If you’re here, chances are you are FINALLY getting a much needed break from the kiddos…either they’re napping, playing nicely without getting into mischief, or are in bed for the night and you’re trying to get some computer time before YOU fall asleep…am I close?
Both my wife and I know what you’re going through. I was a stay at home DAD for nearly 4 years when our kiddos were smaller. Now my wife has once again taken over that role. We have 5 kids so it is definitely a full time gig, but one we’ve both enjoyed.
As exhausting as raising kids can be, I somehow thought it would be a great time to start some type of business, something I could do on the side and bring in a little extra money. It also felt like a great way to contribute to our household finances since raising a family of any size is expensive! Perhaps that’s part of the reason you’re looking as well.
Although it’s hard to find a large chunk of time to concentrate on anything other than kids or household stuff, I always found a few pockets of time during the day when I could work on something else (if I had the energy anyway).
Regardless of how much time you have for a side hustle, or even a full time opportunity, I hope to show you how to make money being a stay at home mom (or Dad!).
In this article I focus on options that can be done right from your home since, with kids, it can be pretty hard to leave and do ANYTHING else – at least that was my experience:) Specifically, I’ll describe blogging and affiliate marketing, which is what I do and LOVE.
Blogging and Affiliate Marketing
Regardless of your educational background, blogging and/or affiliate marketing can be done by anyone. As long as you have a computer and access to the internet, you’ve got everything you need to get started. What you choose to write about can be anything you are passionate about!
Difference between Blogging and Affiliate Marketing – The terms affiliate marketing and blogging are similar in that they both require a website but the intent or purpose of each is a bit different.
BLOG – Simply put, it’s the writing! Me writing to you here makes this a blog. In general blogging is meant to inform readers about more than just products being sold. It’s also more interactive with its readers (offering an area for comments), and it offers the ability to easily add content and make site updates. In addition, your content can be shared via social media mediums like Facebook, Twitter etc., growing you a larger online audience.
AFFILIATE MARKETING – Affiliate Marketing is the process of promoting digital or physical products or both and, if people buy from your site, you get a commission.
Digital products – examples are e-books, apps, podcasts, online courses, photography, clipart, or web hosting services.
Physical products – like you can buy from Amazon and other retail websites…there are millions!
Which One Then…Affiliate Marketing or Blogging?
If you have a website, you can do either or BOTH. It really depends on what you want to do. Some folks are really just wanting to open a “storefront” and sell their products or those of others. If that’s you – then affiliate marketing is a good option for you.
If you like writing and communicating with people, then a blog may be more your speed.
Personally, I do BOTH…a website allows this to happen seamlessly and makes it so you can truly have the best of both worlds – selling something online while still having the ability to interact with people and providing interesting information!
Pros And Cons
PROS
You can get free or affordable web hosting to get started. And for a simpler blog, you don’t need a lot of the extra bells and whistles to get started. I talk about different hosting options here.
It can be done from home whenever you can find the time – that was a big draw for me in that I could get started and pick away at a post or article whenever it suited me.
Flexibility – If you have a laptop, you don’t need to be confined to your home. You can work whenever and wherever you want. I love that!
Its sustainable – over time, you can amass a large group of followers and rank well in google. This can lead to a lot of traffic to your site and, in turn, some nice income!
CONS
It can take several months to begin getting visitors – and many people give up before they start getting good traffic.
It can be easy to lose momentum when working on your own – it takes a lot of discipline and there are days when you just don’t feel like it, especially when it’s been “one of those days” with kids! I don’t need to expand on that point do I:)
It’s hard to be successful without training – I wish it were as easy as just setting up a website, start writing, and all of sudden you start making money. Getting the right training is part of the equation as well.
The right training will provide you with all the tools needed to be successful, but also a community of others you can access when you need help.
Recommended Training
The training platorm I use and recommend is called Wealthy Affiliate. It has taught me all I need to know about blogging and affiliate marketing. It also has a support network of around 900,000 fellow business owners I can access if I need help.
It’s free to start and I like it because I don’t know anything about building websites, how to grow a business etc, and that’s all taken care of for me. I can just write! My review can be seen here.
But there are other quality learning platforms out there as well, like ProBlogger, Udemy, or Lynda. All of these resources are good and have similar training as Wealthy Affiliate. However, I didn’t find these programs as organized, supportive, or as comprehensive.
How Do I Get Started?
If you think you are ready to get going with this online business stuff, you can just by following a few easy steps…
1. Find something you love to do or have an interest in. So for me, I love writing about how to become self employed so this whole blog is dedicated to it! And you can expand into multiple areas if you like – you’re only limited by your imagination.
2. Build A Website – I know what you’re thinking, “I don’t have the foggiest idea of how to do that!” Neither did I (and really I still don’t), but there are a lot of hosting options available and many are free or very affordable to start with.
Many options have gorgeous templates all set up and ready for you to use so there’s no need to know website code etc. (yuck!)
A few web hosting recommendations can be found here – and one of them offers FREE hosting for your website!
3. Find a Training Platform to learn the ropes of internet marketing. I recommend Wealthy Affiliate not just for it’s comprehensive training, but for it’s amazing technical and supportive community that’s available 24/7. But please feel free to check out others as well (Udemy, Problogger etc.) – compare, contrast and decide for yourself which is the best fit for you!
Final Comments
I hope you found a few helpful ideas here. Since this is a blog, meaning I love the interacting with people part:) please leave a comment or question below. If you have thoughts of starting your own blog, I’d love to hear about them. Thanks for coming by!
