There's many methods. Some buy things on one AH (GMAH, RMAH, and some regions have multiple currencies for RMAH) and then sell it on another AH. Some people snipe auctions that have low bids and then resell them at what they're really worth. Some of the very rich people buy highend items and drive the prices up further so that it's impossible for mere mortals to get them. And the worst people bot by setting up programs to search for very specific high value items that have low buyouts and then purchase them the moment they show up on the AH.
There are a couple things you can do. The easiest is to take advantage of the fact that pricing items is hard, and buying up high value, under-priced items to re-sell at closer to their real price. You can do this at all sorts of price ranges - I'll find pieces worth 1-2 million when searching for 50k pieces on occasion, and you can make a lot of money quickly if you can identify items offered for 10 million that are really worth 50 million (it's really difficult to distinguish a lot of items in the 25-100 million range, so unless you have a big bankroll and really know a particular market well, be careful there).
The other is an arbitrage loop between the cash and gold auction houses. There are some items that will sell better for dollars, and some items that will sell better for gold. This has tightened up somewhat, but for a while I was able to sell certain types of items for close to $5 per million, while buying other types of items for only $1.50 per million. If you can find something like that you can milk a lot of profit out of it before it dries up.
There are also some tricks you can play with socketed items and gems. The most obvious one is with magic find / gold find helms, where people who don't know better will neglect to socket their help and you can collect a big premium for doing it for them. The same principle applies to other items as well, however, and you can make big chunks of money by buying items without gems, or with the wrong gems in them, and selling them with a better gem set - for example, I've tripled the value of a dex/vit chest by pulling out the amethysts and putting in emeralds.
In any case, you need to be very familiar with the market for the type of item you are buying and selling, as you'll make more money off of the more marginal cases (2x mark-up on resale) than on the home runs (10x mark-up).
Additionally to what Ensign already wrote you could play on weekly fluctuations in prices. Same items change value on AH on weekends when more people are playing. If you can find a niche market that has high range between weekend and workdays you're in for some easy gold.
I too, sell a lot of essence on friday nights.
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The other is an arbitrage loop between the cash and gold auction houses. There are some items that will sell better for dollars, and some items that will sell better for gold. This has tightened up somewhat, but for a while I was able to sell certain types of items for close to $5 per million, while buying other types of items for only $1.50 per million. If you can find something like that you can milk a lot of profit out of it before it dries up.
There are also some tricks you can play with socketed items and gems. The most obvious one is with magic find / gold find helms, where people who don't know better will neglect to socket their help and you can collect a big premium for doing it for them. The same principle applies to other items as well, however, and you can make big chunks of money by buying items without gems, or with the wrong gems in them, and selling them with a better gem set - for example, I've tripled the value of a dex/vit chest by pulling out the amethysts and putting in emeralds.
In any case, you need to be very familiar with the market for the type of item you are buying and selling, as you'll make more money off of the more marginal cases (2x mark-up on resale) than on the home runs (10x mark-up).
I too, sell a lot of essence on friday nights.