In all the jobs I had before I began working from home, I was not contributing in any great, or lasting, way to the world. I was simply doing my job, performing tasks, in an effort to make someone else more money. Since I was not in a sales position, my salary did not change according to how much money I earned (or saved) for the company. It didn't bother me too much that my work was making my employer rich - what bothered me the most was that I was not contributing anything to my community or helping anyone in any way. What if, I thought, what I did for a living could directly affect someone's life for the better?

This was my mindset when I decided to start a home based business.

It was a very long process to determine what it was I could do. Eventually I decided that building a website, relating to something I feel passionate about, would be the way to go. And I have not looked back since. I honestly enjoy every day that I build my business. I enjoy the process that goes into every new page on my site. And most of all, I love the emails I get from my website's visitors, thanking me for helping them.

Luckily for me, I found a company that took me under their wing and showed me exactly how to build a website, how to drive free traffic to my site, and how to actually make an income from it.

If you decide to build a website, here are the five essential keys to finding the right niche for you:

1. Decide what really matters to you. It is fairness, equality, or ethics? Is it the environment, animals or pets? Is it family or babies? Is it business related - like teaching marketing skills, assisting companies to grow, or hire the best employees? If you can narrow down what your passion is, then it will be easier to decide on a topic for a website.

2. Determine how you can help people. Will you offer a service or product that will benefit them in some way? Don't worry at this point about how you will make money, because you will learn that there are four or five ways to make money on a website. Say for example, your passion is home organizing - your business could be free tips broken down into five sections, such as closets, kitchen pantries, kids' rooms, bathrooms and home offices. Each section of that could be broken down further into supplies (sell the supplies here), real examples (sell ads on this page), Do's and don't's, and so on.

3. Do not be in a hurry. There is no such thing as "Get Rich Quick". If you believe those ads you see on the Internet, you'll "Get Ripped off Quick". Building a legitimate business takes time, and that's all there is to it.

4. Research online and at the library the topics that interest you.

5. Lastly decide how you are going to do it. Remember, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. You need to set up a budget and decide how much money you can afford to put into your new business, and exactly what steps are needed to accomplish you goal.

Above all, remember that starting your home based business will take time and effort. But it will be worth it - I promise! For more information on how I built my business, feel free to visit my website.