Are you tired of working long hours, doing something you do not like, dealing with difficult people, and earning a minimum wage? Do you feel like a slave? Do you want to work for yourself? Do you wish you can go on 3 trips (e.g. Colombia in March, Japan in June, and Las Vegas, NV in October) per year? If your answer to all the questions is ‘yes’, then here are 4 ways you can actually earn money on the Internet:

• Taking surveys
  • You can join websites like InboxDollars, MyPoints, and Dollar Surveys and earn some money. But, do not expect to earn much. You also would be taking surveys that may ask you many questions or the same ones repeatedly.
• Freelancing
  • Upwork (formerly Elance) and Freelancer are two of the best freelancing websites. You can join any or both and convince a potential buyer or employer to hire you for your talent. However, you would be competing with other freelancers who share similar skills/abilities. This activity is no different from applying for a job.
• Selling items, services, or both
  • You would do well selling valuable items (e.g. gift cards) on eBay, Amazon, or both popular e-commerce sites.
  • Another option is to build an e-commerce website or hire a professional to do one for you. Before you start the website development, do research, come up with a title and purpose, find your target audience, sketch your website, and so on.
• Blogging
  • It is basically writing journal entries online. You can create a blog site with Blogger or WordPress. Write about something that concerns or interests you. It would therefore attract more readers/customers. In order to monetize your blog site, you are required to pay for a premium/business membership and change your domain (blog site address). Therefore, you can run ads (from Google Adsense) on your blog and make it easily searchable on Google. Or you can instead do affiliate marketing.
  • I highly recommend James Maverick, an expert blogger, online entrepreneur, and expatriate (traveler to multiple countries), as your guide to success. He would love to help you with your online business plan and so. Visit his blog “The Maverick Traveler“, read his blog posts, and take notes if necessary. Get in contact with him via email. He knows more information than I do.

If you are serious (like I am) about developing a successful online business, quitting your job, and going to paradise (where you are exploring different foreign cultures, eating exotic foods, sipping a drink while relaxing at a tropical beach, and dating beautiful, exotic women), then write yourself a list of these 10 questions:

1. What is your passion?
2. What are your interests/ideas?
3. What should be the title of your website?
4. What is your purpose for it?
5. Who is your target audience?
6. What are you selling?
7. How much money do you want to earn?
8. What can you do that other people cannot do?
9. How can you draw or keep customers?
10. Are there any more questions you need to ask yourself and respond?