month you get 15 websites, each related to one another, so you only have to buy 1 domain name.  You also get 8 different ways to monetize the site, so it is a lot more than just AdSense!  Besides all of the articles and the template, each month you also get a special report to sell!  You also get an autoresponder, and messages you can put in the autoresponder to help get people back to your site.  I have seen a lot of JP Schoeffel’s work, and he really goes out of his way to provide great products.

Another great thing is if you aren’t ready to spend any money, he will still help you!  At the bottom of the Niches-In-A-Box Page, there are links to some of his other sites, one of them being the Ethiccash Free Internet Marketing Club.  As a member, you can get free sites that he creates that you can put up!  He also has a forum, and other information.  You can’t ask for better than that!

If you want to start earning money online and just don’t know where to start, there are many places you can get help.  See some of the programs I recommend on the sides of this page.  One I really recommend in particular is Joel Comm’s Instant AdSense Templates.  While there are hundreds and thousands of products out there, I only recommend a very few.  Joel Comm is amazing when it comes to making money with Google AdSense.  He knows exactly how to do it, and in his Instant AdSense Templates, he offers you 50 templates a month, plus 250 PLR articles. 

What does this mean to you?  It means that even if you don’t know how to program at all, you still can have up to 50 websites a month.  It also means that if you don’t know what type of content to write, you don’t have to!  You can use these 250 articles each month to populate your sites.  This is a very easy way to get multiple websites up a month, and will let you make money quickly.  With this, you can spend your limited time promoting your websites, instead of worrying about creating them!

The best types of sites to use Google AdSense on are ones that get a lot of traffic!  The more people who see the ads, the more chance you have of someone clicking on them.  If you have a website that gets a lot of traffic, you can try putting Google AdSense on it, and see how you do.

If you do not currently have a website, and aren’t sure what type of site to create, know that content sites usually do well with AdSense.  If you have a blog, or write a lot of articles, these would be great to put AdSense on.  As people read your articles or posts, they might click on some of the ads. 

In the next post, I will let you know of some ways to get a head start if you don’t have the time to create your own web sites.

One way to earn money from home, and on the web, is through Google AdSense.  In the next few posts I’ll talk about it, and how you can make it work for you.

If you have a website, you can use Google AdSense.  All you need is traffic!  If you put Google AdSense on your page, and then people visit your site, they might click on some of the ads.  If they do, you will get paid for the click!

If you have a site or sites with a lot of content on it, this is a great way to earn some extra income.  There are people who make their entire income from AdSense, but it is also a great way to add on a little bit of income to your current website(s).

Do you need to know how to program to use Google AdSense?  That’s the best part.  You don’t need to know how to program at all.  If you go through the Google interface, you will be able to easily choose what you want the ads to look like on your site.  Google will then give you the code, which you can easily copy and paste right into your website.  Then, the next time someone comes to your site, they will see your ads!

In the next post, I will talk about types of websites that are great for Google AdSense.