Work From Home With Your Own Online Company

Work From Home With Your Own Online Company

Decide What Type Of Business

The first thing that you have to decide is what type of business that you want to have. There are several different types of businesses, and it is a good idea to research each type thoroughly before making your decision. It might also be a good idea to hire a professional, like an attorney or an accountant, to help you make that decision. The best place to start your research to find out which type of business is right for you is the Secretary of State's website in your home state.

There are six different types of businesses that are listed on the California Secretary of State's home page. They are Sole Proprietorship, Corporation, Limited Liability Company, Limited Partnership, General Partnership, and Limited Liability Partnership. The information below was provided by the California Secretary of State's Website.

Sole Proprietorship
A sole proprietorship is set up to allow an individual to own and operate a business by him/herself. A sole proprietor has total control, receives all profits from and is responsible for taxes and liabilities of the business . If a sole proprietorship is formed with a name other than the individual's name (example: John Smiths Fishing Shop), a Fictitious Business Name Statement must be filed with the County Clerk or County Recorder where the principal place of business is located. If the principal place of business is located outside California, the name will be filed with the Sacramento County Clerk-Recorder. No formation documents are required to be filed with the Secretary of State. Other state filings may be required depending on the type of business.

Corporation
A Corporation (Domestic - Articles of Incorporatin/Foreign - Statement and Designation) generally is a legal entity which exists separately from its owners. While normally limiting the owners from personal liability, taxes are levied on the corporation as well as on the shareholders. The sale of stocks or bonds can generate additional capital and the longevity of the corporation can continue past the death of the owners. Legal Counsel should be consulted regarding the variety of options available for formulation.

Limited Liability Company
A Limited Liability Company (Domestic - LLC-1/Foreign - LLC-5) generally offers liability protection similar to that of a corporation but is taxed differently. Limited Liability Companies may be managed by one or more managers or one or more members. In addition to filing the applicable documents with the Secretary of State, an operating agreement among the members as to the affairs of the Limited Liability Company and the conduct of its business is required. Professional limited liability companies are restricted in California at this time.

Limited Partnership
A Limited Partnership (Domestic Certificate of Partnership - LP-1/Foreign Registration of Partnership - LP-5) may provide limited liability for some partners. There must be at least one General Partner that acts as the controlling partner while the liability of limited partners is normally limited to the amount of control or participation they have engaged in. General partners of a limited partnership have unlimited personal liability for the partnership's debts and obligation.

General Partnership
A general partnership (Statement of Partnership Authority - GP-1) must have two or more persons engaged in a business for profit. Except as otherwise provided by law, all partners are liable jointly and severally for all obligations of the partnership unless agreed by the claimant. Profits are taxed as personal income for the partners. Filing at the state level is optional.

Limited Liability Partnership
A Limited Liability Partnership (Registration of Limited Liability Partnership - LLP-1) is a partnership that engages in the practice of public accountancy, the practice of law or the practice of architecture, or services related to accountancy or law. A limited Liability Partnership is required to maintain certain levels of insurance as required by law.

File The Appropriate Government Forms

There are many different types of forms that you will have to fill out and turn in, depending on the type of business that you will be going into. This will require a lot of research. The best place for that research starts at your local county office that the business will physically reside in, and the Secretary of State's Office in the State that the business will be located in. You will need to get a business license, at the very least. If you will be selling items, you will need a reseller's license. There are also special tax forms. You should do a lot of research into the subject. The books below are all great resources for information.

Funding Your Business

Your company will need funding in order to be a success. It can be funded by you, or your parnters, if you are lucky enough to have those resources available. If you will require funding from a financial institution, you will need to have a solid business plan in order for the financial institutions to have enough faith in your company to take the risk in giving your company money.

There is a software that can walk you through the steps of a solid business plan. Whether or not you will get funded will depend on many factors, the main one being whether or not your product, service, or idea will sell.

Business Plan Pro 2004 is a software program that we recommend to help you in writing your Business Plan. The software walks you through the whole process.

Once you have your business plan completed, you can begin searching for financial instutions that will fund your business.

Create Your Website

Building a website can be a fun task. It is also very time consuming and tedious work. If you do not already know how to write code in html, then there are several different software packages out there that can make designing web pages much easier.

Macromedia Dreamweaver
Macromedia Dreamweaver, shown below, is a very easy to learn and use piece of software. It is a little bit pricey, but it is definately worth the price. If you purchase the software, I highly recommend the book "Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 : Training from the Source", which is also listed below.

Microsoft FrontPage
Another software title that make designing web pages easier is called Microsoft FrontPage, which is listed below. This software requires special configurations on the web hosting server, so you will need to verify that the web hosting company has installed the "FrontPage Extensions" on their servers. FrontPage is a well liked software for most simple web pages.

Website Hosting

The majority of small businesses use a website hosting company to host their web site. What this means is that they pay a company a monthly fee to have their website stored on the hosting company's servers in their data center, instead of having to purchase very expensive servers and high speed internet connections and costly internet accounts themselves.

The hosting company takes care of having to learn all the new technologies having to deal with the servers, the server operating systems, the networking technologies, the new security threats, intrusion detections and hacking trends, as well as viruses and so much more.

Large corporations usually have their own IT (information technology) department, so the costs mentioned above are more than likely already in place. For the small to medium sized business it is usually not an affordable option or it is just not something that they understand how to do.

The prices of hosting has become very affordable over the last several years. The prices can range from about four dollars a month, and go on up to over sixty dollars. The average price is between fifteen and thirty dollars for the normal website hosting service.

The hosting company may also offer tools that makes your website creation much easier. Otherwise you will have to learn how to build a website, or hire someone to build your website for you. Simplified Office Solutions can build your website for you. Click here for more information.

Advertising Your Website

In order to make money with your website, you have to get visitors to come to your website. The way you do this is through advertising. The free way to advertise is to browse the web to all the different search engines, and manually submit your site to the search engines. Another way to advertise your website is through paid advertising and paid search engine inclusion.

One example of paid advertising is to use Overture. What Overture does is to use a method of advertising called cost per click (CPC) advertising. You do not pay a fee everytime your ad appears, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad, and actually goes to your website. When you sign up with Overture, you set the maximum amount that you want to pay per click (the minimum price is $0.10 per click) and you can even control how much money you will put in the account to spend, so there are no hidden surprises if a lot more people click your link than you expected. There are several different plans to choose from. Overture will place your advertising throughout their network of advertisers of popular websites. It is one of the easiest services to use. Click below for more information.

Making Money With Your Website

There are many different ways to make money with your website. You can offer a service or a product for sale. You can also provide advertising on your site so that you get paid a commission for everything that your customers buy from them through the link that is posted on your site. Most companies offer some sort of an affiliate, advertising, or partner program.

Sometimes the commission can be as high as eight or ten percent of all purchases made from your site, through these programs. The best thing about these programs is that all you are providing is a link or advertisement. You don't have to keep any risky inventory or products on hand. You don't have to collect taxes or use fees. You simply provide the links or advertisements, and wait for the checks to be mailed to you. Usually the checks are mailed once a month, and will not be mailed unless you meet a sales quota for that month. The typical quota is between twenty five and one hundred dollars. If you don't meet the quota for one month, the amount you did earn is usually carried over into the next month. Then when you do finally meet the quota, the check will be mailed to you.

Keeping Your Website Running

There is not a whole lot of maintenance that must be done to a website once you have it published. It is a good idea to try to find out what pages or content on your site is working best for you. Then it is a good idea to try to change the content that is not doing good, in order to try to make it more productive.

Sometimes content needs to be updated, as technologies change, or products change. If you run advertising where you are dependent on other companies to keep their images pages up and running, it is a good idea to occasionally go through your entire website, and verify that links and images are still fully functional. If customers find a lot of bad or dead links, they are not very likely to return to your website.