Starting a business can be tough these days, especially when the wage bill is lagging behind the escalating cost of living.
But setting up a business doesn’t have to cost the earth. Having an extremely limited budget isn’t a showstopper when it comes to setting up a business from home.
All you need is the enthusiasm to invest in additional work and a passion for your niche.
Being able to pay the bills and eat regularly is a must, so keeping your full or part–timejob is a strategic move while you set up your home business and start to bring in extra income.
The best solution to working from home on a shoestring, in our opinion, is to start an online affiliate marketing business.
If you already have the internet and a laptop, you can create your home–based business right now.
I’ve Never Heard of Affiliate Marketing, what is it?
Affiliate marketing is promoting products through links on your website or through social media.
You sign up for an affiliate program that includes businesses or services you prefer to promote to your audience.
Say you were into crafts and handmade items, you could search the internet for your favourite shops or services and see if they have an affiliate program.
These days you can find affiliate program for most businesses and services.
Once you are sure of what you want to promote, you can sign up for the affiliate program and gather up all the material you require to create your affiliate marketing business from home.
How Do I Start My Online Business?
The first task you should perform is to set up your blog or website if that’s the direction you’re going.
It’s simple to set up a website with drag and drop, you don’t even have to have knowledge of html or CSS.
You can set up your site within an hour and it won’t cost you much if anything at all. Once your website or blog is set up, buying a domain name is your next step.
Your domain name is your business name you have selected for yourself with a .com or .co.uk on the end. You must pay for your domain name but it can usually cost you less than £15 for a year.
Once you have your affiliate links, website or blog and your domain name it’s time to get to work.
Here’s a breakdown of the steps required to get your business started;
Why Do I Need a Website?
You don’t need to have a website; affiliate marketing can be achieved through social media and guest posting to other people’s websites.
But having your own website will make your life easier, you will be capable of publishing your own content and write about what you want. You won’t have to stick to guidelines from another site, and your voice can be your personal selling point.
Publishing regular content on someone else’s website can become tiring and consume too much time hunting for blogs and websites to post your content.
Focussing on your own website and promoting yourself engages readers to your personality.
If readers like what you write and how you write it, they will return to read more of your content and then click on your links.
You will build trust through your website and your own content, giving you the chance to build up a rapport with readers who will trust you enough to click on your links and buy what you’re promoting.
How Much Money Can I Make Through Affiliate Marketing?
The amount of money being earned from affiliate marketing can vary from £100 a month to £10,000 a month.
If you make an investment in training, and learn everything you can about how to make the most from your affiliate marketing business, the amount of money you earn can achieve unbelievable heights.
That being said, you won’t become a millionaire overnight. The only way to make a good amount of money is by working hard on promoting your content with the affiliate links embedded, and gaining trust and believing in what you’re promoting.
If you’ve used the product or service yourself people are more likely to trust your opinion and buy from your site.
I Work Full-time How Can I Find Time to Run a Business from Home?
The attraction of affiliate marketing from your laptop is you can be mobile.
If you take an hour on the train to get to work, use that hour to do work on your business. If the kids go to bed at a reasonable time, squeeze in an hour working on your business before you go to bed.
It’s genuinely workable to make time for your business. How many times have you sat and scrolled through social media for an hour while being bored?
You could spend that time building your online home–based business. If you are determined to start your own business and make money from it, you will prioritise your day to fit in with building a business.
How Much Budget Do I Need to Start My Online Business from Home?
Technically you don’t need a budget to get started, but having at least £15 for a domain name will get your website online.
Use all the free resources you can and any free training you can find. There is so much help online for beginners in their affiliate marketing journey, it’ll be establishing what’s appropriate for you that’ll be the battle.
Once you’ve earned money with your marketing business, you can re-invest and upgrade to better services and hosting for your site. But for now, concentrate on learning as much as you can to give you a good start and hit the road running.
Thanks for reading my article today, I hope you found it informative and helped you gain some insight into starting a business on a budget.
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