The much-touted 'freedom' of working from home is balanced by responsibilities. Many home workers have found that establishing a routine helps to keep them on track. That means:

= Get dressed when you get up - working in your pajamas can make you feel "too" relaxed and unmotivated.

= Set 'regular' office hours. Start working at same time every day -- and STOP working at same time too. Home workers often fall into habit of working all time, since "office" is only a few steps away!

= Develop established work routines. For example, you may decide to do tedious administrative tasks every Friday afternoon. Routines help you to accomplishment work that you may otherwise be tempted to put off.

= Create self-imposed deadlines - and stick to them. Even if you work for yourself, establishing deadlines helps to keep you on track and continuously working to achieve your goals.

These are just a few things to consider before looking for at-home work. Only you can decide if it's right for you.

Yahoo and other directories will ignore you. And response from search engines will be limited. Their visitors are not looking for sales pitches, so yours may not show up.

Many who demand that a mini-site be only a sales pitch and order form are excellent marketers who have been quite successful. Thus they have a large list of followers, many interested in reselling what is offered. They produce a sales letter, announce it to their list, and sales follow almost automatically.

Since few have such lists, options are reduced to advertising. Personally I feel pay-per-click search engines are best starting point. GoTo.Com can bite pretty hard with their fees. While less significant, there are many smaller engines of this type that can be used for experimentation. For a list, see

You Can Lose A Lot Very Quickly

If your mini-site is generating say $200/month and it's costing you $100/month to advertise, you're in a risky position. For one, you need to commit serious time to make sure your advertising costs remain reasonable. If you don't, you may take a look one day and discover you're spending $300/month to generate $100/month. Not exactly profitable.

Only when confident that an $M investment will consistently yield $N, will you be able to delete tracking time factor from your costs. What M and N need to be will vary with individual. However, many will be content with spending $50/month for $150/month profit, provided results can be expected to be consistent for a reasonable amount of time.

The Potential Is Grand

A good mini-site can be a steady income producer. It's something we all should consider doing. For myself, models above seem insufficient. I prefer what might be called a themed mini-site. While evidence is not conclusive, there are indications that search engines like such sites.

In this model, beyond sales pitch there needs to be good content closely related to theme. I haven't tried this as yet, but plan to do so. I like fact that I can generate hits from search engines with this model, then experiment with advertising and pay-per-click search engines to generate even more targeted traffic.

The Best Starting Point

Just go and sign up at BizMinisites.Com (Or read sales presentation at ) It's not much over $3/month, and you don't even need a domain name.

There's no better way to go. It's an offer that can't be beat. It's brain child of one of my favorite people, Sydney Johnson, author of "Make Your Net Auction Sell." (See for my review of this outstanding work.)

Is This For Everybody?

Yes and no. Skills are required. If you do not have them and do not have time to develop them, then I'd wait a time. But this aside, answer is yes. Here's what you need.

> Go for a one page site with an order form, then work with pay-per-click search engines to generate hits. If you lack bucks, pass on GoTo.Com in getting started.

> If you go for a themed mini-site, in addition to above, develop search engine friendly content pages. (For notes about building content pages that rank well, send any email to contentpage@sitetipsandtricks.com .)

In either case, risks of time and costs are minimal. And potential is unlimited. So take shot! _________________

For an earlier article on mini-sites, please see