There are lots of very good reasons for Moms to want to start a small home based business or to work at home. Taking care of family and small children, caring for their elderly parents or special-needs children, cutting commute costs and helping to earn extra are just some of the reasons.

Not surprisingly the first step to starting your own home business can also be one of the toughest to overcome - how to find the right niche or idea. Very often, successful work-at-home Moms start out with simple (even boring) ideas that slowly evolve into a full-fledged small business.

To help you decide what you can do at home to make money, here's 5 tips you might want to consider :

Make use of your knowledge and experience

The most logical start to finding your small business niche is to use your knowledge and experience. If you've been an accountant for years, why not offer your services part-time to small companies, organizations or personal friends? Perhaps you've got a Degree in Creative Writing. Why not put those skills to good use by freelancing, being a ghost writer or starting your own blog? Or how about putting all those years of experience as an Administrator in government service to good use by being a part-time consultant on government application procedures to small companies?

Do something you're passionate about

It's not always possible to fall back on your working experience or educational qualifications. So what do you do then? Money is important, but if you work at something you love, chances are you will be in it for the long haul and you will enjoy building on your knowledge and expertise in that field. So think about what you're passionate about and try and find ways to make money doing that. For example, if you love to bake, why not sell your cakes and cookies at your local marketplace? You can also supply to your local grocers. If you love to cook, why not start a small catering business for small parties and events over the weekend? How about making craft items, handbags, costume jewelry, hand painted t-shirt etc. if you are gifted in artistic skills?

Keep your eyes, ears, heart and mind open.

Ideas are floating around everywhere you look, everywhere you walk, even in your quiet time. Make it a habit to really open your eyes and ears the next time you’re out window shopping. Look at what people are selling, wearing, eating, drinking or enjoying and ask yourself “Can I provide that service too?” or “Can I make that and sell it?”.

The next step to this is to open your heart and mind. People tend to be too judgemental about themselves. Too often, just as soon as an idea comes into mind, they counter it with a negative “Naw... my family loves my pastries, but I don’t think other people will... “ or "It probably took years of hard work to learn that, I don’t think I’m good enough”. All these thoughts come from your mind – your first stumbling block. It’s just your imagination trying to keep you safely within your comfort zone. Don’t shut yourself out from your own limitless possibilities.

Talk and listen to people.

The best way to avoid learning anything is to avoid people. Don’t. The folks around you are a rich source of ideas and experience. You never know when idle banter can suddenly spark a bright idea. Our mind’s funny like that. Haven’t you ever enjoyed a good laugh with a friend over a drink and talk about (what seems like) nonsensical ideas when you suddenly think to yourself “Hey! That might just work!”.

My wife and I find some of the most interesting ideas spring up when we talk to our suppliers. Whenever we strike up a friendly conversation with them ( and with people in general), we always find that they often have inspirational nuggets that can be turned into money making ventures. So, don’t ignore that little old lady who cleans the toilet at your office or the elderly gentleman who stands guard at the office supplies storeroom. Talk to them and don’t forget to apply tip #3 by watching what they do. They might just have an idea or technique that can make you lots of money!

Make use of the Internet

You can find almost everything you need on the Internet these days - that includes money making ideas and home business opportunities. There are lots of websites that offer freelancing opportunities for people who want to make extra money or who are looking to work at home. If you have a web blog or a website, there are lots of ways to monetize the traffic to your website. If you don’t know how to set up a blog, there are also lots of ways to learn and set up blogs for free. You can sell stuff that you make yourself on the Internet or sell other people’s products. The latter is called “affiliate marketing”.

One very important thing to remember when looking to make money online is that there are just about as many scam sites as there are genuine home business opportunities, so you’ll want to make sure that you learn how to recognize and avoid scams.

Another important thing to remember is that contrary to what most Internet marketers would want you to believe, making money online does not happen overnight. It does to some – but as a general rule of thumb, like any other job, it takes hard work and perseverance to make money online. The difference is that you get to set your own work schedule and never have to leave the comfort of your own home. Using the Internet, the knowledge and opportunities of the entire world are open to you, so make sure the Internet becomes your friend.

There are lots of ways for moms to work from home and spending time with their families and still be financially independent. It might just be about making extra money to buy nice stuff for your kids or to help out in the family finance or about living your dream of running your own home based business, but the best part about being able to work from home is the freedom to call the shots – and be your own boss!

If you're a web publisher and you monetize your traffice with Google products, it may be time to update your privacy policy.

Wikipedia describes a privacy policy like this :

… a legal notice on a website providing information about the use of personal information - particularly personal information collected via the website - by the website owner. Privacy policies usually contain details of what personal information is collected, how the personal information may be used, the persons to whom the personal information may be disclosed, the security measures taken to protect the personal information, and whether the website uses cookies and/or web bugs.

Read the full description here

As a web publisher, Google requires you to have a Privacy Policy published on your website :

AdSense publishers must have and abide by a privacy policy that discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users' browser, or using web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on your website.

With their recent purchase of DoubleClick, Google will be using their technology - which includes the use of the DoubleClick cookie - to enhance ad serving on your website, so they've updated their TOS to include the following phrase :

Google uses the DoubleClick DART cookie (English only) on publisher websites displaying AdSense for content ads. Subject to any applicable laws, rules and regulations, you will have the sole and exclusive right to use all data derived from your use of the DoubleClick DART cookie for any purpose related to your business, provided that Google may use and disclose this data subject to the terms of Google's advertising privacy policies (English only), and any applicable laws, rules and regulations.

A member of WebmasterWorld Forum recently started a thread on this. As web publishers, we need to keep up with changes to the Terms of Service for any ad provider we are affiliated with. This help to keep our website compliant so we don't get booted out and possibly lose a lucrative revenue stream.

So take a minute to read the updated Adsense Terms Of Service and update your Privacy Policy on all your sites. For many thousands of publishers around the world, there is just one simple reason to do so - Adsense is a really fat cash cow!

You can find more information here :
DoubleClick Cookie and Privacy Policy
How Internet Cookies Work

Quote source : Pajama Market
Image source : A Painting A Day

Duane Keiser paints one postcard-sized painting nearly every day, posts a photo of his painting on his blog called A Painting a Day, and sells them through eBay for at least $100.

The simplicity of this site speaks for itself. This is the most brilliant use of a blog I’ve ever seen!

We can all learn some very valuable lessons from Duane Keiser's passion and blog. Duane is a great artist. In fact, anyone who paints better than I do is a great artist, but Duane is a very good artist and his passion for his craft is crystal clear from even the simplest of his artworks.

So here's what we can all learn from "A Painting A Day" :

• Using the internet free services, Duane has managed to spread (marketed) his artwork across the globe, something you would not be able to do 2 decades ago. With the spread of his artwork globally, his potential market is the whole world and he cleverly takes advantage of this by selling his beautifully simple art pieces on eBay.
• Every piece of work that you produce for you blog or website has the potential to make money for your - whether it's a piece of code, an article or an image. And unlike physical products, with electronic products you don't have to worry about dust, mildew or the natural force of time destroying your product. As long as your product exists on the web, there is a way to make money from it.
• One piece of work a day (like Duane's one postcard painting a day) or a week may not seem like much, but you've got to look at the bigger picture. Imagine if you were to write one article a week for your blog or website. In one year, you would have accumulated 52 articles. If you work at it consistently, you would have 260 articles in 5 years. That's the beauty of running a blog or website and making money online. If you can use your free time to create ONE piece of work at a time that is helpful, informative or generally improves the quality of life and then find ways to build an income stream around that collective body of work, you would have a solid, steady income stream. This income could potentially continue to provide for you in your sunset years and for you children beyond that. That's the beauty of blogs and websites.
• You don't necessarily have to think of making money as something that's purely online. Like Duane, think of the Internet as a tool or extension of your business. Use the Internet to market your product to a world of customers.

And I think the best lesson to be learnt from Duane and his "A Painting A Day" is this :

• Pour your heart and soul into your passion and be the best at what you do. Even if you can do only ONE thing well in your life, you can be successful.

Visit A Painting A Day and let it inspire you.