Let’s face it: times are hard right now. Have you been laid off and can’t find another job? Whether you are desperate for cash or just want to supplement, here are some unique methods how to make money online.

Of course, there are plenty of ways to make money online, and no one will contest that. But before you jump off your chair and leap for the first thing you see… watch yourself. Not all that glitters is gold.

There are tons of people out there who are willing to rip you off to make a few bucks for themselves. They’ll charge you tons of money in order to deliver a bunch of hype and hooey. If it sounds too good, yeah, it is. Sad but true.

1. Make Money Selling

Almost everyone has either bought or sold something on an auction site, like Amazon.com or eBay.com. If you have done either of those websites, or have even heard of them, you know that’s usually a great way to make money online. You can even go full-time if you work at it.

There are tons of products on there that you can buy dirt cheap. Find a way to get them, but a lot lot, and then find a person in the “real world” who will pay you for the stuff. Instant profit — instant business.

2. Make Money Writing

Cheap content is hard to find — I should know, as I own a network of websites. People like me are willing to pay good cash to anyone who can pump out reviews and simple articles, reviewing movies and music and the such. Find them and make money writing.

Of course you can market your skills for SEO purposes, blogs, content networks — there are just a ton of ways to make money with short amounts of content.

3. Play Games, Earn Money

This is probably the “coolest” way to make money online that I’ve ever heard of, and it’s actually pretty simple. Do you like playing games? If so, then you can do so by playing games like World of War Craft. If you play a lot you can make a chunk of change…while goofing off.

Open an account, play and level your character. Make a lot of gold and equip your toon with certain items and skills. Then, sell the account through a website. Repeat as much as you want to.

Conclusion

Don’t feel bad if you need to make money online. We’ve all been there, done that, and it’s part of the human cycle of life. The important thing is that you CAN make money online now. It will take work, but you can do it.

Its no secret that there is a lot of money to be made on eBay, but to do so you have to sell the right products. Selling the wrong items is the biggest mistake beginners make. So how you do know what to sell? To begin with, you need to get your products through drop shippers and wholesalers.

The first thing you must do is to obtain product catalogs from as many drop shippers and wholesalers as possible. With these catalogs youll know what products you can get your hands on. Now you can do market research on products you know you can sell.

Getting the catalogs first will save you time. Many beginners do product research only to find that once they have determined the best products to sell, they cant find any wholesalers to supply them.

A great strategy is getting as many catalogs as you can, whether or not you think you are interested in selling their products. Be sure you aren’t biased toward products that appeal to you. Many sellers believe if it interests them, it interests everyone. This is a great error in judgment. You must first be sure there is a market for it. Next, we have the greatest factor for your success.

Once you have compiled a list from the product catalogs of potential products, you should determine their ability to sell. Looking at the recently closed auctions for the product should give you this information.

Look at the percentage of items that sold. The higher the percentage the better; a 5% success rate is not a hot item and therefore not a good item for you to sell.

But be careful. You have to pay attention to the numbers. If 50% of the product has been sold, this could be a good product. Pay attention to the number of auctions that were sold. If 1 of our 2 auctions sold, this might be a good percentage, but the potential to make money probably lies in a different product.

Finally, you will want to check what your product has sold for in the past and make certain the selling price is higher than your purchase price. There are a variety of research tools available to you that are reasonably priced. Following these steps will help you find the best products you can sell on eBay.

One of the most theoretical, easy and exciting ways to generate an income online is through Affiliate Marketing. You don’t have to own any products on product based website and yet you still have the freedom to create, market and make money. All you have to do is to get the right people to purchase the right products.

The national eBay marketplaces offer wide range of opportunity because it has wide product inventory, competitive product pricing, great branding and offer substantial affiliate payouts. The eBay marketplace keeps the seller’s product prices low to attract more buyers at the same time offers safe and trusted products for the buyers.

Also for some individuals their source of income is through Ebay affiliates. Before, they run their affiliate program using Commission Junction. Yet, not long ago Ebay started running their affiliates program with Ebay partner Network. Now Ebay offer different ways to promote Ebay. You don’t even have to buy extra scripts in promoting Ebay. You’ll just have to use Rss Feeds and widgets to promote it.

The greatest thing in promoting Ebay is the Ebay cookie. Unlike the Amazon’s cookie the life of the cookie is longer. Id someone clicked to Ebay links the Ebay cookie stays in that computer. And the cookie of a person with an ebay account it usually expires after seven days. Buy if you are new on Ebay it usually runs up to 30 days.

This means that you still have seven days to generate an income for an Ebay user and 30 days for someone who is new in Ebay. You can make money if that person signs up and bids within the 30 days. You can earn $25 even they didn’t win the bid. This means that Ebay pays you on activity and not winnings.

Since Ebay has so many products to promote about, you can easily look around for cool stuffs and promote it. You can also do product review hubs and “favorite stuff” type hubs. It can draw more customers to buy products and services. You can also set up your Ebay sites by installing Wordpress in it and use phpBay Wordpress plug in. It is very easy. All you have to do is to plug in your campaign id into the plugin options and add the ebay listings. PhpBay Pro is also helpful for SEO purposes like masking the urls of Ebay.

Nevertheless, in order to use phpBay or BANS you should have your own hosting and domains. It is because for some plug-ins it may not work on other sites. Dreamhost is the hosting site. Dreamhost also presents hosting plan that only cost for $199 a year and also you can use Hostgator for hosting.

People who have used eBay to purchase may still be confused about how to post an item for sale. I will explain the basic steps here, and if you follow them you will be listing items like a pro.

Obviously, you will need to set up an e-Bay seller’s account in order to sell items on eBay. Simply go to e-bay’s website and follow the instructions there for setting up a seller’s account. You will need an e-mail address and a PayPal account.

What do you want to sell? Something around your house that you no longer want is the best place to start. Setting up an auction for an old knick-knack will get you the experience you need to be comfortable with eBays listing process.

Click the “Sell” tab on the e-bay website and simply follow the prompts. You will be asked to select a category that fits the item you are selling. Then you will title and describe your item. Use as many descriptive words and interesting facts as you can to describe your item to entice buyers. Use as much of the space available to tell buyers what you have and why they need it.

Then comes the starting prize. You can have for the first auction between0. 01$ to 0.99$ depending on the type of item you have announced for sale. Then comes the duration. The longer it stays the better for you.

For bid style listing it’s better to set the auction duration at 7 days. Next, you will pick the places you are willing to ship to. New sellers should stick to only shipping within their own country. Once all of the information is filled in, submit your item for sale.

Then wait. Thousands of buyers will see your item. You can wait till the last minute of your specified time. In between there may be so many questions on your title and item. Answer as quickly as possible and it can even be posted so that you avoid answering the same question again.

Your item might not sell its first time out. Dont let that discourage you. You can relist items on eBay without paying an additional fee, and sometimes it takes several listings for an item to find its destined buyer.