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Internet marketers will often fall into the trap of taking a fairly simple process and making it more complicated. This article will go over 4 of the most common errors which will cause harm to an otherwise simple work from home opportunity.

1. One mistake that I see people make all the time is they do not focus on the opportunity that they are promoting. I think we have all been on a website where you come expecting to see a simple work from home opportunity. You quickly exit after you realize it is nothing but a jumbled bunch of ads and words that don’t make any sense.

If you are not focusing on providing quality information on your work from home opportunity, you’ll never make any sales or recruit any new members.

2. Along the lines of focusing is not staying on theme at all. Again looking at some websites, we may see a website about music that contains links to sports, Internet marketing, cooking, or whatever. That is okay if your website is a shopping mall that’s offering a wide variety of products. But if you have a work from home opportunity website that you’re cluttering up with a bunch of ads don’t relate to that theme, you are doing a disservice to your business.

3. Another common error that will kill the best simple work from home opportunity is not collecting names and email addresses from your visitors. Many internet marketers will work very hard to get traffic to their site, and then allow their visitors to depart without signing their guestbook. In a way, that’s what building a mailing list is. You’re asking visitors to give you their contact information so that you can follow up with them in a future date.

Always keep in mind that the average visitor comes to a website and leaves in a matter of a few seconds. You really have only a small window of time to catch their attention.

4. You should be sure and only offer the highest quality products as it relates to your business. The longer you are online, the better chance you have to brand yourself as a work from home opportunity specialist. If you are not offering high quality products that you have pride in, your credibility will be hurt.

This is 4 common errors that can kill the best simple work from home opportunity. No matter how easy it is for your work from home opportunity to make money, it will not work if you do not keep it simple for your website visitors.

Copyright (c) 2008 John Schnieder

If you want to make money while working at home, you are not alone. With the economy struggling as much as it is today, more and more people are turning to the internet to start a new career. And with so many opportunities to choose from, there is no wonder why. Here are five ways to make money at home online.

Affiliate marketing – There is nothing better than getting paid to sell someone else’s products. With affiliate marketing, you do not have to worry about creating your own product, handling and shipping the product out, or dealing with the processing fees. You can stick to promoting the business and generating the customers.

EBay – Who would have known that you could start a career and make money off of EBay. There are people all over the world making a decent amount of money off of EBay. You can do so by selling things you have lying around the house or by selling limited edition items for far more than the price you paid for them. It is an easy way to make extra money.

Freelancing – The beauty of the internet is you can make money at home doing just about anything imaginable. With freelance work, you have the ability to get into something you actually have an interest in. There are entrepreneurs and small business owners looking for freelancers in all kinds of fields including writing, graphic design, copywriting and advertising.

Blogging – The internet is constantly changing and evolving forcing small business owners to adjust to the times. Having a blog has become an essential piece to running a home business. For some entrepreneurs, there just is not enough time in the day to make a post every day on their blog. There are people all over the internet willing to pay to have you write blog posts for them and perhaps even submit them every day.

Promote your own product If you are looking for the best opportunity to work at home and start a career, building a web site and promoting your own product off of it is the best solution. Having your own web site opens the doors to a plethora of other opportunities as well. You can promote affiliate programs you are involved with, set up links to freelance work you do, and even charge people to advertise on your site.

The internet is filled with opportunities for entrepreneurs to pursue. If you are looking to make money at home, these are just a few of the options you have to choose from online.

The home office deduction gets a bad wrap. There are so many rumors out about the home office deduction that you may want to avoid the whole subject. But if you have a home office and aren’t deducting it, you could be missing out on some very valuable tax savings. Let’s take a look at the truth behind the myths about the home office deduction.

Myth Number 1 – The home office deduction is a red flag for an audit.

Twenty years ago, this might have been true, simply because it was unusual. Now, the home business seems to be almost as popular as home ownership! Millions of individuals operate some kind of business activity out of their homes. Others telecommute, and deduct their home office expense as an itemized deduction. The home office deduction is no longer an automatic flag for an audit.

The key to avoiding an audit is reasonableness. The IRS uses computer analysis on all tax returns. Any deduction that is excessive on your income and the benchmarks for your industry may be questioned.

Bottom line: Deducting a portion of your home expenses as a cost to operate your home-based business is expected!

Myth Number 2 – If I take a home office deduction, I can deduct all the costs of my home.

You deduct a portion of your home expenses as a home office expense based on the square footage of your home office space. If you have a 2000 square foot home, and a 200 square foot office, you could deduct 10% of your home expenses.

Unless you operate a day care center, your home office space must be exclusively used for business. Your kitchen will not qualify as home office space simply because you use the table to complete paperwork. If you use the space for personal and business, it does not qualify.

The easiest way to keep track of this is to designate a room or rooms for home office purposes. If you don’t have a complete room to use as office space, use furniture to separate the personal part from the business space.

Of course, there is an exception to this rule. If your business is wholesale or retail and you do not have any other fixed location, you can include any space you use for storage of inventory or product samples as part of your home office. This space does not need to be used exclusively, but must be used regularly, and be suitable for storage.

Bottom line: Calculate the square footage you use exclusively for business and the square footage of your storage space for inventory to determine your home office deduction.

Myth Number 3 – I can only take the home office deduction if I work at home exclusively.

Old rule! Congress expanded the home office deduction to allow business owners without any other fixed business location to take a home office deduction regardless of the number of hours they spend at home. If you provide services to customers or clients at their location, you can still qualify for the home office deduction. You simply must use your home office for administrative and management duties.

Bottom line: You can deduct your home office as long as you don’t pay for other office space to run your business.

Myth Number 4 – The home office deduction will make me lose my tax exclusion on the sale of my home.

The rules have changed here, too. If you use 10% of your home for business purposes, you no longer have to recognize 10% of the gain on the sale that could have been excluded if you meet the requirements for the sale of your principal residence.

What you do need to do, however, is include any depreciation deduction you took in prior years as a taxable capital gain. You still benefit, because your capital gain rate is most likely lower than your ordinary income tax rate. You are able to take the original depreciation deduction at ordinary income tax rates, and bring it back into income when you sell your home at the lower capital gain rate. Your depreciation deduction can also reduce your self-employment taxes.

Bottom line: You can still save taxes overall by taking the home office depreciation deduction each year.

Operating your business from home is a very smart move financially for the new or small business owner. You can save yourself thousands of dollars in rent by operating at home rather than renting business space.

But the cost of housing your business is an expense, and should be treated that way. You would not hesitate to deduct rent expense for your business. Treat your home business expense the same way. The tax money you save can be used to grow your business, or even to fund your family vacation! Talk to your tax preparer if you have more questions, and get ready to take that home office deduction on your next tax return!