• Saving commuting time
• Able to fit work around other commitments
• Better able to concentrate
• Fewer interruptions
• Less stressed

Now, I don’t know about you- but having worked in an office environment I would have to absolutely agree with all of these reasons. Of course, it also helps if you have a separate room or workspace to work in when you are home (working from your kitchen table is not nearly as comfortable!).

The only down side to working from home is that it is easy to slip into a pattern of working too much and/or not taking a break when you really should. Then, of course, what happens if you are sick or feeling under the weather? It’s not like you can call into your office and tell your boss that you’re not going to be in that day. In most cases, those of us who work from home just suck it up and keep on trudging along. I guess you could say that this is the price we pay for comfort.

Should Office Employers Be Worried?

With the recent onslaught of people who are working from home with some sort of increased frequency, some employers are starting to become a little concerned. After all, how are they supposed to compete with employees who now have all of these options to lead the lives that they many others would kill for: the opportunity to set your own hours and work in your PJs without having to worry about makeup, rush hour traffic or the watchful stare of your boss? As Rebecca O’Connor from Times Online succinctly put it:

For millions of us, going to work means piling into monolithic tower blocks stuffed with rows of generic desks, strip lighting, muddy-looking carpets and off-white walls.

But not for all. Over the past decade, wireless broadband and BlackBerrys have meant that more workers have ditched the office in favour of working from home, in quiet studies overlooking gardens, with cups of tea and a comfy sofa only a room away.

And this has presented employers with a problem — how to cultivate a culture of presenteeism in a world where being present is not always essential. The answer? Commission interior designers to upgrade office space. The result? Unintentionally, perhaps, offices are beginning to look more like living rooms. [source]

In a day and age of WFHers, employers know exactly what they are up against. This is why many of them are now scrambling to renovate and redecorate with the hopes of making the office experience something that is akin to a ‘home away from home’, some place where employees feel excited and happy to go to….but will it be enough?

1. Hog Blog-Written by Sally Hogshead, speaker, author and branding expert, this blog covers topics related to branded content, new media applications and multi-platform advertising.
2. Marketing Gorilla-Spearheaded by Greg Hoffman, this blog covers topics related to affiliate marketing, advertising, web 2.0 and consulting. You can also follow Greg on Twitter.
3. Media Influencer-Written by Adriana Lukas, this is an insightful blog that covers blogging, communication, social media and marketing.
4. Mrs Belmot’s Blog- Written by Janet Belmot, this blog covers advertising, social media and blogging with a twist of humor thrown in for good measure! You can also follow Mrs Belmot on Twitter.
5. Ain’t It Cool News- This site deals with a collection of news from around the Internet, specifically where movies, gaming, books and music are involved.

Internet businesses are easy to start if you decide not to do everything yourself. Outsourcing technical work at inexpensive rates is the secret. The right service providers can make your work a breeze.

Many of us are tempted to start an Internet business from home. The convenience of working from home and being our own bosses is very alluring, but we may hesitate thinking about the technicalities and know how required to do so. Another thought that may keep us, is the cost involved.

Well, be pleasantly surprised to know that all your doubts are ill founded and internet business is none of the above things! You might ask: do you have to be a computer expert? How can you make a website? And the answer is: you do not need either special skills or loads of money to start out on your own online business. All you need is a computer and an internet connection.

The most important part is to design a website and launch it online for others to see. This is what we commonly call web hosting. A computer or server is connected 24/7 to the internet and hosts your website for others to visit whenever they want.

This requires a lot of technical know how and you need to be highly skilled and dedicate long hours to accomplish this. It naturally makes no sense to do this on your own, so what do you do? All you need to do is find a good web host who will do all this for you for a small monthly fee. They will take care of all the technical stuff.

You can easily find a web host who fits your budget. There are lots of inexpensive web hosts available who will help you out. They will charge a very nominal monthly fee and host your WebPages for the world to see all the time. A good host will rarely if ever have a technical breakdown.

Choose from the many web hosts available. Expensive doesn’t really mean high quality and very inexpensive may turn out more expensive (due to repeated failures) in the long run. You want to find a web host that doesn’t cost much and yet does not compromise on the basic services required to keep your website floating.

Inexpensive hosts can provide you with excellent services though they may not be able to give you premium stuff. The minimum you need is an efficient and friendly customer support service and that your WebPages are available all the time.

Your host should let you change or update your content whenever you wish to do so. All the links to and from it should be working properly. If you have interactive features on your page it should work without a hitch. This is the most important feature as it is your link to your potential customers or clients. Blog platforms can prove very reliable for this feature.

Your customers can now reach you easily, but can you respond to them promptly? You need good autoresponder software to reach out to your customers even when you are not around. This software ensures that every visitor who leaves a query will receive a courteous mail almost immediately, acknowledging their interest. You can easily follow them up with customized replies.

A few right steps will kick start your online business without any hassles.

About the Author(s):
Lena Morrish & Dima Nikolayenko are Internet publishers at InternetBusinessBTS.com. If you are interested in starting your own  affiliate home business, but you’re not sure whereto start, visit Lena and Dima over at InternetBusinessBTS.com to find a step-by-step guide.

1. Yonder Ponder- Written by a guy named James, this blog provides an interesting perspective on advertising, art, culture and other random thoughts.
2. 100 Ad Words- Written by Gary Doyle, this blog covers pop culture, the media, observations and advertising. Fascinating read! You can also follow Gary on Twitter.
3. Freaking Marketing- Written by Robert Rosenthal, this blog covers a range of topics including recent news, the media, consulting, celebrities, advertising, business and social media. Great read. You can also follow Robert on Twitter.
4. Social Media @ Work & Play- Written by Gary Moneysmith, this blog covers issues related to money, business, advertising, social media, the Web and more. Well written, in-depth articles! You can also follow Gary on Twitter.
5. Managing the Gray- An awesome podcast hosted by C.C. Chapman. Give it a listen!

The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests..  -Milton Friedman

At some point in most of our lives, we will be overwhelmed by the amount of debt that we have. However, just because you have accrued a little “luggage” doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t drop some of it off.

According to an article printed in How Life Works, there are five strategies that you will want to avoid in order to dig yourself out of the debt hole:

1. Minimum Payments- Paying only the minimum payment can actually be a suicide mission because it will only result in your overall debt actually GROWING, thereby making your debt problem worse.
2. Friends & Family as Fallback- You should never have to rely on your friends or even your family members (i.e. mom and dad) to pick up the slack for the financial mistakes you have made. Sure, if they volunteer to help you out once or twice, that’s one thing- but constantly running back to mom and dad or even your BFF can wind up damaging the relationships with the most important people in your life.
3. Unscrupulous Credit Counselors- Counselors who demand cash up front or high fees should send up red warning flags everywhere. Avoid these people.
4. New Loans to Replace Old Loans- Always AVOID taking out new high-interest loans to pay of low interest rate loans. It may seem like it makes sense to have just one payment to pay back, but in the end, you will actually end up paying back more money.
5. Declaring Bankruptcy- Don’t always jump for the big “B” word. Instead, look at your options. You may find, instead, that debt settlement works better. The last thing that you want to ever happen is for your credit to be ruined. [source]

1. Make The Logo Bigger (MTLB)- Written by Bill Green, this is a clever blog dealing with everything and anything advertising-related. You can also follow Bill on Twitter.
2. Brandon Barr- When you first land on his website, it takes you a second to figure out what is going on. However, from his home page, you can link up to his blog, poetry and travels. You can also follow Brandon on Twitter.
3. Why Advertising Sucks-Clever blog dealing with some of the weirdest, quirkiest and simply entertaining ads.
4. Woolard’s Posterous- Written by Andy Woolard, a brand planner and strategist, this site deals with ad campaigns, branding, media, advertising and business-related topics. Great read!
5. Please Hide- WRitten by Eugen Suman, a copywriter, this blog deals with advertising, movies, music and some literature-related things.

Best Contact Form May Quite Possibly be “the best”

Best Contact Form was developed in order to better analyze converting traffic versus simply analyzing all traffic. For those of you out there who own a business and have an active website, this is great news because Best Contact Form helps you by gathering valuable marketing data based on people submitting contact forms on your website. Now, you can know exactly where your target audience is coming from, the time of day that they seem most likely to visit your website as well as a plethora of other information!

What Can Best Contact Form Tell You?

Some of the neat things that you can find out from these forms include (but are not limited to):

• Which keywords visitors used to find your web site
• Which search engine they used
• Whether the link used was organic or PPC based
• The landing page on tour web site
• The full referrer (without truncation)
• The geographic location, plotted on a map
• The person’s web browser information
• The person’s operating system
• The person’s screen resolution
• Which keywords are converting into sales
• The date and time each form was submitted

In addition, all submissions are automatically archived and can be exported to CSV; and all of the contact forms also have the option for built-in SPAM protection as well. What’s not to like about that? Visit the Best Contact Form website to read up on more of the features and benefits that it has to offer; or, for those who want something more visual, you can watch the video to see how it all works.

Clay Sinclair, co-founder of Best Contact Form, is a friend of David Williams of Create Business Growth.