Who is Craig and Why does He have a List?

Once upon a time a young man living in the San Francisco area had a computer. His name was Craig Newmark and he started posting things about cool things going on around town. Its popularity grew in leaps and bounds, so Craig had to get a Listserver majordomo, which required a name. He wanted to call his list 'sf-events' but was persuaded to call it Craigslist, since that is essentially what it was at the time.

Later, people started adding other things to the list, like apartments for rent and garage sale items. Craigslist is in every state and in most countries and it's become a great way to sell things and services to people.

If you have bunk beds that your children have outgrown, post them on Craigslist and watch the buyers come in droves. People are always searching for great deals and there are tons of products priced quite reasonably there. Some people scour garage sales in their neighborhoods, purchasing bargains and then reselling them for a profit. Craigslist is another great way to earn extra money online.

Ebay

Yes Virginia, there is a special place called eBay, where all the used clothing, the Barry Manilow cd's people got tired of, recycled wedding gowns, eBooks on how to get gum out of your hair and all the odd toys from the island of misfit toys come to be sold at auction to the highest bidder~~and people are making a killing there.

If you have something you would like to sell, something you don't need any longer, you can put it up for sale on Ebay. Set up a free account, browse the categories' they offer to get an idea of what's for sale and then either buy something or put something up for sale yourself. For a small fee, you can add pictures to your listing and create your own sales page to bring in customers. If you have a large inventory of things, like…oh, say garden gnomes with pygmy goat companions, you can have an online eBay store to sell your stock of the little critters.

You don't have to just sell used stuff either. You can sell new goods from dropshippers, and sell them via Ebay. There are many guides to dropshipping on Ebay available.

You can customize your auctions for three days or an entire week, depending upon how much exposure you want and how fast you'd like it to go. Set a reserve price for your product, so that someone can simply pay that price, end the auction and go home with your product. Ebay is an excellent way to earn extra money online.

Internet Marketing

There are numerous ways to earn extra money through Internet Marketing. What you're going to need is a product to sell, whether it be a physical product or a digital product of information.

Let's say you create garden gnomes, in all shapes and colors. Some are happy some are sad and a few are just plain creepy looking. Now you want to make money off your gnomes. You will need to market them.

You'll need a website, a sales page, pictures of your gnome inventory and your prices. Setting up a domain, an account with paypal and then advertising your wares in various places is all well and good, but what if no one comes to visit your site? You have no traffic. You need traffic.

Market yourself. Put your name out there as THE person to see for garden gnomes. Put in keywords, the words that search engines look for people are searching for things online, all through your website. Visit other sites that are garden gnome related. Trade links with them, foster a relationship in gnome forums and brand your name. Make sure that when you post, your signature has a link to your website in it. Advertise through Google or other web pages. Bring in the customers.

Article Directories and Ezines

If you can write, you can earn extra money online.

Let's say you enjoy raising pygmy goats. You're an expert on pygmy goats. You know how to breed them, what they eat, how to handle their health issues and just where to tickle them to make them giggle. You are The Pygmy Goat Whisperer.

Write articles about pygmy goats and submit them to an article directory like Article Dashboard, or an Ezine. Within your article on Pygmy Goat Nutrition, you can insert hyperlinks to your webpage where you sell All Natural Pygmy Goat Food. People come to the article directory searching for pieces to place on their websites. Someone chooses your article and it's spread to all the visitors to that particular website. People begin to visit your website and start buying the things you have to sell. They sign up for your free Pygmy Goat Newsletter, and join your Pygmy Goat Lovers Membership group, at a price of course. You are making money various ways and it all started because you love pygmy goats and you wrote an article about it.

Your marketing goes on and on as long as your article is available on the directory.

Ebooks, Affiliates and Blogs

An eBook is short for Electronic Book, it's created on a computer and sold digitally to customers.

It does not pass through editors and publishers who all take a portion of the profits from the author. If you can write and are an expert on something, you can write an eBook and sell it online. An Ebook has distinct advantages over a regular book in that you can place hyperlinks into an eBook that will direct customers to websites where you may be selling products relating to that particular eBook. In this way you make money once on your eBook sale and then again when your customers pay you a visit on your website.

You can place Affiliate Links in your book. An Affiliate link is where your customer clicks and is taken to a place like Amazon or another website selling products. When they purchase products from these links, you the author, are given a portion of the sale.

If you enjoy writing, you may wish to try your hand at writing a blog. The subject can be anything of interest to you, and you can place ads targeted to your audience on your blog. Here's a wonderful, and free, guide to getting started blogging. When items are bought by your readers through those links, you make money. Ka-ching!

Are You Ready?

There are some things you need to do before you jump right into earning extra money online.

First, you must decide just what it is that you want to do. Take a look at where your strengths lie, what you're interested in, what talents you have and what you can do with them. People who make a good living off of the Internet generally do so because they use their gifts, their talents and even their hobbies.

You'll need a computer, Internet access, and the ability to take payments online from a service such as Paypal or credit cards. You'll need a website, so you should look for cheap domains to purchase that will host your Internet venture, if that's the direction you're going to take your business.

There are ways to earn extra money online without owning a website and I'll talk more about those later.

Internet Cash Machine

You may have heard of people making a great deal of money off of the Internet and wondered if it was true.

It's true.

You can actually turn your computer into a cash machine and start making money on a number of online ventures and you can do it with little or no upfront investment.

The Internet has spawned countless millionaires, it has helped stay-at-home moms bring in a little extra cash for their households, sprouted numerous websites promoting everything under the sun and it's made people famous and rich at the same time. There are so many ways to make an online income, and I'm going to share some of them with you here in the following pages. If you follow the tips in this book, there's no way to NOT make some money.

You can write eBooks, write articles and have them distributed, you can blog, you can sell things on eBay, you can become an affiliate marketer, an Internet Marketer or sell things on Craigslist. All of these things are great ways to earn extra money.

It's all there for the taking, so step up and get your slice of the Internet pie.