Seasonal peaks and troughs affect many online businesses. We never mind the peaks but the troughs give cause for concern. When you get stuck in a deep trough, you could reflexively check your inbox and website stats at close intervals. It is better to use this quiet period to do something more constructive.

Do the following ten things for your internet based home business and be ready for new business as soon as the quiet season closes.

Clear out your inbox.

Your inbox has probably not been sorted out thoroughly for months. Set up folders for categories of mail and move anything you need to keep into the appropriate folder. Delete anything else that's over a month old that you don't remember reading.

Organise your bookmarks

Be honest, how long is it since you gave your favourites/bookmarks a thorough spring clean? We all start out with the best of intentions for the way we will deal with saving useful websites to our bookmarks and most of us end up in a mess with far too many things stuffed into a handy miscellaneous folder where we can never find what need.

Find new forums

Posting messages on Internet forums is a good way of getting to know new people who might be interested in your products and most give you the chance to post a link to your website as part of your signature. Join new forums that relate to your business and form relationships with other members.

Write some articles

Writing and distributing articles is still one of the best ways of getting free traffic to your website. Use the quiet spell to write some extra articles. If you have put off article writing, take advantage of the slow down in business and spend time brushing up your writing skills.

Find new article directories

There are new online article directories opening up all the time. Do some online searches to locate new directories and add them to your list of places to post your articles.

Set up a viral advertising system

There are many sources of free viral advertising that will take on a life of their own and continue to grow and spread for years after you have set them up.

Get your website listed in Web Directories

There's no point in trying to rush this task, there are hundreds of web directories and it would be too boring to sit at this work for days on end. Make a habit of "suggesting" your website to a certain number of web directories each day.

Exchange quality links

Even if you have an automatic link exchange system working on your website, it is worthwhile making personal requests to webmasters for "partner" reciprocal links with high PR websites.

Be Sociable

Social networking is a great way to get your website seen without you having to pay for the privilege. As with forums, it is essential to check the rules before you do anything on these sites and, above all, make sure you never spam other members.

Take some time off.

Join the rest of humanity and take a vacation. Rest and relaxation is good for everyone. You can go back to being an Internet hermit in a refreshed state of mind and body as soon as the holiday season ends.

Even though a website might not have seasonal content, it can still be affected by the time of year. This is not something you can change but you can avoid wasting this extra time and use it to help your business.