The Internet has become a valuable source of information and purchasing tool for today's consumer. With click of a mouse you can find almost anything from products to services on web, and you can shop for best prices and values all hours of day from convenience of your own home. For some of these same reasons, mail order businesses are also on rise with consumers finding better values from companies that don't have overhead associated with a storefront.

With everything at consumers' fingertips, home business owner can also benefit from today's market culture. Just as consumers can shop from their living rooms and kitchens, business owners can conduct business in convenience of their own homes. If you are looking to set your own hours, have less commuting time, and enjoy general freedoms of working for yourself, starting a home business may be right for you.

One important business plan to attend to when you first start developing a home business is to invest time in finding your niche.

So what does this mean, finding your niche? Identifying a niche is about finding a distinct segment of consumer interest, then capitalizing on it. It means finding that particular spot in business world where you can stand out amongst others. For example there may be hundreds of booksellers out there, but how many specialize in books on a particular interest of yours? If your home business focuses on selling books, you may be competing with hundreds of other sellers. But if your home business focuses on selling books about outdoor sports, you may find yourself in direct competition with fewer businesses.

Now that you know what a niche is, how do you go about identifying yours? You can start by asking your self a few important questions:

What am I good at?

Additionally, it seems that many people that are in business of search engine optimization (SEO) are, with good reason, going completely bonkers. As Google came on scene in 1998 and quickly dominated search business, website optimization became largely a game of shooting at a single target, namely, pleasing Google...for all intents and purposes, Google became "800 pound gorilla" of search engine business.

Since advent of search engines (particularly Google) spawned whole SEO business, I guess its only fair that search engine industry can once again turn SEO business on its ear, and it seems now to be sort of a cat and mouse (not desktop) relationship that can get really interesting as we move forward.