Staying Focused And Avoiding Procrastination With A Home Business

Running a home business can be fantastic. You have the flexibility to set your own hours, freedom to make your own schedule and you get to be your own boss. Unfortunately, sometimes it's hard to stay focused. Your mind can wander, tasks can fall by the wayside, the kids are calling, procrastination sets in and suddenly, you're working 12-hour days.

Here are five great tips for staying focused while running your own home business:

1.Wake up earlier. Some of our best work is done in the morning, without the distractions of daily tasks. If you have children, getting up even just an hour before them can produce amazing results when you have a big task to tackle.

2.Turn off distractions, including email. If you like to check your email or social networking sites, set aside an hour of uninterrupted and focused work time where you will only work on the project at hand. Force yourself to not check email and concentrate on that one task for even just one hour. You'll be amazed at the results.

3.Get out of the house. Go for a walk or take your laptop down the street to a local coffee shop. Sometimes, getting out of your space is not only good for you physically and mentally, but it can also help reinvigorate your ideas. Next time you're struggling over a problem or facing a creative block, try a change of scenery.

4.Plan your day. Get an agenda and set aside blocks of time for each task or project. Not only will this help you stay focused, it will also help you track exactly how much time you really are spending on each client.

5.Set boundaries. Let your family know that the office is out-of-bounds and let yourself know that the work day is done at 6pm. By setting rules and boundaries for yourself, you're adding valuable structure into your business and preserving your separation of home and work.

My Hosting Service, My Security Service: How much protection does your web host give you from identity theft...and how much can they?

There are laws now that protect us from identity thieves, sure, but oftentimes, by the time the law gets involved, the damage is already done. Your website may be defaced. Your name may be sullied. Your hosting service may have locked you out. You lose customers. You lose money. To recover, you have to regain lost ground, which also takes time and money. But what can you do to protect yourself? And can your web hosting service help?

In two words: they'd better. At the very least a hosting service in the age of spammers, hijackers, and hackers (oh my!) should at the very least have one or more firewalls protecting your data. They should also be able to offer you protection from Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks, a common outcome of internet identity theft. Some hosting services may offer you a Virtual Private Network (at relevant expense, of course) for additional protection.

Your payment area should be completely secure, at the bare minimum promising SSL digital encryption of all incoming and outgoing data. You should also make sure the shopping cart your hosting service provides is compatible with the major online payment processing gateways, such as PayPal, NETeller, Citadel, FirePay Click2Pay, UseMyBank, and others.

Identity thieves will often try to access your hosting service account using the "fruits" of their thieving. Once inside, they can hijack your domain away from you or delete important files from your hosting service. If this happens to you, one thing to do is check the server logs of your hosting service to figure out the exact date and time that the theft occurred. Note the IP addresses involved in the action and contact the associated ISP. This alone won't resolve the problem. But it's a start.

If your email address is stolen, you may find you start receiving returned messages that you appear to have sent but which you know for certain you did not. Print each and every one of those messages out immediately and make copies -- they're evidence. Not only may they come in handy in tracing the source of the theft, but they may be the very things that keep your hosting service from terminating your account (if, for one hypothetical example, a thief uses your email address to send X-rated material).

The other immediate action to take if you ever suspect yourself of being a victim of internet identity theft is notify your hosting service, your ISP, and your domain name registrar. Any instructions they give you, follow. You could also file a police report (and probably should, at least to get the crime on record), but as it's unlikely anything will come of it (at least not immediately), this should really only be done after you've first contacted your hosting service, ISP, and registrar.

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Do you consider yourself a successful business? I'm sure the answer to that question is, of course. Guess what, you're not alone. Not too long ago, I too thought I ran a successful business. As an Online business owner, I have a website and an email autoresponder which is all you really need when running an online business. For the past two years, I have followed the advice of untold gurus about easy Internet marketing cash. I have purchased many ebooks and attended quite a few teleseminars with hopes of creating a successful online business.

During the first year and a half of working on my business, I did see some success. With lots of discipline, I did what most netrepreneurs would do. SEO for my website and spent my days searching for link partners. I did experience traffic to my site over this time period but at the end

of the day, there was very little in the way of sales conversion.

After watching many new marketers come and go, I've carefully reviewed the movement of the more experienced marketers to SEE what they do.

Talk is cheap as the saying goes. Children learn from what you do not what you say.

It is with these child like eyes, I began to put my research hat on and take careful note of what successful online businesses do really well.

1. Business Systems -

They all start their business with a plan. Too you and I it would seem otherwise if you only look at all of the marketing emails received for product launches. But if you are privilege to be a fly on the wall, you'll soon see there is a method to their madness. Even an area like affiliate marketing should be approached methodically. Once I understood this point, I stopped being willy nilly with my work and created a simple plan to make things happen.

2. Focus -

This is a Biggie! I don't know about you but my email at one point would receive about 75 emails each day. As a new marketer, I subscribed to just about every list known to wo-man. I was afraid of missing out on anything that was news of the day. I'm sure you might relate to this. Just remember this little fact:

Confusion = Poverty........That's right!

Stay focused on your goals. Success does not happen overnight despite what those sales letters may say. The Guru's know not every product will strike gold, however, my sales manager who I no longer work for used to say:

Just Sling enough mud on the wall and see what sticks.

Although I do not personally agree with this mantra, there are many who do in terms of their internet marketing business.

3. Traffic Generation Systems - Yes, there's that word again....systems.

Systems are equivalent to the air we breathe on the internet. Without them you really are destined for failure. Don't believe me, no problem. Are you still using any of the big website generation software that spat out thousands of pages? I bought into the hype also. Don't cry for me yet though. I have since studied the best marketers and built a real traffic generation system that will last no matter what the search engines do today, tomorrow or even next year.

4. Web 2.0 - So popular yet is the least understood.

This area can be an Internet Marketer's goldmine or a big black hole. I've been able to actually use Google to spy on my favorite marketers to really see what it is they're doing in part with their Web 2.0 systems. Although Google has been a great help in some areas like telling me in an instant about the who, what and when as it relates to product launches and internet marketing buzz.

Unfortunately, It has lacked in the money area which is the How!

How do they do what they do baby. As Ray Charles used to say.

Once I figured this out thanks to my good friend and mentor, I soon began to apply this to my internet business and have seen positive results. Although it has been a pretty tough road in the beginning through my own trial and error, I don't regret the set backs for one minute.

If you've figured out the secret to long term internet marketing success and are experiencing the results of your dreams then I'd like to congratulate you right now. You definitely deserve it.

However, if you're not experiencing what so few consider success in your online business, then I would encourage you to download a free report written together with the help of my friend and mentor Henry Gold. This report will help you as it did me to clearly understand Web 2.0 and how it is affecting your business.

I am confident we can build that dream of yours. It did mine and it will yours. I encourage you to go ahead and download the rest of the report not for me or Henry but for yourself. It changed my life and I am confident it will change yours.

Websites are being created everyday, using this growing phenomenon to their advantage, Google created Google AdSense. Google AdSense is a tool that anyone who owns a website can utilize. It is a simple process and the monetary reward can be limitless. With Google AdSense a companys money making possibilities can increase exponentially.

This program is ideal for any website owner and it is a great incentive for those who dont own a website to consider creating one. Whether a website enjoys the benefits of high traffic or a smaller scale viewing, utilizing Google AdSense does not cost the user a penny. It is simply an added money generating tool that can only benefit the user. There is no start-up fee, no hidden monthly costs, just a simple straightforward program that can help the user and Google make money!

Google AdSense is a great way to generate extra income even while you are away, for example, on vacation. You do not have to do anything more than set up a website and ensure that you have a steady flow of viewer traffic. This is why AdSense is ideal for blogging websites. A blogger can simply post a few articles and let the ads on the page generate a monetary return. And, the more a blogger posts, the more possible viewer traffic, you can imagine the great earning potential.

How does it work?

To utilize Google AdSense simply visit Googles website and create an AdSense account. Within a few days, you will be notified whether your account has been accepted or denied. If your account has been accepted, you can then utilize your AdSense for content publisher id number which looks something like this ca-pub-9187111800071908. This id number acts to populate your website with Google ads and every time a viewer of your page clicks on an ad, you receive a percentage of what Google earns.

Two things to be aware of when using Google AdSense

Though the benefits of using Google AdSense are limitless, Google does use discretion and does not give an AdSense account to all website users. If they do not approve of your websites company, subject matter, or services, for example your account request can be denied. Do not fret though! Create a new website. Google is looking to make money and they want to give their account access to websites they feel will generate a profitable return. It is also important to note that Google can track viewer traffic. If they find that ad clicks are being generating by the same website too often or the activity seems suspicious, i.e. you cannot click the ads on your own page your account will be closed. If this happens to you, getting your account access back can be close to impossible. Google does not tolerate the misuse of their program. Though it is a money making endeavor for both parties, the user and Google, it is still a privilege they are offering you, so be sure to respect their policies.