The big trend in internet marketing seems to be video. While I see advantages to video, I also see drawbacks. The main problem is video’s lack of value for reference. When I have written instructions, I can refer back to it. I can make additional notes and highlight important points. Another point in favor of written instructions is that you can take it with you and read it anywhere. I always have something with me to read or study so I can take advantage of blocks of free time. The best of both worlds would be to provide video instruction with written documentation.

Life has been very busy so blogging has been light. I am getting to the point where I can start blogging again. One thing I have been thinking about is the merits of niche marketing. Conventional wisdom, on the web, is that successful websites are targeted to a particular niche. I am thinking about pursuing a strategy of combining multiple niches in one site, effectively creating a “multi-niche” e-commerce site.

Today my e-commerce website, www.TenFootTable.com, is most successful in selling Celtic Sea Salt. Some of my plans are to expand the marketing of related items on this site. Salt, while a good seller, is a low-margin product. I want to create cross-sell opportunities for higher-margin sales. This fits well into the niche marketing concept.

It is appealing to add unrelated (to salt) items to sell on the same website. My main reason is that as a small operation it is time consuming to maintain multiple websites and the associated back-ends and/or business entities. Our business is also a family business. As a family, we have varied interests. Is it possible to market to many niches in one website? It will be interesting to find out.

One way to ease in to working from home is to leverage existing skills. This can be done by consulting on a contract basis. The internet makes it possible to work from almost anywhere. Because of this, there is a boom in contractors and consultants.

My areas of expertise are Project Management, Information Technology, Meeting Facilitation, Training, and Retail. I expect that I could leverage any or all of these into consulting engagements.

If you are just starting out, it helps to have a third party handle the payment details. RentACoder is a well-respected and established marketplace to connect buyers who need professional software develop to people with the skills to do it. Elance is a membership site that allows contractors and consultants to sell their services to interested buyers.

All that is needed is to “hit the pavement” and line up that first contract. This is a great option to continue doing what you’ve been doing and be able to work from home, at least part of the time.

One thing that I really like to do is write. It seems natural then for me to work out a way to make some money from my writing. I was inspired by an article I read about a blog called Dooce. You can browse over and read about it for yourself. The part that inspired me is that this family makes their living from their blog because of the traffic they generate for their advertisers.

I already had a blog, www.mikesmind.com. I had also started another blog, www.freetofarm.org. Finally, I have started this blog, www.daddyworkathome.com. These three blogs are the basis for my AdSense income. My efforts started by reading a great ebook called The Blogging Cash Machine by Danny Warner. Then I purchased AdSense Videos by Michael Cheney. Both of these resources helped me get started.

While I haven’t made any money on AdSense, yet, I believe that I am off to a good start. My basic blogging platform is WordPress. I chose WordPress because I became familiar with it through my blog, www.mikesmind.com. It is also a great platform because of all the themes and plugins that are available for it. The final benefit is that it is free software. This means that you can use it for free, you get the source code for free, and you are free to modify it to suit your needs (within the terms of the license agreement). They will even host your blog for free!

I have been writing content for my blogs. My goal is to become consistent in my posting. The next step is to build traffic to all three sites. I have been reading on the email lists of Jonathan Leger, Dr. Andy Williams, and John Reese, trying to learn as much as I can. Right now, traffic is mostly a trickle. Here are my stats (page views) for last month, September 2006:

www.mikesmind.com 2,583 pages

www.freetofarm.org 595 pages

www.daddyworkathome.com 3,767 pages

I am publishing these stats in order to establish a baseline before starting serious work in building traffic. As a reader of my blog, you will see my progress too and I will share what worked for me.

The next step after eBay for me was to open an online store. This provided new challenges, but also the promise of lower expenses and potentially a larger customer base. With this, I had to setup several things.

1. Domain Name – I get and manage my domains through the World’s Largest Registrar – GoDaddy.com. I have found their pricing and management options to be the best. I recommend that you do not buy your domain through a hosting company. This is one thing you don’t want to intermingle. You can read about my trouble with one domain, here.
2. Website Hosting – I host all my domains with AlphaOne Techonology. Once again, I like having my hosting all in one spot. It simplifies management of my websites. I have found their support to be responsive and effective. They also took care of setting up the secure certificate for my store. This is needed to ensure security and privacy for my customers.
3. Shopping Cart – I researched and tried a lot of different shopping carts and settled on X-Cart. It is a lot like OS-Commerce, but is supported by both Qualiteam (the software company), an active user’s forum, and third party vendors. Qualiteam is based in Russia, but I have found their support to be excellent.
4. Products – You will need to decide what products or services to sell online. Once that is done, setup agreements to purchase those products wholesale. You will then need to set your prices and enter product information into your shopping cart solution.
5. Business Formation – I recommend that you setup your online business entity in such a way that your personal assets are protected. I used Biz Filings to setup my corporation. I found their offering to be complete and their prices to be very competetive.
6. Credit Card Processing – No matter what you do online, you will need a way to accept payment. I use two avenues, PayPal and Echo. I used Echo. I use Echo to process Visa and Mastercard. They have an application process that they help you through. It is involved, but not difficult. When you are done, you will be able to accept credit cards on your website, including Yahoo Stores if you decide to go that route. PayPal is easier and quicker to get going. Accept Payments Online with PayPal. Fast, Easy & Secure. Sign Up Now!

That should get you going on the road to e-commerce success with an on-line store. If you are interested in checking out my store, you can go to www.tenfoottable.com.