Growing a home business is a challenging, and sometimes daunting, endeavor. Historically, in the United States, the conventional wisdom held that business startups had a failure rate of 95 percent by their fifth year and that half fail by the end of their first year. However, in 2006, the Small Business Administration (SBA) (www.sba.gov) published more recent data that indicated that approximately 65 percent of startups survive the first two years. Those same numbers showed that after four years, 44 percent of startups were still operating.

Today, the question of how those statistics look after the severe recession during the past 18 to 24 months remains unanswered. Nevertheless, entrepreneurs whose home businesses have survived the first two years still have a chance to continue to survive and grow. Opportunities for expanding home businesses leads are different today as e-marketing has evolved and the number of online resources available has expanded.

The growth in popularity of 3G technologies is adding to the arsenal of tools available to home businesses to compete with larger, more established businesses. With the ability to reach out to customers and have them access Web sites via hand-held devices, small entrepreneurs are able to increase their sales revenue. In addition, the boom in social networks (such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and others) provides still further opportunities to grow.

For example, one home-based hand-crafted jewelry business, Thorne Brook Designs, that started in 2006 and succeeded in growing for three years, is continuing to expand by e-marketing in widespread geographic regions through the use of Facebook. Admittedly, becoming proficient with information technologies takes time and effort that can otherwise be used to focus on the core business, but the double-digit growth of this one company during the current recession demonstrates its value.

The next technological opportunity may well come from mobile social networking via hand-held devices. As personal communication technologies become increasingly ubiquitous and more versatile, these platforms will increase in importance in e-marketing. The ability to shop online anywhere/anytime and then communicate with ever expanding networks of potential additional customers will present powerful opportunities for top home business leads and new sales. As customers buy from home businesses and then tell friends in their networks about their purchases, revenue growth will occur.

Popularity: 22% [?]

For many people trying to find a way to make some money online, it’s difficult to figure out where to begin.  Everywhere you turn you seem to see another income opportunity being thrown at you.  Multi Level Marketing, Adsense, creating your own products, taking surveys, and getting paid to read emails are just a few of the many offers you’ll come across, each one claiming to be the one the will let you retire to a palm tree adorned Pacific island in seven months.

With so many offers, it’s hard to know what’s going to work and what’s going to just be another money sucking scam.  When I got started trying to find a way to make money online, I was really confused, and if you’re in the same situation now, chances are that you are too.

The path that I took was affiliate marketing.  Affiliate marketing is when you get paid a commission for selling other people’s products.  There are tons of sites online that have affiliate programs, like Amazon, Target, and other smaller online stores as well.  I find that this is a great way to get started because it’s easy to implement.  You can write up reviews of products that you use or are interested, and you don’t actually have to sell anything.  In fact, it’s best if you don’t.  You can just leave the selling up to the merchant and simply explain the pros and cons of the product and why you think it would be a good deal.

I learned about affiliate marketing at an Internet membership program called Wealthy Affiliate.  When I looked into the program I came across one Wealthy Affiliate review after another that spoke about how easy and clear the program was.  It was great for a beginner like me, who knew nothing about websites or the technical side of internet marketing at all.  I’m really glad that I kept reading all those Wealthy Affiliate reviews, because they helped me decide to join the program, and I’m really glad that I did.

Popularity: 40% [?]