I haven't posted on here for a while and I am annoyed at myself for letting it slip quite so soon after getting started.

Anyway I have been having a nightmare of a time because I just have too much on at the moment, as all you other working mums will know there are hardly enough hours in the day just looking after the baby and the house. I have had to step away from the computer for a bit because I am working on getting our house ready for sale, which means that I haven't been able to do half as much as I'd like to.

My first priority is to get back on to my main site http://www.babysignonline.co.uk and sort out the forum. At the moment it is inside the membership area and it seems to be dying a slow death so I am considering putting it out on the main part of the site (the free content part) just to get people interested and chatting, and to give the members more people to chat to. Then I want to try offering a downloadable course based on my membership site but more of a quick fix for those who want to download to their computers and use the info from there.

I also want to continue writing the articles for this blog - giving away all the masses of information I have had to digest over the last 3 years to try and help you to cut through the crap and find a way to make a real business online.

Well that's where I'm at right now - and I've promised myself that I will put a another article on here next week so watch out for that.

Well this last week has been hectic to say the least and I haven't been able to get on here to blog what I've been up to.

So what's new? I have uploaded some of the videos from my Baby Signing member's site on to YouTube so now we have an official British Baby Signing Channel on YouTube which will hopefully stir some interest in would be baby signers out there.

To see British Baby Signing Channel click here.

I am going to try to get some more videos up soon - I have one very cute video of my son Jack signing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' when he was about 15 months old, so if I can work out how to convert it I will post it on YouTube. So watch this space!

Well I didn't get time to do everything I wanted to today hence the niche market article is still a work in progress.

But I have been checking out some of the newest ways to drive traffic to your web site for free - and some of the methods are looking quite promising. I will put together a full review of what I have been testing out for your all to read later, but for now the things I have been testing out today are;

1. Create a 'lens' on http://www.squidoo.com which is a very highly ranked social content site which should drive traffic through to your own site if you use it correctly. So I set up a lens for my Baby Signing web site here http://www.squidoo.com/babysignUK

2. Ping your Blog - if you don't know what this means I will go into detail about blogs later but if you have a blog you can publicise it for free at http://www.pingoat.com/ & http://pingomatic.com/

3. Post a free ad on http://craigslist.org/ - this applies to posting on any of the free ad directories but craigslist is highly ranked so an ad linking back to your site will help your google page ranking. Go to Craigslist web site and choose the country/area you want to post your ad, then in the top left hand corner click on 'post to classifieds' and write your ad. But remember they don't let you copy the same ad to lots of locations so you would need to change it if you wanted to cover more areas.

I also joined a program that enables you to build a web business with little technical skills, the information, training & support have so far been excellent - full review to follow but for now check out the easy way to make money online here.

Well that's all folks! lots more traffic generating / money making to come so watch this space!

Just a quickie - if you are looking for a real work from home job or even part time / job share in your area you should check out http://www.workingmums.co.uk/. They seem to have some really good proper jobs and employers who are actively seeking mums and will help you fit your work around the school run.

Before I start to explain about the different models for making money online I thought I would fill you in on THE most important element of your online business - customers!

Ok so you knew that already - you need customers to build your business right? ... Wrong! you need to get it into you head that your customers are your business and everything else should be built around them.

Let me explain this more clearly I want you to find a market that is online and ready to buy and then develop the product or service you are going to sell to them. Not only that - you need to find a niche market if you are going to have any hope of success as an Internet start up business.

A niche market is a small targeted market with little in the way of competition. Let's face it you are not going to be able to compete with the big fish online such as Amazon or eBay unless you have masses of money to waste, so you need to find smaller markets that are not swamped with competitors.

So how do you go about finding your market?

Well first things first - what do you know about that might be of value to somebody else? Brainstorm a broad list of topics that you either know about or are interested in, this could be anything from hobbies to family life or work experience. Just think about anything you know about and get it down on paper.

You will then take your list and start to research the different topics to see which ones have a viable niche markets.

Homework for today: Brain storm a list of topics that you know about.

What Next? Tomorrow I will be telling exactly how to research and find your niche market so look out for my next post - Researching Your Niche Market.

Have you been thinking about setting up an online business but don't know where to start? Most people don't even know how web sites generate money, so here are some of the basics to get you thinking about the possibilities.

There are many ways to make money online but I am going to review the most realistic and sustainable, they come in the following categories;

• Advertisement supported / Affiliate web site
• You set up a web site about something that people are interested in and sell advertising space, the more traffic you get and the more people click on the adverts - the more money you make.
• Paid membership web site
• You provide premium/valuable content in return for a monthly or yearly membership fee.
• Online Shop
• You find a product and sell it online.
• Drop Shipping
• You sell someone else's product either through a web site or the likes of ebay and the supplier deals with the storage/packaging/delivery of the goods.
• Information products
• You write an eBook and sell it online, usually through an automated system.

In the coming weeks I am going to cover each over these models in more detail and talk about how you can build a successful online business. I will also be covering what you should not do - and what you should steer well clear of. Plus I will be reviewing a few offline mumpreneur businesses.

If you are looking for a way to get started right away I cannot recommend the 'The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet' course enough - It was my guiding light while I was setting up. The course takes you by the hand and shows you step by step how to build your own profitable online business. These guys really know what they are talking about and my only regret is that I didn't come across this course earlier as it would have saved me a lot of time and money.

Hello and welcome to my blog!

After months of half written blogs on different sites I have decided to put my blog on MSN Spaces. I tried out most of the popular blog sites but found that the MSN seems to have more family orientated content on it so I thought I would make a go of it on here.

Well here is a little about me and why I am setting up this blog. I am 30 years old, married with one baby boy (2 years old now). I used to work for ITV as an (award winning) web manager but decided to re-locate nearer to family to have my first child. When I quit my job, re-located and had my baby I found myself very isolated and it was a major culture shock for me. I was used to high powered meetings and black tie award dos and I suddenly found myself up to my eyes in nappies and nursery rhymes.

After being a career girl I found it difficult to settle into being a house wife and found that I needed to work - I needed to make use of my brain, I needed the challenges and the sense of achievement - but more than that I needed the money!

I also felt torn and racked with guilt - I wanted to work but I didn't want to leave my baby. I felt that I needed something that I could do part time from home, it was the only way I could realistically work and cope with a young baby as well.

Being hard of hearing and having a background in BSL (British Sign Language) I always knew that I would use baby sign language with my baby. This is the method of using signs with hearing babies to communicate with them before they can talk. I used signs with my baby from when he was 5 months old and was so impressed with the results I was inspired to set up my own web site http://www.babysignonline.co.uk

Now this was a natural choice for me because of my web development/management background - plus the fact that I specialised in producing sign language translations for the web. But it took two years of set backs and lots of hard work and cash to get the site off the ground. It was a very stressful time and at first it was a financial drain rather than making any money. I'm glad to say that I persevered and the site is now doing well. 

During the time that I was setting up the site I was also looking around at other online opportunities and was amazed by the amount of scams that prey on people who are desperate for work at home jobs. There is a lot of mis-information out there and promises that you can make a million in 2 weeks. The reality is it takes a little bit more than that to succeed online. In this blog I am going to give the low down on mummies making money online and the best way to set up a sustainable business.

So make sure you book mark this page because I am going to be sharing some very down to earth knowledge about how you can set up your own work from home business and earn yourself a realistic income while being able to spend time with your baby.

Thanks for reading!

Nicola Smout