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When Money is Tight… |
Money is all around us, yet it seems hard to gather a lot of. Some people have millions while most dream of millions.
The economy has not been in the greatest shape lately to state it mildly, with companies going bankrupt, thousands of jobs per week being laid off and credit being very difficult to get.
I’m going to share with you two ways how you can make some extra cash on the side, and maybe even turn that into a fulltime income one day. The ways that I list below can bring you anything from an extra $300 a month to an extra few thousand dollars a month, and will cost you $30 or less to get started with.
Before I start, I want to mention that I do not think there is a free lunch, and most things require work, effort and dedication to see results, but if you are sitting at home for a few hours a day watching TV or doing something that is not really essential, why not put some time in to a project that can make you some money?!
1 – Internet marketing.
This means making money online, either through a blog, website, ebook, articles or email.
There is literally tons of information out there, and I could possibly never write enough in a few paragraphs to explain to you what and how to do it, but I can guide you in the direction.
1.1 – A blog
A blog, like Upgradereality.com, is a website on which the author expresses his or her thoughts about a subject or niche. Mine is about self improvement, but you can write reviews on products or movies, you can have a cooking blog if you are a chef and want to share recipes, maybe a blog on DIY tips for fixing things around the house. You can make money from allowing others to advertise on your page, by creating and selling your own ebook, or by recommending affiliate products and getting a commission for each sale.
The downside with a blog is that it can take a long time (2 years or more) to gather a big audience and become well known, so it can take just as long to see a good income.
The upside is that it is really fun to write, you meet and connect with so many people you would never meet in real life, and if you are passionate and persevere you can make great money. I read that Darren from Problogger.net makes over $100k per year!
1.2 – A website
A website can be anything from a few pages to hundreds of pages about a topic. Normally, the more unique content, the better it ranks in search engines (like Google and Yahoo), and the more traffic it gets. Usually websites promote either their own products or other peoples products (which makes them an affiliate) and get commissions for every sale (sometimes as high as 75% of the sale).
The benefit of being an affiliate is that you are only the broker, you have nothing to do with creating or producing a product, and nothing to do with shipping or handling, you only introduce the customer to the product.
More targeted traffic (people searching for your type of content) means more potential buyers which means more income for you. A website has the advantage that it does not need to be updated with fresh content continuously like a blog.
Personally I saw some success with selling tattoo design gallery memberships when I first started, so I bought a bunch of tattoo related domains, created websites, wrote some articles to promote my sites and ended up making about $2000 in the last year just from selling those tattoo design gallery memberships. I have a few other products I’m promoting and it brought in about another $1000 last year.
Not that this is a full-time income or anything I could live off, but it was all done in my spare time after work or on weekends, and is good extra income, it’s going to be used nicely to party and travel when I go to Amsterdam in December for 3 months. It’s nothing to brag about, I’m just showing you that it is possible to make a side-income, and if you know what you are doing, or over time, it can grow into a substantial amount of money. I started off not even knowing that it was possible to make money on the internet without selling porn. 
For complete, step-by-step instructions on building a website or a blog, I strongly recommend Cloud-Living. which is a 176 page ebook for beginners and advanced how to start making money online. It is written by Glen Allsopp from PluginID.com, his own personal development blog that he managed to grow to 5000 subscribed readers in just one year. Read the Cloud-Living review HERE.
1.3- Article Marketing
Article marketing is a totally free way to make money online.
In fact, many people start their internet marketing career by article marketing, or ‘Bum marketing’, which is a term coined by Travis Sago from www.bummarketingmethod.com, because it is so easy and free that literally a bum off the street could start making money this way. If this sounds interesting to you definetly have a look at his website.
Article marketing is exactly that. Short precise articles of 300-600 words giving a solution for a problem, or promoting a product. There are many directories to which articles can be submitted, and it is quite common to get an article ranking on the first page of Google for a certain keyword phrase. Inside the article, you will link to a product with your affiliate link, and when the reader purchases that product, you get a commission.No website needed, no hosting, no costs.
Readers find your article by searching Google and other search engines for a problem they have or a product they are interested in. This is what you try to capture in your article, because when someone goes out and find you, it takes a lot less convincing in order for them to get out their credit card and make a purchase. They are already prepared to buy, all they need is for you to connect them with the right product or service.
Not every article you write will bring in sales, maybe 1 in every 5 or 1 in every 10 articles will bring you sales. What if you wrote 5 articles every day (which will take you 1-2 hours) ? That would mean 1825 articles promoting products in a year. Realistically, say only 100 of those articles each bring in 5 sales per year of $20, then your total profit is $10 000. The hard part is writing 5 articles a day for 365 days a year, but it can be done!
Where to find products to promote?
http://www.clickbank.com
A digital marketplace with over 10000 products to promote. Free signup. (not affiliate link)
Where to write articles?
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.goarticles.com
These are the two biggest article directories on the web. It’s free to sign up. (not affiliate link)
If you have any questions about internet marketing I’ll be glad to help you with what I have learnt so far.
2 – Online Poker
Before I tell you about how you can make money playing online poker without investing your own money, I want to warn you that many people lose their savings playing poker, sometimes everything they have in the idle hope that they will become millionaires.
Do NOT play poker with money you cannot lose. In fact, this post is not to try to get you to spend money in poker rooms at all. Let me explain.
There are millions of people playing poker online every minute of every day. Some of them play $1 games and others play $100 000 games and more. There are tens of poker sites online, poker sites make money through taking a few cents of every hand played, and thus, the more games played, and the more players, the better it is for a poker site to exist.
Most big poker sites offer a no deposit sign-up bonus to new players. This means that just for signing up as a new player on a poker site, you can get anywhere between $25-$100 free from the site as an incentive for you to play with them. Of course, the bigger reason behind it is to get players hooked, and once they lose their free money, that they will deposit their own money.
DO NOT FALL INTO THIS TRAP.
If you sign up and get the free money, and you lose it, delete your account and don’t think about playing again. Try it again with a different poker site. There are probably over 20 sites where you can get no deposit signup bonuses.
I personally know someone who started with a free $50 at an online poker site who now, 3 years later has made millions of dollars and retired before the age of 30. The behind-the-scenes of this story is that he spent every night playing poker online, 6 hours a day, and well within his bankroll, meaning that if he has $50 in his account, he only plays $1 games until he has enough to be able to play $2 games, etc.
http://www.bankrollmob.com
Bankrollmob is a site that offers nodeposit bonuses on poker sites, but there are plenty more if you do a quick search in Google. (I’m not affiliated with Bankrollmob).
What I’m saying is that you should not expect to be like the person I know and make thousands or millions, but it is possible. I’m also saying that you must not deposit your own money, and if you think there is any chance you will get addicted to gambling, then don’t even start with the nodeposit bonuses. I’m serious!
For the rest, be free to give the experiment a go 
Cheers!
Have a Rockin’ day
Diggy
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Hey Diggy,
Nice summary of Internet Marketing methods. I’ve been working on 1.1 and 1.2 and had heard of 1.3 but was still a little vague on what it was all about. You very nicely made that clear. It’s also nice that you mention some personal results in there. Good stuff!
.-= Dave Witwicki´s last blog ..Book Review : Fearless by Max Lucado =-.
Heya Dave
Glad you enjoyed the post and that it cleared some things up for you!
Thanks for stopping by!
I appreciate it!!
Haha, great advice, but I’m not sure I’d bank on online poker to make my millions
Then again, maybe that’s just because I’m terrible at poker
.-= Colin Wright´s last blog ..Missouri: So Long, Thanks for All the Hicks =-.
Haha Colin
Yeah I suck at poker too, I just thought I’d mention it.
Thanks for stopping by
Hi Diggy,
Have you made any money from article marketing? I’d be curious to hear some numbers and success stories. I wonder how beneficial they would be for just bringing traffic.
Everyone writes about article marketing but I haven’t seen any real metrics on it.
Don’t even get me started on poker! I have no self-control for cards. You are leading me into bad territory!
.-= John Bardos – JetSetCitizen´s last blog ..What is a Great Lifestyle? =-.
Heya John!
Ive written about 120 articles last year and maybe made around 8 sales directly from my articles.
I dont have the inspiration to write so many articles promoting products every day, although lately Ive been writing 2 a day for some new products I found.
I’m mostly using my articles to create good backlinks for my affiliate sites to get them to rank well in google.
I don’t know if this is correct, but if you have a few hundred articles, and you decide to launch a new site, you could link to your new site in every one of those articles and thus get a few hundred backlinks pretty easily ?
Cheers and thanks for stopping by!:)
Hey Diggy, leuk dat je nu veel over internet marketing schrijft. Veel mensen weten niet eens van het bestaan van internet marketing af, dus het is leuk dat je daar zoveel aandacht aan besteedt.
ps. heb Glen’s blog zitten lezen en die zei dat je NL bent, dus dacht… ik laat een berichtje in het Nederlands achter.
Hey Katya!
Leuk dat jij ook nederlands bent
Fijn dat het je intereseerde! Ja ik ben inderdaad nederlands, maar ik woon al een hele tijd in Zuid Afrika!
Binnenkort terug in Amsterdam met Glen!
Dank je wel
Tot gauw!
Um…what Katya said.
No, for real, I didn’t know that much about article marketing and you made it very clear. you make a great point that there’s always something you can do if you’re feeling “stuck”.
Off to twit it.
Have a great Wednesday!
.-= brian papa´s last blog ..A Walk to Remember & Another Narcoleptic =-.
Hey Brian!
Haha, yeah that was my first dutch comment.
Glad I made article marketing a little clearer for you, but I think the time for really easy money with article marketing is over, because the market is pretty saturated.
This doesn’t mean you can’t make money with articles, it just means that it’s harder. If you enjoy writing or are good at it, you could also start an article writing service where you offer to write unique articles for $3-$5 each and if you get enough customers then 5 articles is $25 a day which is an extra $150 a week for 6 days a week.
I just thought I’d make a post that people can use to make some extra money. Hope it helps someone
Cheers!
Thanks for sopping by!
I knew this guy who was a pro poker player. He claimed that he made tons of money and spent it all on cocaine and sleeping with prostitutes and porn stars. Long story short after endless partying he ended up in rehab and had to stop. He stills makes his living from poker but the coke and hookers are no more. So it seems that their is money in the game you just need SELF CONTROL (and you actually need to know how to play)
.-= Faramarz – Anxious Candy´s last blog ..How To Build A ‘Branded’ Business – Part 3 =-.
Heya Faramarz!
Wow, hectic story. I’ve heard a few of those myself, it’s especially hard to stay normal when those amounts of money come so easily, and then people start doing crazy things like you mentioned above.
It takes a lot a lot a lot of self control like you say!
Thanks for leaving a comment
Hey Diggy, great article. I wonder how you do article marketing with ezine articles because I thought it was not possible to include affiliate links. Do you just send them to your landing page?
.-= Oscar – freestyle mind´s last blog ..27 Traits Of Successful People =-.
Hi Oscar!
Yeah most people actually use Ezine.
It is not possible to put a direct affiliate link in your author resource box, so you would have to make a website or landing page where you direct your readers to, and from your website you will send them off to the affiliate link!
.-= Diggy – Upgradereality.com´s last blog ..When Money is Tight… =-.
The best way to start is with some basic methods like these, later you can learn some more advanced stuff but it is most important just to start doing something.
.-= Dan´s last blog ..Special Price for you Sir! Dual Pricing =-.
Heya Dan!
Thanks for stopping by!
I agree, that is the key, just start with something, start learning, start working, and as you go on and keep reading and learning, you grow and get more advanced and start making more money.
I haven’t covered any real methods here, just a basic and brief outline of what is possible and how you can go about!
Cheers
.-= Diggy – Upgradereality.com´s last blog ..When Money is Tight… =-.
Hey,
Great post Diggy, and thanks a lot for the link. It’s definitely possible for people to make money online, even in this economy.
.-= Glen Allsopp´s last blog ..How to Make Goal Achievement 100x Easier =-.
Heya Glen!
You’re welcome!
You’re living proof how possible it is to make loads of money online!
Cheers!
Diggy! Our internet marketing experiences sound pretty identical. I’ve made $2000+ over the last couple of years, mostly with article marketing. I still get checks from ClickBank every once in a while so that’s nice. Might start doing it again, who knows? Cool post!
.-= Nate´s last blog ..Why I have the most basic cell phone ever =-.
Nate
Cool man, glad I’m not the only one! Sometimes I feel so dumb when I read these stories of guys making thousands of dollars a month. I know it can be done, but for now I can’t get my head around HOW yet. I’ll keep going at it, it will work eventually!
Cheers!
Wealth is in the mind of the individual who can think. So if you want to become wealthy begin to think of yourself as already rich. You can use affirmations and such , but visualizing the riches you want by a certain date, daily in your mind will create financial freedom. Lets not forget hard work!
Great post!
.-= jonathanfigaro´s last blog ..Posiitve Thinking Is Destroying Your Life =-.
Heya Jonathan!
That’s true, we all have something that is unique that we can use to give others what they want, and thus create vast wealth.
Of course, like you say, it needs hard work, good timing and a dash of good luck
Thanks for stopping by!
Hey Diggy
great practical post. Now that I’ve got my blog up and running I am toying with the idea of tring some affiliate sales. will come back to this post for tips. cheers Diggy
Jen
.-= Jen´s last blog ..Take your mind on vacation! =-.
Heya Jen
If you have some spare time then definitely put some work into it, it could end up being very rewarding!
If you need any help feel free to message me!
Cheers
Great post man. You are right in commenting that you can still make money in this economy. It really doesn’t matter how bad it gets, there is always a way. The thing to understand is that the way its made has to change. I work with businesses all the time helping them get or keep customers and most of the time the just need to keep trying different things until they find what works. Keep it up I am sure you will make it.
.-= Jeff´s last blog ..5 Things to do to get in a better mood =-.
Heya Jeff!
Welcome! Nice to see you here
I agree, there is always a way, but sometimes it takes a lot of time and many attempts to find what works. Just don’t give up.
Thanks for the kind words!
Wow, blogging takes two years to generate good income? I hope it will not be the case on my blog. Nevertheless, I won’t be discouraged; blogging is very fulfilling.
.-= Walter´s last blog ..How to unleash your true capacity =-.
Hi Diggy, I loved the different direction you went with this article. I don’t have time for the poker stuff but I was really interested in the article marketing. I need to get Glen’s book too.
.-= Stephen – Rat Race Trap´s last blog ..Is It Time for a Quantum Leap? =-.
Interesting article. Were did you got all the information from…
The internet is a good idea, but it has a steep learning curve. I actually started having my first successes a whole year after starting online last year. But I had to learn something from scratch.
I wish I had then a blueprint for quicker success like Glen’s ebook
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