It can be hard to find a legitimate work from home based business or opportunity, but this doesn’t have to be the case.
When browsing the internet, I’m sure you’ve spotted some ads and other promotions that mention work from home opportunities, opportunities that can make all your dreams come true, etc..
This is what scams and inadequate training programs preach. Know why?
Because it’s what people want to hear. And it works.
We’d love to find an online business that instantly produces cash for little effort.
Am I wrong?
This is why work from home based jobs have gotten a bad reputation. There’s too many scams that have flooded the internet.
This makes it’s difficult to separate the scams from the legitimate work from home business opportunities.
Well, I’m here to point you in the right direction.
Whatever your individual goals may be; being the owner of an online business can make those goals a reality.
Maybe you want to spend more time with your family or maybe you just want to be free and live a no-strings-attached lifestyle.
I’m here to show you it is possible to create a legitimate work from home based business… in fact, it’s easier than you might think.
But it does require dedication and time. Still with me? Good 😉
Legitimate Work from Home Based Businesses:
I know, I know, not what you wanted to hear, right?
But any online or offline business takes some time to build.
How long many people ask, I answered that question in this post… How Long Does It Take To Make Money Online.
In general, think of this like going to college, but with a few major differences.
- You won’t rack up $100,000’s in debt in education.
- You can start earning money within the first several months.
- You’re building a business, earning and learning – All at the same time.
This is the new norm to higher level educational systems. Or at least it should be!
Earn while you learn, rather than acquiring debt.
It also would be best not to expect instant results.
This is what a lot of people who are new to making money online struggle with; heck, it was one of the hardest things for me to accept about building a legitimate work from home based business when I first started.
But if you can spend the initial time to build out the foundation to your online business correctly, it will lead to long term financial success and eventually passive income.
Why Most Work from Home Businesses Fail?
Most people expect fast results and give up when they don’t see those results.
Which isn’t surprising after years of conditioning from working in hourly or salary jobs. They teach us to expect pay after work. That feels normal.
We want the immediate reward but this is not the case with creating your own business.
And this is the primary reason why people fail to make money online.
Yes, there are some people who struck the magical jack-pot and quickly created websites in obscure niches and had decent results.
But the chances of you hitting the online business jack pot right away are incredibly slim.
Want an ace up your sleeve?
Most of your “competition” doesn’t actually follow a proven online business plan, they’re kind of grasping at straws.
But you can follow an exact proven guide to create success. It can be your secret weapon to smashing your competition. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Without further ado, I give you our..
No. 1 – Legitimate Work From Home Based Business Plan
Drum Roll Please…
Niche Websites & Affiliate Marketing!
Here’s what you’ll need to do to build that home based business in 5 steps.
Step #1 – Pick a Niche Topic to Build Your Online Business Around
I’d encourage you to pick a niche based on…
- Something you love, are passionate about, interested in learning more about, or a skill and knowledge base that you already have acquired.
This makes your job easier and more fun!
For more info on Niches, read these two posts… What is a Niche, and How to Find Your Niche.
You can find all kinds of niche ideas within these two posts.
The next piece of the puzzle is to raise our attention to is how we’re going to make money from our niche.
The least expensive and lowest risk method is through affiliate marketing.
Note: There’s 1,000’s of ways to make money online, affiliate marketing offers many advantages and is really a great place to learn so many similar skills that you need to create a successful online business – so it’s a great place to start. Later, you can add email marketing, advertising, eCommerce, etc.
Step #2 – Find an Affiliate Product to Promote
I’m sure that you have heard about affiliate marketing before, but maybe you’re not quite sure what it’s all about, let me explain.
Affiliate marketing is the act of promoting someone else’s product for a commission.
Since you don’t need a product of your own, it’s one of the easiest ways to make money online.
You have No Risk to buy inventory or overhead expenses with affiliate marketing.
In fact, affiliate marketing is the cornerstone to any online business, almost every popular website includes affiliate links in their articles (and they make thousands of dollars from those links alone).
It’s really easy to get started with affiliate marketing; all you need is a product to promote through an affiliate, and a website.
Step #3 – Build a Website Based On Your Niche
Thanks to modern website creation tools, it’s really easy to make a simple niche website that you can use to promote your affiliate links.
You will use your website to create helpful content based on your niche that people are already searching for online.
This is how I’ve learned to rank content quickly in Google and bring in traffic for free.
It’s not as hard as you may think, but you do need to learn keyword research and some basic seo (search engine optimization) skills.
If you need help, get our free eBook.
However, if you’re not into writing content, you can learn to create landing pages and drive traffic to the page via pay per click advertising.
This is obviously much more costly and I think there is incredible value in learning to write content, the in’s and out’s to online marketing, and develop your basic SEO skills.
This will be critical for your long term online success.
Plus you can use these same skills to rank fast and make money on YouTube – if video marketing is your thing.
Want to have the foundation of your site built for you?
Meaning the basic menus, pages, posts, photos and basic SEO all set up for you. Then I have one service I recommend – Human Proof Designs.com will get you set up.
Then get your hosting and continue training with my #1 recommended training center – it’s totally free to check out.
Step #4 – Bring Traffic to Your Affiliate Products, Website, Social Pages, YouTube Channel
You can promote your link on social networks like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter (but this can be considered spam and is really not that effective).
Quick note, don’t directly promote affiliate links on Google Plus, they’ll give you a warning the first time, if repeated, then it’s down with your account.
You can still have success promoting on social sites, but you’ll convert more sales and produce a better user experience if your link leads the reader to a post on a website or landing page, plus it doesn’t come off as spam.
Really, you can promote your affiliate product anywhere online, but you’ll find it most effective to promote affiliate links through a website and learn to create organic traffic (discussed in further detail below).
Step #5 – Make That Money!
If you’ve created your site correctly and you bring traffic in through a number of sources, the money will flow.
Then all you do is continue to repeat the process.
Why Niche Sites Make Excellent Home Based Businesses?
Short answer: Niche sites are created by ranking content that your niche audience is already typing into Google.
That means your reaching your niche audience when they are actively looking to buy something.
So niche sites are relevant and create a buying response.
For example: Say I’m looking for a new durable case for my iPhone. What’s the first thing most people do nowadays?
They Google something like: What’s the best iPhone 6 case..
Below are the metrics for this keyword phrase.
With a little bit of seo training and ability to write quality content, this phrase would be very easy to rank for naturally if you can create helpful content about the best iPhone 6 case.
Look below..
The phrase has over 3K people searching it per month with over 500 people to your site per month if you rank page one in Google.
You would only have 18 competing websites to rank against.
So it would be pretty easy to rank for this phrase to create traffic that converts into sales.
When you search a phrase like this, you typically get two sets of results on the first page of Google.
The paid search results followed by the organically Google ranked search results.
So we’re really talking about internet traffic here..
Internet traffic is how you get your product in front of your niche audience.
You can pay for this traffic to come to your site using Google Adwords, Facebook advertising, etc., or you can create helpful content based on comparing the top most durable iPhone cases and rank your content naturally for free.
Makes sense?
If you think about it, you’ll find we do this type of online searching for products whenever we’re researching something we want to buy.
Today’s rising trend of online shopping is taking over the world.
And it’s easy to see why, shopping online is just a more user friendly experience.
This is a huge advantage that online business has over offline business – A far greater ability to generate more traffic.
More Traffic Tends to Equal More Sales.
Need Help Making Money Online?
Check Out My No. 1 Recommended Product Here →
Benefits to Legitimate Home Based Business:
There are a lot of benefits to creating a specific niche based affiliate website.
For starters, the websites will bring in a regular stream of cash, and, in some cases, they don’t need to be updated.
It’s true that domain age plays a role in search engine optimization, the older a website is the higher it’ll rank in Google.
That means if you create a good niche specific affiliate website now, in a few years it’ll still be bringing in cash, and your revenue will likely increase every few months.
But there’s still one more benefit, and in my opinion this is the best part: it’s possible to replicate these websites in multiple niches.
In other words, scale the business.
It’s all about repeating the process, this can be done an unlimited amount of times, and you can even scale up to massive lengths and hire people to create these websites for you.
Or… you can take another route and focus on dominating a specific niche with one website.
Both are good ideas, it depends on your goals.
Websites that dominate one niche are called authority websites and they can certainly be extremely profitable, there are examples all over the internet.
With an affiliate website (or several) that bring in cash every month like clock-work… there’s really nothing that you have to do.
Once you get to that point – Congratulations! You have just separated your time from cash. You are now free to do whatever you want.
Travel the world. Spend time with your family. Explore.
Be Free from the daily grind!
Of course, it’s all easier said than done… but if you follow a proven affiliate marketing training course, one that has worked for thousands of people, it’s only be a matter of time.
In fact, if you are dedicated and work hard, it might be possible to reach your long term goals in a year or two, but you can see serious results within a couple of months.
Here’s some cool stories of other students who’ve had great results.
95K/month ain’t too shabby – click here to read about the success stories.
Online businesses that consistently produce quality content for their respective niche audiences create a snowball effect in respect to what they can financially produce.
Just like a snowball, the traffic and income gets bigger and bigger as more content is added to the site.
Over time, the momentum to make this consistently happen becomes less effort.
It’s not unheard to have a niche website owner make jumps from $3,000/mo to $6,500 to 10,000/mo and can climb as high as 50 to 100K/mo.
Check Out Our Top Training Programs to Teach Anyone to Make Full-Time Income Online!
Some Perspective On Home Based Online Businesses:
It would be counter-productive to blindly work on an affiliate website.
You’ll run into speed bumps and have to slow-down, maybe even delete your website and start over from scratch a few times before you find something that works.
It’s possible to figure out how it all works on your own… but it takes a lot longer.
In my opinion,efficiency is key to success in this business.
If you want to learn exactly how the professionals make their living online with a legitimate home based business, all you have to do is follow what works.
Why take the long route when you can follow the proven path?
I have been using this training center for a few years.
Even though I went through the initial training to set up my websites, I continue to use it because there are many tools and features that I need to use to grow my business (and these tools will be an enormous benefit to you as well).
Not to mention a Community of Super-Helpful Members!
So, it’s all there for you, a complete affiliate marketing training course that you can use to create a legitimate work from home based business.
Let’s make you dreams a reality!
Hi Todd,
This is a great post on affiliate marketing and how to create a legit online business you can do at home.
I guess like yourself, I was fortunate to find this resource you recommend, Wealthy Affiliate, and everyday, I count my blessings.
The support within the community is awesome, the technical expertise that’s available as part of the business and the possibility that comes with this opportunity has to count for something.
Thanks for posting and best wishes
Cheers…..Phil Browne
Hey Phil,
Thanks for your feedback and I think I know where you’re at in creating your online business.
You’re amazed to have found Wealthy Affiliate. It’s like a real online university full of knowledge to help you make money online.
And, it’s not a freaking scam, how cool. An honest source to help accomplish your goals.
You can totally create a real online business that you can do from home or wherever you have an internet connection.
I’m currently chilling in Puerto Vallerta by the beach and gotta go. Work at it, take the classes seriously and you can do the same thing.
Best,
Todd
Hi, creating a passive income through online business has been my long time dream and I want to escape the life of 9-5 job by the age of 40. Thanks for your sharing that has strengthen my confidence in what I believe.
Regarding promoting the blog post in the social website, is it recommended to promote the same blog post two times and above?
I think it depends on the social platform. I like to post things on Pinterest if I can post to a new catagory. In facebook I’ll share a post multiple times, but I try to word the same post differently.
The thing is that you don’t want to come off as spam. The goal for online business in my mind should always be driven by trying to help your niche audience.
If you can do this, I think it fine to post the same article multiple times.
Thanks,
Todd
Great article on affiliates marketing as a legit home based business! I like this more than the other work from home jobs such as financing etc.
The reason?
Continuous stream of income, no headache and best of all, it’s hands off approach since we don’t have to do any orders like with drop shipping etc.
And I agree with you the time line for it to be profitable it’s quite long. It’s definitely needed to have persistence – speaking from experience here =)
Great feedback Isaac and very true. An affiliate based niche site is great for so many reasons and if you can spend the initial time learning and building, you can reap the benefits for this awesome style of business.
Plus you can do it from home, traveling, wherever you have an internet connection.
Sometimes I compare the extra time in the evening I spend on my site versus watching TV or reading a book.
It’s enjoyable, you’re always learning something now, and you are using your mind to build an online business.
And best yet, you’re building your online business instead of wasting your time away. The end result is a business that works for you versus the other way around.
Hey not sure if you’re connected with Wealthy Affiliate, but they’re doing a cool 4 webinars on building smaller niche sites that don’t take as long to get profitable, sometimes as soon as a couple weeks.
Here’s the link the the Niche Affiliate Webinar Course – they’re on week 2 this Friday.
Cheers,
Todd
Hey Todd, great and very informative introduction to affiliate marketing and legitimate work from home based businesses.
There’s a lot of junk out there, you really summed it up good.
I myself actually just started to get into affiliate marketing. I am a member at wealthy affiliate, which you also recommend.
Otherwise I am enjoying your content very much lately. So keep up the great work.
Cool Los,
Happy to help and keep coming back. As a matter of fact, if you’re just getting into affiliate marketing, you’re going to get into content marketing (Google) and/or video marketing (YouTube).
Either way, you need to understand how to target the keywords your audience is searching on a daily basis.
And for that, check out our our quick and simple Free eBook on Targeting Niche Traffic.
It’s an easy read and a go to guide that I use with every targeted post I create.
Best,
Todd
You make some great points about the importance of being patient and concentrating on creating high quality content rather than obsessing over Google Analytics stats.
I have heard that just relying on Google to keep you at the top of the rankings is a little risky and that you need to also build a list of subscribers that you can use to generate more visitors and to provide a safety net in the even that Google decides to demote your site.
Do you have any tips for building lists? Which email gathering site do you use? Do you need SSL for list building? Does Wealthy Affiliate teach list building techniques?
Great questions Kristian. We just wrote a post you should check out,..How to Make an Email List..
I think this will give you the perspective you need.
Wealthy Affiliate teaches this and I do it as a student and online business owner, that is. branch out through many platforms to get my traffic.
Granted, Google is my focus and really, if you use white hat seo techniques from the day 1, what do you have to worry about.
But I also focus on YouTube, Bing/Yahoo, every Social Media Platform I can, and of course.. email marketing.
Wealthy Affiliate has a ton of content on this subject, but check out Jay’s recent Webinar called..
The Simplicity of Growing Your Email List
Best,
Todd
It’s not surprising after years of conditioning to work in hourly or salary jobs that we continue down the same path of work/reward/repeat. Society teaches us to expect pay after work – That feels normal, right?
I really enjoyed that piece of info – and I agree, you are right!
The mind set that when are rewarded right away is what most people are accustomed too. A lot of people are addicted to or accustomed to living this way.
I recommend that you plan effectively and then put that plan into action. Who knows, maybe one day after two months of being online BAM you get a rush of traffic and sales, who knows.
If you take a chance on your ideas and passions, plus you have control of the results (with an online business), then you will be so surpriesed in what you can create.
You just have to do it!
Awesome Kala, thanks for your feedback and insight on home based businesses. I think you need to take the perspective of a college student. Go into a home based business and know the time and effort you need to commit in order to lay that Golden Goose to reproduce passive income each and every month.
Here’s a post I wrote for those that are serious about making money online. It’s called How Long Does It Take To Make Money Online.
I’d highly recommend anyone new to the online world to check it out.
Thanks,
Todd
Hi Todd,
What an excellent post! You know what I liked most is your honesty, telling people this will take time. I think it’s important for everyone to know this before they start or they will just be wasting their time and give up too soon.
As you say most people don’t want to hear this part of the story but they must be prepared to work hard on their business while receiving no sales.
To me affiliate marketing is a great way to build an online business, it costs so little to get going and you only need to spend a few hours a day, perhaps after your 9 to 5 job, when you start.
I think you really need a website but this is no longer a problem with website builders that make the process very easy and fast.
Following an online course that teaches how to build a legitimate work from home business is something that will help a great deal. If you choose a course that provides good support, this will help in those moments when we have doubts because this does happen to all of us.
Thanks Todd really enjoyed your post,
Peter
Hi Peter,
That’s so great to hear coming from another online entrepreneur like yourself. And I absolutely agree. I was one of those that went, OK, put up a website and some pages and then boom, the money will start rolling in.
When this didn’t happen, I felt let down but the light started to dawn on me, I was going to need to really strive to help people in whatever given niche I chose, and also to forget about the money.
This is a pretty tough thing for anyone to do, but everyone I know who has found success in home based online businesses has done the same thing. And the rewards for this patience and hard work are awesome. I love getting up each day or just checking my emails to see new sales roll in.
And agreed, the more people that know this that are pursuing a home based business will be able to make a realistic decision as to whether or not this is the right thing to do for them or not.
Affiliate marketing and niche websites are super cool, and they can really make great profit. I say go at it like going back to college or going to college and give yourself 6 months at the minimum.
Thanks again Peter, always appreciate your feedback.
Todd
Wow I’ve been looking for this sort of article for quite some time now – I love the idea of working online but I’m not sure which route to take with it!
I’m pretty sure that this process is a lot longer than most of these ‘over the top’ adverts make out. Tell me, how long has it taken you to set up an online business?
Hi Chris, have I got the post for you… HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE? GOOD QUESTION.
I think the process is longer than most people want to give to it. I try to encourage people to look at niche websites and affiliate marketing and compare it to going back to college.
It naturally is going to take the time to develop your skills, but as you are learning you can start earning. It also really depends on the niche you are entering. Plus it doesn’t cost much with the guidance of the Wealthy Affiliate Training Center.
If it’s really detailed and small, you could be rolling in 6 weeks. But if you’re choosing a niche that’s very popular like Making Money Online, Health, or Relationships, this could be a year to 2 year investment before it gets rolling.
I chose a very competitive niche and worked hard at posting content the first 3 months. I made some initial sales within the first month, but nothing really picked up until the 6 – 9th months. And even then I wasn’t too impressed. But I was proud of what I created and believe in the products I market.
And I’m so freaking glad I didn’t quit. Once you can get over that hump, whenever it may be, you will really love receiving multiple sales off work you did once and a long time ago.
Hope this helps, Todd
Hey Todd,
Awesome post on what it takes to create a legitimate work from home based business and you have certainly hit the nail on the head with niche websites and affiliate marketing!
This is where you can really build a successful, legitimate, long-term online business.
With all the scams and promises of get riche quick schemes, your post is like a breathe of fresh air.
If you really want a successful, legitimate online business, then learning the skills to build a niche affiliate marketing website is the way to go.
Brilliant post 🙂
~John
Ah John, you’re too kind. It’s tough sometimes to find the right direction to follow with so many scams out there.
My intention with this post is to help those that do want to create an honest legitimate business from home. That’s what I wanted to do as well. Well, actually not while I was home but while I was traveling the world. And I found out exactly how using Wealthy Affiliates experienced training platform.
It takes real action and desire, but with the right training, it’s is a reality.
Thanks again John, much appreciated.
Todd
I just reviewed this post and your site and it clicked, you site is perfect example of a legitimate work from home based business. Great job!! Hopefully my site will look as good one day.
I was wondering, how did you create the social media links, so that people could share your pages? And did you have to figure out how to put the ads on your site by yourself, or did the WA course help you?
I’m still learning and only up to course 2, lesson 6. Anyway, if anything is not covered in the courses that you think I can use, please let me know. It was great to have the opportunity to visit your site. I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks!
Hi King of Rage,
Thanks for your kind feedback and you’ve got the gist of our Home Based Business post as well as this site.
Everything that I learned to do online I learned from Wealthy Affiliate and members of Wealthy Affiliate.
I really think you should check out Jay’s weekly webinars that are a part of the Wealthy Affiliate membership. One thing that I encourage you to do is to make sure you edit your photos right away so the size isn’t too big.
Just search this at WA and you’ll find a training on it, maybe even the Webinar that goes over this topic.
The social buttons can be done through a free word press plugin or if you get a paid theme, this feature comes is included in the theme.
As for adding advertising to your side bars, that’s really easy. I have a video of doing this using WordPress’s editor.
Here it is…. What is an Affiliate Website? A Money Making Machine. Start watching about at the 3 minute mark.
Just stick to the training and take it one day at a time, you’ll be impressed with your progress in the next month.
Best,
Todd
Well, I have to say I was on your post for quite some time! Very complete and honest review of how to utilize affiliate marketing and niche websites to create a winning work from home based business.
Once you understand that niche marketing works so well when you can deliver interesting content to your niche audience. This influences traffic and of course online sales, really solid post.
The benefits for working at creating a home business are really awesome as time goes on. And agreed, you’ve got to get off on the right foot using the Wealthy Affiliate training platform, they’re simple the best.
Awesome Cheryl, thanks for your feedback on our home based business post and glad you found it useful. As well as your feedback on WA, much appreciated.
Take care,
Todd
Hi!
I really enjoyed your site! It seems there are thousands of ways to make money online now. Are there any in particular to stay away from. I personally have gotten scammed by a few. I would love to check out wealthy affiliate. You explained everything very well…now off to come up with a good niche! Thanks for all of your advice.
Julie
Hi Julie,
Thanks for your feedback. I personally stay away from anything MLM related. I have found one interesting program, but haven’t integrated them into keyword based marketing techinques. Also, not a fan of paid traffic exchanges, or online tasks/surveys.
I’m more into…less work, more income. Now mind you that this isn’t the case when you first start, but as you build a quality niche site, it naturally happens.
Get hooked up on Wealthy Affiliate and just take some free classes, digest the info, and then figure out what you want to focus on.
Thanks,
Todd
Hi there,
I am happy I found your site today. I have been struggling with my business and almost gave up a few days ago. I have always known it was not going to be easy but I kind of wished for it anyway.
I have decided to stop checking to see if my affiliate programs are making money and just focus on buiding a good foundation for my site.
Thanks for writing this post.
Hi Denise,
That’s awesome that you’re striving to create your own online business. Don’t give up and take your own advice.
You will find that, especially at first, it’s important to manage your time. And you need to forget about checking your affiliates and focus on building quality content. Google recognizes quality content first and foremost.
The better affiliates will just send you emails when you make sales. Except Clickbank, kind of a pain in the rear.
I do the same thing with Google Analytics, it’s almost addictive to see visitors come to your site and check out your posts and pages.
But my point is that you should focus on setting out a daily planner. Think of these tasks as daily short term goals to accomplish and then tackle them one at a time.
Strive to post 3 times per week at first, post consistently, and do your keyword research, and strive to help your niche audience most of all.
Do this weekly, forget about the money, and focus on your niche and what they need. Rinse, lather, repeat 😉
Hope this helps,
Todd
This was a very interesting article I must say. Many people spend countless hours looking for the answer to making money from home but you summed it up pretty well. I have scoured through many sites, only to find that they were scams. So this is helpful to me. What is your favorite program? Thank you for the information.
Kevin
You are welcome Kevin and thanks for your feedback on our legit work from home business post.
It’s important that people take the time to make sure they don’t waste time with a scam or poor training. When you put the effort into an online business, understand your niche, hopefully really love it as well, then you need to make sure you build your site correctly from the get go.
Best training, hands down, Wealthy Affiliate.
The reason why is because it teaches you how to bring in traffic to your site either organically or through pay per click campaigns. The also give you the tools to build cool websites and always learn new internet marketing related information.
Wealthy Affiliate also stress the importance of you helping your niche site. Ultimately in business, it’s about helping the client or customer. And that’s what WA instills in your marketing campaigns.
Plus the supportive environment and active community inspire you with new ideas and perspectives.
Even if you’re into selling on Amazon, MLM network marketing, have a local business, or building your own brand name products, having the skills that WA teaches are invaluable in any online business.
Hope that helps,
Todd