Has anybody here been on the New Enterprise Allowance scheme? I am contemplating starting my own business, as I hate being on the dole, and so need some information on this.

Would I still be able to claim Working Tax Credit as a self-employed 50yr old, in addition to claiming the £65.00 pwk the Jobcentre pays you while you are starting up your business? And in regard to the HMRC, what proof would they need if you stated to them that you are working 30hrs pwk on your business?

My business idea will probably take the form of putting up a few websites, monetizing them with various sources of income (e.g. affiliate links etc.). However, before I take the plunge, I really do need to know about this New Enterprise Allowance scheme, registering for tax etc.

Thanks.

If this doesn't help, google a bit more.

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/e...k/back_to_work_enterprise_allowance.html

Thanks. Will check out.

Wirral Biz in rock ferry should be able to help, good luck

This always sounds like an easy way to make money, it isn't, there are loads of sites out there trying the same and loads of get-rich-quick companies telling you to do just this.

Your main focus is how can you get traffic to your site, your site has to offer something that people want to see/use. By traffic, anything under 5000 hits a day is total trivia if you want this to generate a sustainable income.

Even when you have a good idea for the site to attract punters, you then need to create the pathways for them to find you. This basically means you need to boost you google ranking, to do that you need loads of other sites linking TO your site - this is another mountain to climb. Loads of sites will link to you for a fee but beware that google knows about ranking booster sites and ignores them.

Be careful on the enterprise scheme, they promise 6 months jsa, 6 months housing benefit etc, get that in writing from the relevant departments - it has a bad habit of disappearing prematurely.

Cheers. Thanks for the advice.

Forgot to mention some bits. You don't have to register as a sole trader until 3 months after you start trading. On the enterprise scheme, you should already be talking to them, they do offer significant advice and help and if there is training/courses to do its best to get them out the way as soon as, you may not have time (or shouldn't have time) on your hands once you hit the GO button.

Best of luck - it can be done but as with most things in life its structured hard work that is needed to be successful.

Cheers. Your advice was much appreciated and taken on board.

Like a lot of unemployed people, I would really love to start my own online business so that I could get off the dole (it's very demoralising signing on!). I do have some HTML knowledge and can build websites. I also know about SEO, building traffic. So I suppose I am halfway there in this respect.

All I need to do now is to think of a good profitable niche or two, and get much traffic flowing to whatever sites I finally decide to set up.