One of the biggest challenges which any home based business is faced with is generating targeted traffic. While there are in fact many free ways to generate the targeted traffic which is desired, they are not as readily apparent as one would hope. Others come to the conclusion that the traffic which they seek is too costly, leaving them with a very slim profit margin, if any. This is something which several online marketers often struggle with, and is often the reason why they end up abandoning their home based business.If you can get a steady flow of targeted traffic to your website, then you have it made. It goes without saying that traffic generation is likely the number one factor in the success of your home based business. If you do not have traffic, you will not make sales. Plain and simple. However, with steady targeted traffic, you will perpetually be in the profit.On a positive note, there are an abundance of methods which you can utilize to steer targeted visitors to your website. With that being said, these methods take time and effort. For instance, you might have heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at one time or the other. This is a method by which you take steps to enable your website to rank prominently in the search engines. Sounds pretty good, right? The only problem is that it takes time. Some home based business owners may be more than willing to put forth the effort, but do not have the 6 to 12 months to wait for targeted traffic so that their home based business can become successful. If this sounds like you, there are a few solutions which we will discuss below.For starters, I am going to begin with what I view as the number one solution. I rate this solution as number one because it serves a dual purpose. First, it enables you to direct targeted traffic to your website immediately. Secondly, it is a key strategy in enabling your website to rank prominently in the search engines. This strategy is what is know as article marketing. Essentially, article marketing involves composing articles which contain valuable information for your target market, the submitting these articles to several article directories and niche blogs. The reason why you will receive instant targeted traffic to your website, is because the article directories receive a high volume of traffic. Each article that you submit to the directories will include a link back to your website. Thus, readers will click this link to be taken to your website. As you may know, the search engines rank websites in large part because of the number of links which point to the website. Each article contains a new link to your website, giving it link value in the search engines.Another method which provides similar benefits to article marketing is what is known as social media marketing. This method involves submitting your writings to social bookmarking and social networking websites such as Reddit, Delicious, Mister Wong, Propeller, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Google Bookmarks, etc. Taking such steps provide you with targeted traffic to your website, one way links, as well as the branding as an expert in your field. Just make sure that what you are bookmarking is of value to your niche market, and you are not purely spamming for self serving purposes.As you can see, when it comes to steering targeted traffic to your home based business, you have some options. However, do not just go after traffic in general. Go after the traffic which comes from the niche market which your home based business caters to. In order to do this, it is essential that you identify your niche market from the very beginning. Once you have done so, show them how the products or services which you offer will solve their problems.

Home based business could save you! Changing the course of ones career is frightening. Imagine, from a secure professional life to a home based business promising nothing. You may have become an accidental online entrepreneur and have gone to like it in the process, but you suddenly stop and couldn’t believe that you’re actually doing it. So now is the time to go over and reassess the many benefits it has brought to your life:It saves your travel costsTraveling to and fro can be really stressful. This becomes even worse when you have to move from one transportation mode to another. You may have your own car yet the whooping price of gas would kill your budget in the process. But if you have a home based business, all the traveling and jostling around just to get to work will no longer be a problem. Working at home makes it guilt-free to rouse past your waking hour yet still makes up for the work you’ve missed. It saves your expensive dinesOh, those pricey menus you order under duress, those dear lunch out and steep after work night out! All those have taken a big lump sum off your salary every month. But when you work from home and manage your home based business, it is way easier to save money on your every dine. Working from home lets you have your meal at any time you want without waiting for the boss to say you can and most especially without the need to order from expensive restaurants. It saves your corporate clothesIn order to look the part, most companies require business uniforms. However, not all would give you a clothing allowance just so you can keep up with the company clothing policy. Now, this becomes a big hurdle. However, working from home doesn’t necessitate that you look your best all the time. Since you’re not going to meet people while working online, a pair of jeans, shirt and sometimes your pajamas is more than enough to get you going with your job. It saves you from unwarranted activitiesIf you work in a corporate world there’s no way to refuse extracurricular activities such as a night out, company weekend activities, team building, planning and all sorts of activities outside of your work scope. Hey, these are healthy activities, yet if it requires you to shed some bucks each time you go out, it would be the end of your savings. But if you have a home based business to keep you occupied, it’s easier to say goodbye to these leisure interests. Anyway, you can still do these things after your online work. 5. It’s a saving graceA home based business saves you from all sorts of money-spending temptations, expected and unexpected expenditures and provides you of a back up should your other offline businesses dwindle. It is such a good thing that it only requires few things – your online venture, a computer, good internet connection and YOU. Indeed, you can call it a saving grace!

When you are thinking of owning a home business, the idea of home based business statistics is going to be something that is suddenly going to be very important to you. You might not know it, but when it comes right down to it, you are going to want to be aware of several home based business statistics before you get started, because you are surely going to want to be aware of what you are getting into and what your chances for success are going to be.

What Are They?

You might be wondering just exactly what the home based business statistics that you are going to be looking for are. Well, when it comes right down to it, home based business statistics are going to be series of information that you need when it comes to home business. The home based business statistics are going to be statistics that can tell you what type of businesses work well, which types fail, and what types just do a middle of the road kind of job.

Another thing that home based business statistics is going to be able to tell you is what kid of businesses are actually out there on the market today, and what the need is for more of them. If you see home based business statistics that state that a certain type of business is doing really well, and you can’t find very many of them, it might be a good idea to get on board with this kind of home based business. However, if you see home based business statistics that state that a certain type of business is only doing okay, but that there are a lot of this type of business, you might want to stay away from it because it might be a sign that points directly to the idea of there being too many of these businesses.

How To Read Them

You are going to want to look carefully at all of the information that you can find in the home based business statistics that you are looking at. Be sure to look at the type of business, and what is good about it and what is bad about it. You are also going to want to remember that often there are reasons that you aren’t aware of for why certain businesses fail, and this information might not actually be on the home based business statistics that you are reading. It might be an idea that you have to come to on your own, but you should always be aware of the possibility that a business didn’t do well not because of the business itself, but of the people running it.

Where Can You Find Them

If you are looking for home based business statistics you are going to want to start by looking online. Remember that there are many different types of home businesses, and when you are looking for home based business statistics you are going to keep in mind that you aren’t going to be helped by home based business statistics that don’t match the kind of business you are interested in. You have to be sure that you are finding statistics that really focus on what you are doing in your own home based business, or what you are planning to do once you start one. You are always going to want to make sure that looking at home based business statistics is something that you do often, so be sure you find lots of reliable sources for them. Remember too, that not everything that you will find on the home based business statistics speaks the whole truth. If you are interested in something, you want to do more research.

I believe that it’s easier to succeed with small businesses than ever before. There are more opportunities for entrepreneurs to start small businesses today than at any previous time.

Here are some good reasons for why I believe this is true.

A) With the increase in population comes an increase in opportunities for small businesses.

Generally, a sparse population requires a small business owner to provide a wide variety of goods or services to survive. With a denser population, the small businesses can still survive by providing a very narrow range of products or services.

For example, in a smaller population a small business which provides gardening services would probably need to offer many things. Services could include general garden maintenance, planning, tree felling, lawn cutting, vermin control, pond planning and maintenance, hard landscaping etc.

With a bigger population a small business could thrive perfectly well by providing just one of these services, as there are more people who will need it.

B) The costs involved in starting and running small businesses has never been so low in proportion to income.

Technology has replaced many of the things which people used to do, and technology does the job a lot more cheaply.

Today it’s possible to reach literally millions of potential customers around the world very cheaply.

For example, only a few decades ago the cost of mailing to thousands of households was prohibitively high. Unless you had a very good product or service which sold well, a small business just wouldn’t risk it.

Another example, business premises security used to involve security guards walking around checking that all was well. Now a good security system can be bought for less than 1 week’s pay for that security guard, and it will work 24 hrs per day for years, for no pay.

C) Because modern life is so complex today, small businesses and individuals are open to new ideas, products and services like never before.

This creates a huge market for training courses, information provision services, educational aids, specialised products and services, novelties, etc.

With this great diversity come great opportunities to combine different products and technologies, thus making whole new areas of business possible.

For example, you can combine a low-light camera with wireless communications and a bird box. This means a nest may be watched remotely on a television or personal computer screen.

Another example would be to combine voice-chip technology with passive infrared technology to make it sound as though you have a huge dog indoors whenever anyone approaches your house.

In our recent history, these opportunities just didn’t exist.

D) It may not feel like it, but many people today have a lot more leisure time and a higher disposable income than in any previous age.

This spare income (and with the current attitudes to loans, a little more besides) tends to get spent on sports, games, hobbies, crafts, amusements, entertainments, holidays and weekend breaks etc.

This creates many opportunities for the entrepreneur to start up small businesses to satisfy all this extra demand.

E) To thrive in a modern society you need to have a lot of different skills.

Nowadays people cope with a variety of complex tasks. They buy and use a wide range of consumer equipment, fill out many forms, and communicate with all kinds of people from all walks of life (often from different countries and cultures). They also do difficult transactions like house purchasing, and so on.

All this is a long way from the average people who were around just a few hundred years ago. Many were farm labourers who could barely read or write and never travelled more than a few miles from home.

So now, the pool of potential business people is far greater than ever before. If a person can live well in a modern society, they already have the abilities they need to start up a small business enterprise and succeed.

The good news also is that if you lack a certain skill which your small business needs, then you can probably employ someone with that skill far more easily than ever before.

F) More people have access to money than ever before.

Until the late 1960s, most people were paid weekly and spent money as they earned it.

It was normal among manual workers to run right out of money around the time of their next pay packet, which often contained notes and coins!

Today most people have many bank accounts (with overdrafts) and access to credit cards, which alone have spending limits equal to a half or full year’s income.

Savings and share holdings are greater than ever before. A large proportion of the population can raise money on their house and if they don’t mind paying a high interest percentage, they can borrow with no security at all.

A great variety of people and institutions are now willing to lend money for good small businesses proposals.

With access to credit, you can buy the product, ship it to the customer and get paid before you have to pay for the goods which you sold. This just wasn’t possible until very recently.

G) Advice, courses and books about starting small businesses are within easy reach of everyone.

Researching your chosen business area has never been easier with the Internet so readily available.

Not so long ago, you would have needed to buy many books and read them all to get the specific information you required. Now you can ask a search engine very specific questions and get very specific answers, almost immediately.

This frees up small businesses and enables them to be far more productive and enterprising.

H) If you start a small business today you have an immense amount of technology available to you.

Computers, printers, copiers, audio and video recording and playback equipment, telephony and the internet are all easily available to any entrepreneur wanting to get started in a new small business enterprise.

Not long ago, the average multi-national company lacked the computing, communicating and printing power available to the ordinary person today.

You can probably think of at least 6 different ways to get a simple message to someone on the other side of the world. 5 of those messages would typically arrive less than 1 minute after you sent them.

Just 100 years ago, (and remember mankind has been around for about 3 million years) this same message would have involved horses and steam ships and would have taken months.

This massive improvement in technology (especially in communications and information) has really opened up the field to the individual who wants to go ahead with a new small business venture.

I) Small businesses starting up today have far more choices available to them.

In previous times, it was quite common for there to be only a few companies that they could go to, to buy business supplies. Whatever business you care to name, you would not find many suppliers of the materials needed to conduct that business.

Unless your business is in a very specialist area, you will now find you can source your supplies from a great many firms. This in turn drives your costs down, as you can shop around for the best deals.

For example, there used to be very few ways to get your goods delivered to your customers. Nowadays you could chose from literally hundreds of different carriers.

New companies can chose anywhere in the world to set up their small businesses, or indeed where to place any part of their business.

I know of a successful paintball company, which operates in the UK in summer. But when the business falls off due to the cold winter, they find new customers by simply moving the company to Brazil, and then return the following spring.

They also take advantage of the cheaper labour in Brazil to manufacture the paint balling equipment, and when back in the UK use the greater expertise in the UK to program their systems.

Not so long ago this flexibility of operating a small business would have been totally impractical.

Conclusion.

There are far more opportunities to start small businesses than ever before and entrepreneurs who do start new small businesses at home are more likely to succeed.

There are more potential customers, it costs less to start up and you have more choice over the kind of business to go into. Other benefits are a more skilled and educated workforce, and easy access to financial support.