SEO + Full-Time Working From Home?

This is kind of a different SEO question, but still very important in my mind.......

I have been doing custom website design, hosting and a little SEO for about 4 years with my "outside of work company". I currently work part time at a University but thinking about leaving at doing my outside business full-time.

The numbers are all there, but one thing still bothers me and I was hoping to get people's input, advise, etc. How can you work at home all day, every day? Doesn't this get rather "hermit-like"? I really enjoy getting dressed up nice for work, interacting with others, etc. but it has been a life long goal of mine to work for myself. So, I'm a little torn about which way to go and hope some of you can shed a little light on the subject.

Thanks in advance!

Wrong perspective... it's about "FREEDOM".

Freedom to come and go, have meetings where ever, travel whenever, etc., etc.

The only thing you need to wrap your head around "working without a net".

I work about 40 hours per week on my websites and another 40 as a professor. Until June I worked at home on the websites and that was fine because I enjoy working without distractions. Then I rented an office for the website work and hired a couple of employees to do research, graphics and pagebuilding. This is working best of all. The employees keep the projects moving forward everyday. It is also more fun for me to build something while working with others who have skills and time that exceed what I can do on my own.

The important thing... is that I enjoy both of these "jobs" enough that I would do them without pay.

I've worked from home and Yes, I did get lonely. I missed having someone in the next cube to take a peek and tell me what they thought, but.... on the other hand, I didn't have sales people and others manager types who I thought knew nothing over my shoulder telling me what to change.

I'm in a corporate space now, and I miss not having my fridge in the next room or my plants outside to water when I need to take a break and mull something over and I really miss being able to wear sweats and t-shirts, or not even get dressed at all, but the security of that paycheck always coming is such a relief... as is the health benifits.

Great. I will send you my site info, id, and password. Have fun maintaining mine too. Can you send me a weekly report on progress?

lol... I would have to charge REALLY BIG bucks to run your site. When I had to learn about that stuff in college, I fell asleep in class.

So for those of you who have done both work in an office (for an extended period) and worked from home (for longer than 6 months) what did you prefer more and why?

Was it hard to get up get cleaned up and live a normal day rather than work in your pajamas all day, go to bed, get up, repeat?

Egol, I'm jealous. This is the type of setup I would love. I just started teaching a small business SEO / SEM strategy class for the school of Entrepreneurship at Purdue and love it so far; but would also love to run a small office someday. As I am only 27, financially getting an office right now probably isn't realistic so there would have to be a period of time where I would primarily work from home. Was this hard for you?

It sounds like you are teaching a great course at a good institution. I hope that it works well for you.

This situation evolved for me. I worked solo from home for a couple of years, then contracted my fulfillment out to a local business. Then I needed good graphics and hired one person part time who worked from her home. We met a couple times a week to launch projects and review. Then I hired a second person to do research who also worked from home. This worked well but I realized that it would be more efficient to work in an office where workflow and information could simply be passed across the room - and where we could talk, draw, and look at a monitor and see the same thing at the same time. So I rented an office and hired a third person. I've been fortunate to get three excellent workers and the fulfillment service is accurate and speedy.

My office is just two blocks away from my home on the same street. Five minutes walk from home to office and I am just fifteen minutes away from where I teach. I waste very little time travelling.

rtheodorow - I had the same question which is what led to my SEO interviews serries. Honestly I was less interested in the tactics employed online than in the home-life. Two that immediately strike me as helpful to you are Miriam & Liam and Jim Cook. When I conducted the interviews my wife was pregnant and I was considering transforming 14thC into a full service venture. Clearly my situation is a bit different from yours in the simple fact that my house is never quiet between 10 am and 10 pm. I get 80% of my work done between 10 pm and 2 am. This leads to making getting up early difficult for me though I usually don't take calls until 10 am PST anyway because even if I've been up for a few hours I never seem to get clear-headed enough until then. :p

End result: my family is taken care of (though it's still rough getting started) and I'm happy doing what I do.

I dont have that mucha experience like you all guys have, niether i have that much of knowledge.. but one thing i have to agree with is:

At the End of the day, if you feel you are happy with what you have done.. then problem solved.. thats what really counts..if happiness is the bottomline of the day, then anything else hardly matters..



This line has the secret hidden in it..

Regards

Oh yeah! My field is just as exciting as yours and... . Ahhh... I'm sorry where was I?