If you enjoy crafts and you have an eye for detail then you could make a nice income for yourself selling hand made items of jewelry.
Most people who sell their jewelry have a style of some kind that they hone over time, and it’s that style that they become known for. This is certainly an area where you should take your time to develop a business, because you will learn more as a result and be rewarded with a better income too.
But if you get it right, this is one business that can make you money both online and off.
Hand made jewelry has a charm and attraction that most mass produced jewelry just doesn’t have. What’s more, people will pay a premium for something that is unique and not seen everywhere. Depending on the way you want to develop your business you can either design items and produce them in very small amounts (perhaps making each one just slightly different in the process), or specialize in making real ‘one offs’ that are commissioned by individual customers.
There are lots of ways you can sell your jewelry too, and the beauty of it is that it is easy to send through the mail, since it is small, light and cheap to mail to people.
You should have a website to promote your goods, and if you set it up so that you can accept secure payments over the internet you can sell directly from it as well. Always put your contact information on there in order to open up the possibility of someone getting in touch for a specialized order.
If you don’t want to launch into having your own website in the beginning, think about using eBay or Etsy to sell your jewelry on. Etsy in particular is known for hand made goods of all kinds, and jewelry does very well on here. You can also open a shop on the site completely free of charge.
But don’t just stick to online markets to find customers. Get some business cards made up with your website address or Etsy store name and URL on them, and take them (along with your jewelry!) to every local craft fair and gathering you can find. Not only will you sell some jewelry, you might also pick up some commissions – not to mention the fact that you’ll be able to promote your online store and your business as a whole during the event.
Make every effort to display your jewelry in the best way possible. Silver jewelry looks very effective against a black or blue velvet background, for example. Experiment at home and use stands of varying heights to display things so that they can be seen better from a distance as well.
You won’t make instant riches with a home made jewelry business, but over the long term you could develop a strong customer base that will reward you in more ways than one. It’s also a great way to start a business around your current job. You can take your time to hone your skills and build a business, all the while secure in the knowledge that you have a full time income to pay the bills.
So why not think about your first few designs right now? There’s no time like the present – or at least five minutes time, after you have left us a comment below!

There are plenty of ways to make money from writing, but poetry is certainly one of the more unlikely ones. After all, most poets struggle to make anything at all, let alone a significant amount of money from their efforts.
But if you think laterally you can actually do quite well from this branch of writing. It may never be a full time career but there are people making a nice second income from penning a few rhymes and poems every now and then.
The secret is to make sure you are writing for the right markets. Read on to find out what they are.
There is one very large market for poetry that you probably look at virtually every day, and yet most people simply don’t realize that it exists as an opportunity to make money.
The market we’re talking about is greetings cards manufacturers. After all, how many greetings cards do you see that have simple poems inside them, conveying a message to the recipient which could be funny, heart warming, emotional or joyful? If you can come up with this kind of poetry then you could be well rewarded for each one you write that ends up being accepted.
There are two ways to find the best markets to write for. Firstly you can visit your local card stores and see which manufacturers publish cards with these types of poems on them. You might know that you have more of a talent with some rather than others, so concentrate your search on the manufacturers and publishers that create the cards you feel you could write.
Make a note of the company name and then do a search on the internet to find them. This is also the best way to find other companies who you may not easily find in the stores.
Not all greetings card companies will be looking for freelance work, but those that are will often have guidelines on their websites, so print these off and read them carefully in order to stand a chance of succeeding. You might find it helpful to jot down some ideas while you are reading them, since they may be looking for specific ideas or themes that you could work on.
Companies such as these usually let you send in a batch of ideas at the same time because of the brevity of the work involved, so make sure you have several to send in and take your time over them to make sure they are the best you can do. Editing your work is very important – even on items as short as these will be – since there is a lot of competition on many occasions and even the odd change of a word here and there could make all the difference between acceptance and rejection.
Persevere with your efforts too, because it might take a few attempts before you get anything accepted. The great part of making money from your poetry in this way is that you will get to see your poems on the cards in your local store once they are published – and there is no greater reward than that!
You could also make your own cards and sell them if you have a lot of poems you would like to use that are turned down by the card companies. A lot of people will pay handsomely for hand made cards and if you feel confident enough you could even charge a premium for writing unique poems for specific people.
If this has got your creative juices running then why not start jotting your ideas down right now? You’ll find it useful to keep a notepad with you at all times for writing them down whenever they come to you – but the first thing you should write is a comment for us in the box below!

YouTube is one of those websites that really has taken the internet by storm. So long as you have the right equipment to shoot a home movie (and it isn’t too hard to come by without shelling out loads of cash nowadays) you stand a chance of developing an existing business or starting a new one, purely by signing up to YouTube and putting those movies online.
But that doesn’t explain what kind of videos you should be making. Well relax, because that is what you are about to find out. There is one very good way to make money using this website, you are about to find out what it is.
Let’s start by looking at YouTube as a way to bring in more business for your existing venture. If you can shoot short videos related to your business (making sure you include the URL to your website on the video itself) you can expect to receive more traffic to your website and hopefully more customers as a result.
Let’s say for example you run a website which sells all kinds of craft items. So you might make a video showing people how to make their own home made cards. They would then check out your website to see what you sell. This process can be duplicated no matter what kind of business you have.
The key is to think visually. It’s no good simply sitting in front of a camera telling people about something – you need to show them as well. Always remember this when you are thinking of ideas for videos – you will get a better response to them if you do.
In this sense you aren’t making money directly from YouTube; rather, you are using it as a way to make money elsewhere. It is a great tool for attracting attention and funneling people off the site. You cannot actually tout for business directly on the site anyway, so you are better off focusing on how you can get the attention of people whom you could sell to. Once you figure out how to do that, they will be more than happy to check out your website to see what you offer.
But what if you don’t already have a business to promote? Well, there are a number of people who have been successful in promoting affiliate opportunities on the site – again by inserting the relevant web address on the video itself (if you go on YouTube you will see this appearing time and time again as a kind of watermark effect) and either posting a video that is free for anyone to use and post, or by making their own. Again, so long as you post something that is relevant to what you are selling you should get a decent amount of traffic flowing to your website.
It might take a short while to get used to how uploading videos to YouTube works (particularly if you haven’t done it before) but once you have done a couple you will get the hang of it. More importantly you will have found another stream of income to add to your internet marketing arsenal of ideas!
One final point – be original. You can choose copyright free videos, but if you can make a fairly decent one yourself, why not try and attract more attention with that?
Leave us a comment below to let us know how you intend to use YouTube to make money!

Of all the different ways there are to make money online, this is probably one of the more unusual. It’s certainly not the first one to come to mind… and yet when you think of where you could end up by giving it a go (does the name Yahoo sound familiar?) you can see why it’s worth at least considering the idea.
What’s more, you can choose your focus so that it appeals to everyone online or just a specific topic area. If you choose the second option you could end up building a whole empire of websites over time.
So what is a website directory anyway? Simply put it’s a website which lists other websites. But of course it’s a little more than that. By putting them into specific categories everyone visiting your site will be able to find what they need quickly and easily.
The first step is to decide what you want the focus of your directory to be. Do you want to list anything and everything, or do you want to concentrate on a particular topic? For example you could create a directory listing shops and stores in a particular country. You obviously need to pick a subject area where there is plenty of meat to include; a website which lists fake mustache sellers in a specific town probably isn’t going to be that big.
Once you have your topic you need to create your site, and it needs to be a good one. It’s worth getting it designed professionally because people simply won’t use it if it doesn’t look respectable. The cost will be worth it though because you will then be able to charge for your listings.
Adding a fee structure to your website is the way in which you will make money. Free listings will also generate valuable free advertising and promotion for you, since in return for a free listing you will ask for a backlink to your website. The free listings should also be basic so as to allow for paid listings to stand out more and be worth the money you will charge for them.
So what kind of paid listings should you offer? You can charge for two basic types; for example a normal paid listing would appear at the top of its relevant category, whereas a premium paid listing could involve the use of bold type as well, so it would stand out more from its rivals.
You can develop paid services as much or as little as you like; for example free listings may not include a clickable link to the website being advertised, whereas paid listings will. You could also add an optional extra fee to premium paid listings to allow the purchaser to add their business logo or a photo to their listing as well.
The fees you charge are up to you, but it’s important to remember that people won’t pay money if their websites aren’t going to be seen by lots of potential customers. That’s why you need to make sure your site has real value by generating streams of traffic towards it (a good reason for having free listings which require a link to your site).
The more traffic your website directory is capable of getting, the more traffic your customers are likely to get in return, and the more they will be prepared to pay for a premium listing. In this way building a successful directory has two main areas of interest – firstly you need to get plenty of listings on your site, and secondly you need to get plenty of traffic to those listings.
By doing this you will be adding real value to your website and word will start to get out that your website directory does indeed help to drive traffic to people’s websites. Once you can legitimately lay claim to this then the paid requests for inclusion will start pouring in.
Once you get to this stage you might also consider spreading the word about the efficiency and benefits your site offers by spending some of your profits on more advertising. Google AdWords could get you even more paid listings for very little outlay.
Leave us a comment below to let us know what you think, and then start making plans for your very own website directory. Good luck!

Setting up your own website costs money, even if you do it yourself. But free web pages provided by other sites or providers always come with provisos – such as the fact that you can’t sell on them.
Don’t they?
Not all of them – in fact, one of the best ones gives you all the tools you need to make a nice income every month. All you need to do is put in the work required.
The name of the site is Squidoo, and whether you use it to make money elsewhere or to make money through the site itself it holds a lot of promise if you learn how to tap into it correctly.
Once you have opened an account with Squidoo you will notice how easy it is to start setting up your own web pages. I say pages because there is no limit on how many you can have. Whether you go for dozens or hundreds, the only limits are those you put on yourself.
This is a great opportunity for affiliate marketers who want to have a strong web presence in order to be able to recommend and sell products that they will receive a commission on. And seeing as you can also earn purely from having a page or more on Squidoo (known as a lens) there are two great ways to earn money here.
When it comes to building your first lens you will see that there are a vast number of modules which you can select from in order to make your lens take on a unique appearance. Some of these are built to earn money – the Amazon and eBay modules, for example, and dozens more besides.
Others are designed to give you a lot of leeway to create your own layouts and add banners and other advertising material, so there is a lot you can do here to create something that is truly original. Every lens is ranked within the whole of Squidoo, and there is no doubt that the higher the LensRank the better your chances of getting more visitors and sales as a result.
New lenses can be found and indexed by Google fairly quickly if they are of good quality – and that is really the secret of making money with Squidoo. Don’t expect to create a lens in ten minutes and be making sales the following day. Make a good start, publish your lens and then start adding new material to it on a regular basis. You need to build something worthwhile so offer your visitors real value. If you can do that then they will come to trust you and be more likely to spend money with you as a result.
If you don’t yet have any products to promote, join ClickBank or Commission Junction (or both) and find a niche to start promoting. There are so many products to choose from on these two sites that you could create a new lens every day on a different subject and not run out for ages.
The trick to building a lens that is successful is to do so over time. Make sure you edit it and add to it regularly just as you would with any other website, as this will help your ranking within the search engines. Don’t be afraid to experiment, because your most successful lenses might not be ones you would expect!
You will receive a royalty payment per lens per month, which will vary depending on how well each one performs. Together with commissions from items sold through your lenses and through your affiliate links you can make a lot of money here once you have established yourself.
One tip for getting started – make sure you start with a subject you love and have a real passion for. The chances are good that there will be plenty of other people out there who feel the same, and your natural enthusiasm for it will help you to build a great lens to start with.
Make use of all the helpful tools Squidoo offers to help you in your lens building efforts too; you’ll soon notice the difference.
Leave a comment for us below before you go and build that first lens!

If you are already a member of MySpace you will know that they don’t exactly take kindly to people promoting their wares on the website. But if that’s the case, how do you make money by using the site?
The answer is simple – you do it subtly and in a way that will naturally encourage people to follow what you are saying and go elsewhere to find out more.
The key to success is to build a profile that tells people who you are and what you are about – which will brand you as an expert in a particular area and get you remembered for all the right reasons when you want to promote your affiliate links online.
So what do you get when you join MySpace? First and foremost you get a space of your own to tell the world who you are. It’s a good idea to look up some other random pages by other people to see how they use theirs, particularly if they are internet marketers who have ulterior motives for joining this social networking site.
You will get your own MySpace URL that can be promoted elsewhere, but the most important section of your profile page is the About Me section, as this is your chance to tell people what your interests are. If you are promoting products in a particular niche topic, make sure your profile is relevant to that niche in order to be seen as something of an expert. If you do this people will remember you and be more interested in seeing what you have to say when they need information on that topic.
If you have a presence elsewhere online – a blog, a website, and any other social networking sites that maybe aren’t quite so strict about not promoting your business as MySpace is – make sure you include them in your links section. This will encourage more traffic to flow between all your web presences, and you’ll start to make more sales as a result.
You can also make good use of the blog you get on MySpace; the great thing about this is that you can include hyperlinks (clickable links) to other websites. Again, you don’t want to be trying to sell directly off this but you could set up a page on Squidoo – a site that welcomes the idea of making money from a free web page, and you’ll find out more about it in a later post – or promote affiliate links or products on your own website that you can link into.
I’m sure you can see by now that the way to make money from having an account with MySpace is to do so indirectly. Before you post anything new to your MySpace page or blog, ask yourself if you are blatantly advertising or doing so in a more subtle way. There is no reason why you can’t recommend your own website that is packed full of information on your specialist subject and hopefully make some sales off there as a result.
Got some ideas for putting that MySpace account to good use already? Leave a comment below before you get started!

Ever heard of HubPages? Not everyone has, and although it is often compared to Squidoo it doesn’t have quite the reach or the outlook that Squidoo has.
But it does still give you the chance to make some money online, and if you have some interests you’d like to share with other people then it’s worth taking a look and adding it to your overall online portfolio of money making websites.
So long as you use it right you can do quite well here, but as with Squidoo you should be prepared to work at it to get the best results. It can take time to really see the success you’re after.
Let’s find out more.
So what exactly is HubPages? Put simply it’s a site that allows you to build single web pages, or hubs, on whatever subject you like (within reason). You can build as many as you like and indeed some members have got dozens of them.
There are several ways you can make money here; firstly you can refer new users to their affiliate program. This doesn’t net you a one off payment either – it actually brings in revenue that keeps on generating income for you over time. Provided the new Hubbers (as they are known) are making money from the hubs they create, you will get a percentage of it.
You also get to make your hubs so that they point to external websites that you have an interest in. So you could use affiliate links, or promote your own website for example. Be careful though as unlike Squidoo there is a real limit on how much you can promote within a single hub. You can’t promote a single URL more than once within a single hub, although you could get round this by making more hubs overall, with each one pointing to a separate product.
You can also take advantage of earning money from the Google Adsense program included on the site, and there is an opportunity to build in eBay and Amazon sales as well, as you can pick and choose what you want to have on each hub.
In short, the best shot you have at making some real cash from HubPages is to make sure that you build plenty of worthwhile hubs over time. People will have more chance of finding you and exploring all your other hubs as well.
It’s also a good idea to promote them elsewhere. If you have social networking sites you are a member of, make sure you direct people to one or two of your hubs on relevant subjects. You can do the same at forums by putting the URL to a hub in your signature line.
You will also notice that you will quite naturally get traffic to your hubs from the search engines once they have been indexed, which doesn’t usually take very long. The traffic will obviously vary depending on how popular the subjects you select actually are, so you should experiment to see what works best for you.
Making money with HubPages isn’t an overnight thing – as is the case with so many internet ventures – but perseverance will get you there in the end. With a little research you can start picking profitable subjects to build hubs around right from the word go, which makes life a lot easier.
You could also try becoming an expert on a certain subject and writing hubs on different aspects of it. This can be a real money spinner if you pick a subject that plenty of people have an interest in.
So what are you waiting for? Go and open that HubPages account now and start building your first hub. It could be live in no time – and you could be earning your first slice of revenue very soon.
Don’t forget to post a comment using the form below before you go!

If you haven’t heard of Facebook by now, you must be one of the few people on the planet who hasn’t. It’s one of the biggest social networking sites on the internet, and as such it offers a great way to get in touch with like minded people who have similar interests to you.
But while many social networking sites don’t particularly like blatant advertising on their pages, Facebook doesn’t fall into that group. There are ways and means to do most things online, and with Facebook the answer is in attracting the right kind of people to your profile page.
There is one other main feature that makes Facebook well worth looking at for making money though, and that will be revealed if you read the rest of this entry.
Once you have signed up to Facebook your first step should be to think about how you want to present yourself. I say that because you don’t have to be yourself in order to make money from Facebook. Don’t forget that you want to attract the attention of a specific group of people here, so that you become known as someone who is something of an expert on one particular subject. So choose wisely!
Go for a popular niche that you have an interest in yourself, and develop your persona in that area. If you already have something of a web presence in this area then you’ll find it will help you as more and more people become aware of who you are and what you know about.
Your first port of call, if you have anything second hand to sell which is related to your niche, is the Marketplace. It’s free to place ads in the Marketplace and there is no limit on how many you can place, so if for example you come across a bargain lot of books on your subject on eBay or at a yard sale you can list them all individually on Facebook and sell them on for a profit.
If you have a budget to spend on advertising and you have some external websites you want to promote, you can try out the Social Ads to see what benefits you get from them. It is well worth reading through the relevant help section to see what is involved though, as it is quite in depth.
The main benefit to being a member of Facebook is that you can build and use any number of applications to perform certain tasks on your profile page. Facebook doesn’t frown at users making money from their Facebook page, and indeed many people link in to other websites outside of Facebook itself. People are constantly building new applications and many of them are used by many different users to create pages that appeal to their own particular needs.
This is partly why you will succeed in making more money from Facebook if you brand yourself carefully before you get started on the site. Figure out what it is you want to do and what you want to achieve. If you already have a website up and running then you will be able to link into that, so keep the look and feel of your Facebook page in the same vein as your site.
But while you can link to other sites outside of Facebook, some people also sprinkle some affiliate links on their actual Facebook page itself. For example, some quick research revealed one person who links into a range of ClickBank products on their page and does well from doing so.
So long as you start from a strong position with a particular focus and brand in mind, you can do well by experimenting with all the benefits that Facebook offers. Take time to build up a network of friends and make sure you become known for being an expert in your particular sphere of interest.

You may not realize it but there are a number of ways you can cash in with Amazon.com. The way you choose as being the best one for you will largely depend on what you are already doing, and that’s where this particular blog comes in.
By doing this you will find that you can take advantage of the sheer amount of traffic and respectability that this website commands all over the world. It’s a lot like eBay in this respect – a lot of the hard work is done for you.
One of the best things about Amazon is that everyone can make some money with it if they want to, because it has a number of options to choose from. You will no doubt have heard about the Advantage program, which is ideal if you already have published books (no matter whether they are self published or through a conventional publisher) as you can get them listed on Amazon by following the instructions they give you in the Advantage program. This method also enables you to use On Demand publishing to minimize the risk of self publishing stacks of books that may not be sold.
But there is a lot more to Amazon than that. If affiliate marketing is more up your street, then take a look at their Associates program, which allows you to recommend customers to various products in order to make sales on them. The program is very well put together and as you would probably expect from such a major site there is a lot of information to read through as well.
Once you have signed up for free, you should make the effort to explore everything the site offers you. You will see that you can create banners, ads and much more to enhance your site – and this even extends to the colors you pick for your ads.
But one area you should definitely look at is the potential to create what they call an aStore. There are examples of these given on Amazon itself, and while they are quite basic in nature they do allow you to create web pages that are centered around a particular theme. So for example if your website is about golf, you can create an aStore which is stocked with the best books on golf and golfing.
This can be linked to from your main website or blog, giving an extra dimension to your site and giving you the opportunity to make more money from it as a result.
You can also select which colors you wish to use for these pages (you can build many more than just one!) so it will look exactly the same as your main website. You will need a website to join the program and they will vet it to make sure it is suitable for inclusion (but don’t worry, most are – it’s only the obvious types of exclusions that will apply) but this doesn’t even have to be one you pay for; people have got in by having a well constructed page or site from a free provider.
There is the potential to make a lot of money from the Associates program in particular, and it’s great to use if you have a whole range of websites since you can take advantage of the wide range of products they stock – it’s not just books and DVDs!
So if you are looking for a way to monetize the site or sites you have now, hotfoot it to Amazon and sign up for free. It is one of the best ways to start making some money by offering quality products at great prices.
Be sure to leave us a comment below before you start investigating everything that Amazon has to offer though!

If you own a pickup truck then you have a great way to help out people in your local area. People have a constant need to get things from A to B, and not everyone has a car or other kind of vehicle they can do it with.
So why not step in and offer your services? There are a few different ways you can succeed in this area, and once you start promoting the fact that you have a pickup truck you will get plenty of inquiries from people wanting your help.
If this is something that appeals to you then carry on reading.
No matter what age your pickup truck is, you should make the effort to ensure it looks as good as possible. And don’t forget that it can provide you with the best type of advertising you can get. You can either have a signwriter put your details on the side of the truck or you can have some magnetic signs made up to put on each door, to enable people to see who you are and what you do at a glance. All you need to add then is your cell phone number.
It’s obvious that your main cost with this business will be filling up with gas. So you have to factor that in to your prices. You could always charge a flat fee for the job depending on the amount of work involved, and then charge an amount per mile that takes into account how much gas you will use as a result. Alternatively you could provide an overall estimate for each individual job. Make sure you have a proper pricing structure in place before you start looking for customers so you don’t end up pricing a job too cheap. A good idea is to get some quotes from your competition before starting, to give you an idea of what to charge.
The best way to promote all the different ways you could be of use to people is to set up a simple website which lists all the ways you could put your truck to good use. For example, not everyone needs to hire a removals company when they move home. Some people live in furnished and rented accommodation and in this case they wouldn’t have too much to move. So long as the weather is fine they might prefer to use your service over an expensive removals one.
But it isn’t just moving stuff from A to B that attracts people. You could also promote yourself as a rubbish removal person. Think of garden rubbish or empty and unwanted cardboard boxes for example. In this sense you could promote yourself as an environmentally friendly recycling service! That’s an angle that is sure to get attention, and it might just separate you from the competition.
So if you are looking out of the window at your pickup truck and thinking that it could earn you some money, why not start thinking of all the ways you could put it to good use? Just be sure to leave a comment below first!

Few people understand the value of teachers and all they contribute to the world from helping to shape young minds in their early years to giving high school and college students the knowledge and help they need to go out into the world and make a good life for themselves.
Teaching can be more than just a 9-month job as many teachers are getting into tutoring students either as a part-time job or a full-time career. Even if you’re not a teacher with a degree, you can still become a successful tutor if you’re knowledgeable in the areas or subjects that are in demand. If you’re interested in making money tutoring, here are some simple guidelines to get you started.

• Finding Students will be the first step towards making money tutoring. If you’re a mother with children going to school, you may know of parents in need of a tutor for their children. If you don’t know the parents but are aware of the student’s needs, you may wish to approach the parents in a manner that is not offensive and offer you services.
• Determine what your specialty is going to be. Are you exceptional at math? Do you have a good knowledge of foreign languages? Are you good at numerous different subjects? If you know exactly what you would like to tutor, it will be much easier to find students. You can approach teachers in the area that teach that subject and let them know of your desire to help other students in that subject.
• Find out about fees and competition. If you know of other tutors in your area, you may want to check with them to see how much they charge so you can be competitive or slightly less to ensure more business when you’re starting out in your tutoring career.
• Research your neighborhood to see if there are needs for tutors and, if so, in what area. You may find that you have not only a wide variety of ages and grades to choose from but adults as well. Many adults that travel frequently are in need of someone to teach them foreign languages. Tutoring involves more than just teaching young students the school subjects.
• Make your skills known in the community. There are several ways you can let the community know of your desire to tutor. You can make up business cards and ask that they be posted on the bulletin board at your local schools or you can approach different teachers yourself and let them know of your availability and desire for tutoring. Often they have students in their class in need of a tutor and will recommend you to the student’s parents. Advertising in your local newspaper is also another method you may want to use to get the word out.
• Word of mouth is always the best advertising in the market. Let your friends and family know of your desire to tutor and encourage them to spread the word to as many people as possible or hang your business card or brochure out in places they frequent.