| |
Everyone has passions and interests that they can cash in
on, even if they don't have the time to write an ebook.
Where is this gold mine hiding? In your bookmarks, in your
favorites file. Whetever you call it, there is money hiding
there, just waiting for you to cash in on it.
No matter how strange and unusual your interests are, there
are others out there that share the same passions that you
have and if you can get them to the information quicker they
will pay you, not much, maybe $5 but find 1000 of these
people and you have created a small fortune.
What you are betting on is they don't have the time or
knowledge to do the massive amount of searching that you are
willing to do. But they will pay you to find this free info
for them.
I was skeptical when I started to try it. Why would someone
buy a list of links? Because the search engines are becoming
unruly. When is the last time that you typed a few search
words in and actually found everything you were looking for
on the first search page? When some search engines became
pay-per-click, that was another sign that something better
was needed. A site should be rated on content, not on how
much money and advertiser pays or if you put all of the
correct metatags in.
My first experiment was selling a list of links to wholesale
performance automotive sites and articles that I found on
the web. I timed it right, too. Right after "The Fast and
the Furious" came out. Total profit $1000 in four weeks on
eBay. Then I worried about feedback. Would my customers
think I ripped them off. Guess what. I consistently get a
higher percentage of customers that give good feedback
quickly on my various link lists. This list was an example
of using trends for profits. The trend is hot. There are
millions of newbies. They want the info fast. Upside: quick
money. Downside: short term.
My second one was to do the same thing, but for my favorite
vintage motorcycle. One model, that was all. Not for all
makes and models. I have consisently made about $40 a week
on eBay for about 8 months now off of just this list. It
always sells. This is an example of finding a niche. Upside:
longterm, few or no competitors. Downside: no huge deposits.
So how do you start. First you need a desktop search program
like Copernic, Webferret, or Arrow Search. There are
probably others out there now, but these are my main three.
I recommend Copernic because you can save your searches and
customize everthing in the program. If you do, go for
multiple "exact phrase" searches until you find everything
you need.
You will also need to break your favorites into seperate
file folders so you can organize them. Or get a bookmark
program like AcqUrl. Do your searches and click the links.
If a site looks promising, bookmark it to look at it later.
Don't look to far into it at this point or you will get
sidetracked into surfing. You can always surf later. How do
you know when you have found enough? When you are near the
end of your search and great sites are getting few and far
between. But remember the more links you find, the more your
customers will love you and the sites will the greatest
contents do not always have the greatest search engine
ranking.
When you are done looking, you can export you bookmarks from
Internet Explorer or your bookmark manager. In Explorer, go
to File and then Import/Export. It will create a html page
with all of your bookmarks as links, but you are not done
yet. Open the page in your html editor and as you browse
through the sites, add a desciption and rating to each site
and remove those sites which don't meet up to your
standards. The page doesn't really have to look pretty, just
informative and functional.
Now you can either sell your page as is or compile it into
an ebook. The benefits of the first is that you can send the
list in an email or as an attachment. The benfits of the
second is that your cuctomers can't resell your ebook. Yes,
there is such a thing as compilation copyright. Write a
short intro to your list and it is your property, but with
just the page, your customers can strip the links and sell
them as their own. Either way you choose to go, you can use
the process outlined in "Automated Ebay Sales" to create
quick profits. The book is available for free at the
website.
www.profit-ware.com
Copyright 2002 Stephan Miller
Get articles like this every week and free marketing
resources
Sign up for my newsletter at www.profit-ware.com
|
