Three Things I've Done That Have Made Me Cash - Work Required!

Hi I am posting this in response to a thread where a member asked how much money do people really make and these are just some ideas that I've used.

1. Offline/Online SEO Service:
I contacted business offline letting them know that I can get them ranking higher locally and in essence allow them to potentially get more leads and or sales. I initially required $850 to setup accounts for them and then $550 / mo. for 4 keyphrases using two outsource services in the Phillipines and Singapore.

I then had their meta tags and online site seo evaluated and made suggestions or necessary changes. Along with that video creation and submission, articles per key phrase, press releases, forum entries (manually) and slew of other details but you get the main point.

My offline costs were about $150 in total so after a small Paypal fee I made a bit over $415/mo. It was a success because the service did what it said. 1 to 3 position in Google for all keyphrases even above a 16,000,000 results page and with major companies competing. The clients were very happy and I had a nice profit margin

2. This next one did not make lots of money but the concept can be used with almost any sensible products that fit a niche that may be part of a coming even or t.v. show etc. Moving forward:

I noticed Oprah a couple years back was going to have a show including the Neti Pot (nasal irrigation). The commercial kept showing so many times this popped in my head. I make a Squidoo lense on the subject linking it to, then a page titled AllAboutNetiPot.info and to 3 Amazon pages. 1 page for neti pots, 1 page for neti pot salt (non-chlorinated, non-faucet water and non-iodized salt is recommended) and 1 page for neti pot reading materials/ books. I linked them all together like a web each showing it's own content and then telling the visitor to go to the othe sites to learn more.

When the the show came on just 2 to 3 days later sales kept coming in from many of the curious guests who'd seen the show, I believe. Again Amazon didn't pay much for commission as many neti pots only cost about $9 to $20 dollars, but my sales were so far down the page i had to scroll quite a ways to see them and they continued with extremely minimal upkeep, for about a year on and off sales not daily but remember i set it up and did virtually nothing afterwards. What's important here is you can do the same with an item that pays a much heftier commission and get a better return! Oh yeah I also added my adsense code and amazon to the squidoo lens and earned small amounts as people went through links directly on my lens page as well It's died down now but I just showed a co-worker how funny it was to see a payment to me in my paypal for $9.00 from paypal and I haven't looked at the page in over a year lol.

3. Last but not least a method I've been urged by friends to write an ebook and make a video and or audio about. This is Craigslist sales but NOT spam selling with mutliple accounts as with other systems. This has to do with selling valuable items you've owned that are truly treasure to others. Cars, Cellphones, water dispensers, Weights or exercise machines, Inversion devices, etc... even little things like collectable trinkets or baby chairs.

So here's the nitty gritty. I downloaded Gimp (graphic software) kinda like Photoshop. I also had Photoshop but I wanted to see how Gimp worked and it was fine.

I then made a simple template using the Golden Ration formula. Don't flip out it's easy and simple to understand and is not even necessary. I just did it because just like the iPhone or EVO those dimensions just make things more visually pleasing to the eye automatically.

I took front, back sides and top/bottom photos as necessary of any Item to be sold. I then down sized each pic to fit nicely in my pre-arranged rectable length top to bottom. Not this part is not rocket science but it is important and the next part is the science. I state the type make model of whatever in the title, the price based on the true value and adjusted depending on how used the product is and then add a bit on for bartering cushion.

Here's the real science and it's extremely simple. "Tell people exactly what they want to know!"

Many of the ads I've seen fall short of something. They leave out so much, take hideous pictures, blurry, too dark or way too much light and washed out. The item wasn't cleaned or prepared before taking pics so it looks shabby and so on. Here's some actual copy and pasted text from items or vehicle sold and most in under 5 days. The one directly below 3days! and it's not even a nice looking car. You could by a Honda for the same price or a bit less and have a better car in my opinion.

"1995 White Infinity G20T 6Cyl 2.0L 4dr Automatic
Runs Great!
Reason for sale: Purchasing other vehicle. Must Sell!
Mileage 126432
Power: locks, leather seats, windows & sunroof
AM/FM stereo /CD
A/C, Rear defrost
Cruise control, ABS breaks
Alloy wheels"

"Put Fresh Bottled Water In Your Home Today!!!
Dispenser Plus 3 water bottles with caps included."

"Call (916) 47*-*** ask me, DAN questions!
This is my personal appliance. I just use Photoshop to arrange the ad. I'm not a business.
Call quickly, I don't care if it's 2:00am because during the week I work through the day.
Online you can see it average for about $160.00 with shipping & handling. NOW FOR JUST $50 BUCKS! "

I put the line about me using photoshop up there because makeing ads this way looks so much more professional I had people asking me if I was a business that was advertising on Craigs. i also used unprofessional wording to let them see that Im a normal, real person. The urgency is slight but added about me working so call asap or I'll be at work and can't answer. Clever huh, rather than pushing the CALL NOW, don't delay, items are being snatched off the shelf infomercial idea lol.

This is only 3 examples the first sold for $2000 the second sold for a quick $50 bucks and the 3rd sold for the full $50 asked for.

In the wording which you can see some of because the rest is in an image, I give a little ad boost to coax the buyer and explain why I'm getting rid of it, whether there are any faults, and how they can call me DAN making it more personal. as you can see in the 3rd example I even use the I.M. idea of calling me even if it's 2am.

Telling the buyer everything from why you're selling, to why there may be damage has proven to make near guaranteed sales in a short time over most others selling on Craigslist. This may seem like common sense but it truly isn't. Some people that I've assisted have looked at me like it was the dumbest idea in the world to say why you want to sell it. And they were surprised to get their item sold so fast.

By removing most questions people can come up with along with some simple I.M. copy techniques and neat well placed pics your items can sell in no time.

I've also made graphic Craigslist ads for Limo companies, heating ventilation and air and others. This all has brought in spurts of cash large and small and can really save you in times of financial strain.

I hope this give some insight to things YOU can do to make some extra cash or at least the motivation to get moving on something you've been holding back on.

Dan Gonzalez (Afterglow)