Have you heard of Craigslist? It’s a place where you can target a local audience with a classified add. You can try to sell a product or a service. You can also find jobs, a mate, community information, and much more. Craigslist has been called the new eBay but it really goes beyond what eBay does.

Craigslist was founded in 1997 by Craig Newmark in San Francisco, California. The company continues to be based in San Francisco.

There are a lot of Internet Marketers who have made a lot of money off of Craigslist. There are many ways you can do it. But before you actually start making money you need to first get started on the site.

The actual address of Craigslist is Craigslist.org. You go there and then you complete the posting form and submit the posting. You’ll get an e-mail that has a link to another form that you need to fill-out. With this form you’ll be able to make changes and then submit the posting yourself. Your posting should show-up in Craigslist within 15 minutes or so.

It’s important that you keep the e-mail they sent you so that you have the link you need to get back into your posting should you need to make any other changes. You can also delete your post using that link. However, if you happen to lose the link then you can request to have another link sent to you.

It’s really just that easy for making a post on Craigslist. Of course it is for local sales so you will only be able to post your ad to one particular area or city.

You can also make money on the site by looking at what others want or need and then finding that item for them and selling it to them. Or a neat little trick you could use is to see what people are looking for on Craigslist and then going over to eBay to see if that item is there. Then if you find it, tell the person at Craigslist that you found the item on eBay.

The key here is for you to be an affiliate for eBay. Then when you tell the person on Craigslist that you found the item on eBay and you give that person your affiliate link. That way you make money off the sale.

That’s just one way you can make money off of Craigslist. With over 15 million people using the site every single month, you certainly have the power to market to a lot of people. It’s simply a case of you going out and discovering the best way for you to make the best and biggest profit.

It is very possible, even if it sounds unbelievable, for you to earn a living using Craigslist as a resource. Increasingly, those with the entrepreneurial spirit have been discovering that there are several possibilities for success online. The will to work hard at earning a living by learning about sites like Craigslist is important. However, effective marketing of skills and products to the people are looking for them is equally important. This is different from the set salaries, and ceiling on earnings, of the conventional marketplace of offering of skills and products. While there is no set cap for those offering services online, there is still no guarantee of minimum income.

There are basically two methods that you can earn a living using Craigslist. The first includes providing services in the capacity of an independent contractor, per contract basis or offering skills, products and services. This is the ideal situation for small business owners and entrepreneurs. The second is using Craigslist to find full-time permanent employment in the Jobs category. This is a more traditional approach, but this article will focus on the first method.

Independent Contractors On Craigslist

People offering their skills and services per contract basis, or an independent contractor, are discovering how powerful Craigslist can be. It is a great place for offering your products, skills and services or responding to those posts that are looking for what you provide. The growth in the quantity of outsourcing being done by small businesses or large corporations is prompting many people to capitalize on these opportunities in the marketplace. As mentioned, the two main methods are posting to the appropriate category requesting such opportunities or looking for clients who are searching for what you offer.

Craigslist has a specific category for those offering services. There are several subcategories listed in the services offered section. A contractor may submit a post to an appropriate category for the purpose of connecting with the target audience. If no appropriate category can be found Craigslist has that covered with the Small Business subcategory. The disadvantage is the lack of specific targeting, but it is better than nothing.

People offering their products, skills and services may also augment their business success through responding to ads seeking whatever it is they are offering.

Those seeking a contract position using Craigslist should start with a specific location; browsing through each of the different job categories. One helpful trick is using the search function then checking the contract box to make sure that results only include contract positions.

Small Business Owners

If you are a small business owner, you can use Craigslist for finding more potential customers and growing your business. The same basic idea applies here, as well. You can generate more business by either posting ads or by answering them. Posting ads is a smart bet due to the massive amount of traffic Craigslist gets every month. It is hard for a serious business owner to ignore this fact.

One of the areas most overlooked by the small business owner is the discussion forum section of Craigslist. Even though the forums can create to produce a greater profit potential, you have to keep your posts relevant and avoid the use of spamming techniques. If your posts are informative and helpful you are likely safe. If you are just posting ads to the forums that is spam and all of your posts can be deleted. Your business could also develop a bad reputation, obviously that would be counterproductive.

Do you Squidoo? If not, you should be. It takes very little effort and the publicity and money you can make from it make it well worth your time.

If you haven’t heard of Squidoo, all the more so you MUST pay attention to this resource as an affiliate marketer. It was created a few years ago by a man I admire for his entrepreneurial zeal: marketing genius Seth Godin. Since that time many people have taken advantage of the site to help their Internet Marketing businesses and many other types of ventures.

It’s really very easy to set up a Squidoo lens. All you have to do is go to Squidoo.com and sign up. Then you can start creating a lens right away.

A lens is not exactly a blog, but somehow I mistook for that when I first tried it. To put it simply, it is a single ‘modularized’ web page in which you throw everything you’ve got by adding more information with new modules as you come back to your lens from time to time to update it. I’m happy to show you a lens of mine.

You can create a lens on any topic of your choice. You can create it all about you or you can create the lens about a product or service of yours. It’s completely up to you. Just be careful. You have to put good content on each one of your lenses or your pages might be seen as SPAM and then you’ll probably get kicked off Squidoo.

Creating a lens is super easy, considering that there are thousands of Squidoo lensmasters already registered. If you know basic HTML, that’s good enough. In fact, it’s easier to create a lens than to create a normal web page that looks like a lens from scratch. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes more plain-sailing, your productivity gets higher and you might be addicted to creating more lens in less time. :)

From the Internet Marketing point of view, Squidoo is highly earmarked for SEO and lenses are easily picked up by the search engines. Plus the fact that Squidoo has a community culture and groupings, you can easily receive visitors in a matter of days if you know how to optimized your lenses and get referral traffic via “Web 2.0 social submissions”.

If you want to commercialize your lenses, make your lenses product-focused and project product reviews as the main content. Pepper with relevant keywords throughout your lenses, in your main headline right at the top and in the module titles.

You can also visit other people’s lenses and leave comments for them and rank their lens. Then hopefully they’ll see you left a comment and they’ll visit your lens. This will help you in the rankings on Squidoo.

Lastly, update your lens at least once a week and preferably every other day. You don’t have to make any major changes but you should change something just to keep your lens fresh. Here’s a dirty trick: changing just one word will render your whole lens ‘fresh’. Your lens rankings will go higher when Squidoo’s internal engine register increased frequency in the freshness.

There are many great reports and books on the market that will help you succeed using Squidoo. Just having a lens or two will give you one more spot where you are marketing yourself and/or your products. And you can never have enough marketing opportunities.

So from now one when anyone asks you, “Do you Squidoo?” You better be able to answer, “Yes.”

If you’re looking for a detailed plan that will show you how to use Squidoo to crack the first page of Google just head over to the Ultimate Squidoo guide.

This marketer seems to declare himself in a HORRIBLE situation.

Actually it’s not all that bad; he has just moved to a bigger house.

The funny thing that remains consistent in life rears its head again…that the bigger thing you want to have, the bigger the problem that comes attached and the bigger responsibility you will have to assume.

Some things in life just become magnified :) And so it goes with Jason James.

The overheads for his whole moving-house process just balloons in expenses.

And with all the little obstacles that added up in the past weeks, he was practically kept out of work by all the distractions, and he needed to find a way to overcome his cashflow fast…

So he came up with a solution that will help you a lot.

He invited 30 top-notch marketers to pool in their best products for One Crazy Firesale. And as you know, a firesale is that rare occasion for purchasing a bundle of products which are normally sold stand-alone, at a very low price (price for 1 item).

I’ve already found 2 good reasons to invest in it: Social Media Marketing Blueprint by Dr. Mani and Web 2.0 Stampede by Chris Freville. And I’m sure you’ll find other things of interest either from Ewen Chia, Dave Lovelace, Tim Knox, Cody Moya or others.

As a customer, you’ll also get the chance to promote the firesale and keep some commissions for yourself too. So earn some $$$ and help Jason get over this difficult period. If you want to get to know him better, I strongly suggest you write to him and tell him to organize a housewarming party and RSVP YOU!

Underground Craigslist Mastermind, James Starr finally reveals his secrets to bankrolling $8,132.26 in profit every month with nothing more than no-cost Craigslist traffic…

You will have the chance to look over his shoulder, as James shows the exact methods he used to make $10,819.00 in just the last 46 days!

The whole The Craigslist Blackhat System video collection is now FREE to watch!

Advertising on Craigslist is worthwhile for just about any business offering products or services. Whether these products are offered through e-commerce websites or physical stores, the business owners can see financial gains through advertising on Craigslist. Firstly unlike other advertising opportunities there is very little risk involved in posting on Craigslist. With the exception of job postings and housing postings in specific markets, advertising is free on Craigslist. Users are asked to agree to the terms of service of the community and are expected to follow specific guidelines when posting advertisements but there are no financial obligations to those placing advertisements on Craigslist. This means those who post advertisements do not have to be concerned with whether or not the advertisement they place will meet their expectations in terms of sales generated.

Reaching Potential Customers on Craigslist

Another reason why posting advertisements for products or services on Craigslist is so worthwhile is the likelihood of reaching a large audience of potential customers. A review of the Craigslist fact sheet reveals pertinent information regarding the amount of traffic the website receives. According to this information Craigslist receives approximately four billion page views each month with ten million people using Craigslist each month. From these statistics it is clear that advertisements placed on Craiglist are likely to receive at least some attention from potential clients.

With so many visitors using Craigslist each month the advertising possibilities are limitless, however, there are no guarantee any of these visitors will be interested in your products or services. Like any marketing campaign, your advertisements on Craigslist must be intriguing, informative and in a location where you will reach your target audience.

Finding Your Target Audience on Craigslist

We’ve already discussed the number of visitors using Craigslist each month but the key to taking advantage of these numbers is to target your advertising in a way aimed at reaching your target audience as opposed to a wide audience of individuals who have no specific interest in your products or services. It is much more worthwhile to reach a small audience of those with a keen interest in your products or services than to reach a much larger audience of those who are not interested. Those who have an interest in your products or services are your target audience.

The key to reaching your target audience on Craigslist is placing your advertisement in the most appropriate locations. Craigslist has a specific section for businesses to advertise their services. This section is broken down into a number of categories. Those who are in the business of computer repair would be wise to place their advertisement in the computer section as opposed to the automotive section because individuals looking for computer help will naturally migrate to the computer section. It may sometimes be appropriate to place an advertisement in more than one section. This is acceptable as long as it does not cross the line to spamming the section.

If there is not a specific section for the products or services offered by your business there are a couple of options. Business owners can place an advertisement in the section for small business advertisements where it might be found by those doing a search in this section. Alternately the business owner can contact Craigslist to suggest the addition of a new category. They might be willing to oblige if they believe this category warrants an addition.

The Difference between Advertising and Spamming

Advertising on Craigslist is one thing but spamming is quite another. Placing an advertisement in an appropriate section of Craigslist is acceptable; however, placing the same advertisement in nearly every section of Craigslist websites for a number of different geographical regions is considered spam. Spam is ineffective for a number of reasons. First of all potential customers who see a particular advertisement in a number of different locations are likely to recognize the spamming techniques and be less inclined to patronize this business. Also, if Craigslist detects the practice of spamming they may delete all of the postings and could potentially ban advertisements from the individual in the future.

There are pros and cons to outsourcing copywriting. Let’s go over some reasons why writing your own copy is the best way for you to crank up your online income to the “full blast” setting…

Pain #1: Copywriting Is As Expensive As a Broken Bone With No Medical Insurance!

How Much Money Do You Flush Down The Toilet Every Time You Create A New Product? Let’s make a quick total…

* Product creation: $500 to $1500
* Sales letter graphics: $50 to $300
* Copywriting fees: $500 to $2500
* Estimated total: $1050 to $4300 per product.

The above shows an “average” cost of $2675 per product. If you were selling a little $7 special report, do you know how many sales you’d have to make just to break even? 382 sales, that’s how many! Couldn’t you save a bundle if you knew how to do some of that yourself?

Pain #2: You Never Get EXACTLY What You Want When You Pay Someone Else…There’s Always A Compromise

You have to spend the time explaining what you want from them, wait for them to come up with a sales letter, tell them that’s not what you want…wait even longer…then REPEAT THE PROCESS.  All the while hoping your copywriter doesn’t hike up his fees for the extra time spent.

Pain #3: You Get Excited About It. You Can Do It Quickly

A freelance copywriter is in it for the money and he’s not going to be as knowledgeable or as excited about the topic, so he’s going to drag his feet!

Because you know the topic so well, you know what buttons to push.

Internet marketer and computer programmer Robert Plank has just revealed to me a quick and painless formula for compelling sales letters that will have your products launched and your web ites up and running in less than an hour!

With the simple directions in the FAST FOOD COPYWRITING special report, you won’t produce award-winning sales copy that takes months and months of painstaking work to write.

Instead, you will be able to consistently write satisfactory sales letters that are selling within a matter of hours…GUARANTEED!

Discover:

* What’s a stairway conversation and how is it so important to the way your brain works?

* What small change to Robert’s business allowed him to launch 20 products in 2007 (which is more than he had done in all his previous years of Internet Marketing COMBINED!)?

* Why you want to be the copywriting equivalent of a McDonald’s fast food worker…and NOT an artsy-fartsy gourmet cook (That’s DEATH!)

* How the word “wait” could have serious repercussions for your business and your lifestyle for years to come.

* How you can get your sales letter written in hours, not days or weeks, using the proven time-tested 7-step formula that I have printed and tacked up to his office wall.

* What one thing can weave your points together…that your high school English teacher NEVER told you. This is the crucial secret to linking the dots that makes your sales copy narrate smoothly.

* If you are on a time crunch, the one thing you probably SHOULD outsource.

* Get others to write your sales copy for you, for free, no strings attached whatsoever!

* how to split-test the crap out of your salesletters to get them evolving and responding to what your prospects want…not what you “guess” they want.

* Why you need to stay far away from “the obsessive tester” and how to avoid becoming one yourself.

* One thing to watch out for with price testing…that could actually lose you money, but is an easy stumbling block for CONVERSION RATIO JUNKIES!

* My personal, never-before-explained secret to finding the best and most powerful phrases for your swipe file. I found 60 phrases in about 10 minutes using this technique.

* How reading your junk mail will help you find the exact trigger that gets people tripping over themselves to buy!

* Why you absolutely, positively must go back to a 4th-grade writing level to succeed.

* The exact number of words you need in your sentences to have the optimum psychological impact.

* The maximum length of time your video should run. It’s a lot shorter than you think.

* Robert Plank’s ultimate writer’s block cure for bullet points.

* How to end up with 5 to 10 PAGES of headlines, so you know the exact one to choose for the perfect fit!

* The perfect blueprint to crank out salesletters on an assembly line…by having others interview you in a very specific way!

* How “the way” you present the problem and solution in your copy could mean life or death.

* Integrate Parkinson’s Law, Natural Language Processing, and Time Travel for a copywriting method that just can’t be beat!

Let’s go over what you get in this incredible special report:

* Chapter 1: Explain the Problem and Provide a Solution
* Chapter 2: Follow a Formula
* Chapter 3: My Personal Formula for Copywriting
* Chapter 4: The Anatomy of Outsourcing
* Chapter 5: Split Testing
* Chapter 6: Build A Swipe File
* Chapter 7: Jumpstart Strategies
* Chapter 8: How Do You Write That Killer Headline?
* Chapter 9: Video and Other Gimmicks
* Chapter 10: Write the Damn Thing!

The contents of this special report are written just like a concise salesletter—you won’t find ONE unnecessary word in the entire manual!

Read more about it here.

Mark Joyner is running a rather controversial experiment that has already sent the marketing experts into a tizzy.

You’ve probably heard of his book “The Irresistible Offer”—it’s what some call “one of the top 5 marketing books ever written” and has been one of the best-selling marketing books of the last 3 years week after week.

Mark thinks that by giving it away in e-book form he is actually going to boost sales of the book.

Is he right?

Only time will tell, but he makes some really good arguments, even if they seem to fly in the face of what many people have been saying over the last few years about the relationship between digital downloads and print media.

I’ll be watching this one closely, and so should you.

Meanwhile, you should definitely grab the download.

Dr. Joe Vitale said that the book is “the first breakthrough in over 50 years” and it seems the entire pantheon of marketing gods are in agreement.

It’s a deceptively simple read, but well, that’s what Mark is famous for. :)

Ryan Deiss (the author) received a prospect’s question about the “Piggy-Back Traffic” report that you’ll definitely want to read, especially if you’re an affiliate or beginner marketer who doesn’t have a website:

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I am interested in purchasing Piggy-Back Traffic, but it sounds like it’s for experienced marketers who already have their own websites and products. How well will this work for affiliate products from Clickbank (for example) and how is it possible to get a sales page which we do not own or control to the top of search engines?
 
Thanks for your help,
Charles S.

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Thanks for the great question, Charles!

Actually, Piggy-Back Traffic was originally designed for use by affiliate marketers, because not only do you “piggy-back” on Authority Sites to get high rankings in Google and other search engines, you also “piggy-back” on the websites themselves because they actually host the page that gets the ranking!

That’s the beauty of the “Piggy-Back Traffic Method”…

 - You don’t need a website…
 - You don’t need a product, and…
 - You don’t need any money!

Unlike affiliate models that require you to use PPC, this method involves FREE TRAFFIC so generating a positive ROI is infinitely easier. And even if you do have a product of your own, this can be a great strategy for generating even more traffic to your site. You can even OUTSOURCE the work to someone else and put this entire system on autopilot.

Ryan Deiss

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“Piggy-Back Traffic” is the perfect e-book to get you started, because it allows you to test new products and new offers with virtually ZERO RISK.

John Delavera, Jeremy Gislason, Simon Hodgkinson and JP Schoeffel.

OK, now what’s this new spin?

These 4 marketers have collaborated together to bring you a suite of “For Personal Use Only” know-how that teaches you virtually everything they know about building online businesses and marketing with membeship sites.

There’s a lot of beef in this one, like the Mindset Videos by Jeremy, the Traffic Videos by J.P. plus some great books from Simon and really cool traffic tools from John.

I hope you this free membership helps you with your business.