WAHMs need to learn the finer art of networking

Getting your WAHM business off the ground can be tough. At any given time, you might be competing with thousands of other businesses who are also trying to get attention for their own businesses. How can you make yours stand out? It’s all about networking.

Networking is simply talking to people, getting the word out about your business and then doing the same for others. In recent years, the world of networking has changed to reflect the impact that the internet can have. If you play your cards right, you can network almost exclusively online.

If you have a WAHM business, you might want to know how to leverage the power of the internet to drive traffic to your own business. Here are some ideas.

Website

Build a website. No longer do you have to know HTML to build a website; you can buy a software program that will build the site for you or you can pay for someone to design the site for you.

Once you have a website, you need traffic to that website, so write – or have written – articles that are targeted to your subject matter. If you are working at home selling your homemade coin purses, for example, you might write and post articles that talk about fabric, the craft of sewing and unique gifts, all while extolling the virtues of coin purses.

Links

Once you have a website, you have something you can direct people to. Having a website isn’t a “build it and they will come” kind of proposition. You need to market that website, promote it in some fashion.

Here’s how you can do that. Read blogs that are somehow related to your subject area. In the case of your coin purse business, for example, you might read blogs that are about housekeeping, crafting, sewing, and fashion. Make comments on blog posts and provide a link to your site. People will read your comments and if they like what they read, they might click on your link. That drives people to the site and provides you with a method to get information about your website out to hundreds or thousands of people at a time.

Facebook

Many businesses create Facebook pages. You might have a personal Facebook page, but this is different. You create a page just for your business and provide as much information as you can about yourself and your business there. You can also provide a link to your Facebook page on the blog comments you leave, as well as provide a link to your Facebook page from your own website.

This can benefit others as well, because you can invite people to become your “friends” on Facebook. If they also have businesses they want to promote, they can become your “friends” and possibly find more friends themselves, which helps their business as well.

Twitter

Yes, everyone these days is “Twittering”. It can be a time waster as people twitter that they “just put dinner in the oven” or are “waiting for a delayed flight”. But many people have also discovered the power of Twitter as a networking tool.

You can post a link to your site in your Twitter profile and you can post comments related to what you do. People will “follow” you and you can “follow” them. As you post blog comments, or you update your web page, or even post updates to your own blog, you can make Twitter comments that include links to these things. You can also add a link to your Twitter page on your website.

It might take some time to get all of these things started, but take the time to do it – it’s all nearly free advertising and can turn into big money for you.