How I Will Be Making Great Money Online Again – Plus The Most Important Thing I Have Learned

First of all – A BIG thank you for joining me for on my first post on Cubicle Free!

In this post I want to set the foundation for what I am personally doing to once again make great money online and also what I suggest to be hands down the best way for anyone to get time and location freedom.

Over 10 years ago I came up with an idea for an online business that ended up helping many thousands of people get jobs overseas. As I was writing this post, I thought it might be fun to have a look at the traffic that website has received over the years. To my surprise, I discovered that in the next few weeks the first website I ever built will register its 10 Millionth visitor and get its 34 Millionth page view since 2005. Just thinking about that amazes me, that means on average 10 million people have read 3.4 pages!

But its not about the traffic for me. For me it is very humbling to think how many lives I have influenced in what I believe to be a very positive way. Such is the power and potential when you do things online. But, lets get back to making money shall we?

Beyond raw traffic there are some far more important questions:

• Did I add value to my visitors?
• Did I choose a topic where money was being spent?
• Did I create products or services to enhance my visitors experience?

In this case, yes. I know for sure this website really helped a lot of people. I know this because of the thanks I get almost daily by email. The financial side of things worked out OK because everyday I wake up and get to choose how I spend my time, including midday mountain bike rides or playing with my 14 month old.

But as I partially explained in my August income report it has not all been plain sailing and in fact right now you could be excused for likening my current state of business affairs to being stuck in a life raft in the frigid Atlantic ocean just after the Titanic has vanished. In this case however Googles algorithm updates were the iceberg.

However I actually feel more like a surfer anticipating a beautiful pipe to ride – nimble and free. The reason I feel this way is because I have learned some valuable lessons over the years with one powerful theme which I am sharing now because it will be the foundation for everything I will do including this blog:

“Build useful niche websites”

Just four words, but only one word really matters: USEFUL

If you have been following any blogs about making money online you may have come across Adsense based websites (often also called micro niche sites) and build income from creating many of these.

I could write a long list of why I personally think building these types of sites is a flawed business model, but I would rather focus on the positives.

Here’s my three best reasons behind why I believe useful niche sites are a better way to go:

1) Better financial upside
2) Sustainability and longevity
3) Rewards you in more ways than just financially

Lets examine:

1) Better financial upside: As with any type of business online or off, the more useful your products or services to people, the more money you can charge. I know this to be true because in the past I was able to charge my top five clients $5000/month each. Why? Because they turned this $5000/month investment into many times that. If I had turned that same traffic into Adsense income I might have survived alright, but I would not have generated anywhere near to what I ended up doing.

2) Sustainability and longevity: When I build sites I want them to continue to generate income for many years without worrying about the next Google change or even competition from others. Thin sites, as Google likes to call them are just that, and because they add little value the only way to acquire inbound links is through unnatural methods. As we have seen recently this can quickly lead to big problems. I also do not like competition and if generating income online is really as simple as turning a key, won’t everybody be trying to turn the same key?

3) Rewards you in more ways than just financially: At first this seems all a bit like warm and fuzzy rubbish, but the reality of making money online, or building a business of any sort, is that you need persistence to be successful. This persistence can come from many places but belief in what you are doing is very powerful.

(Important: Contrary to popular belief you do not have to be passionate about the subject of your website, just passionate about the good your website is doing.)

So there you have it. I want a business that makes enough money to live well on for the long term, is a good investment of my time and gives me time and location freedom. Doesn’t that sound good to you too?

So how do you do it?

That my friends is the subject of this blog. Check out my About page for more background, but it is the way I have operated in the past and what I know will work best for me in the future. Join my newsletter at the top of this post for updates if you would like to get the inside scoop on many things I will be doing. Right now I am also sending a very revealing email out about one of my most successful techniques for generating affiliate sales.

Right now I am building a new website and I am documenting everything. I will be sharing my whole methodology on this blog, including selecting a useful niche, the time I spend on each part and the money it ultimately generates.

A big difference this time however is that I won’t just be building one massive website, but I will be building a portfolio of sites so that I am diversified. The beauty of doing it this way is that I will be creating systems that you can follow too.

Thank you so much for reading this post! I sincerely hope it at least got you thinking about a thing or two. What is it that you like or dislike about my approach? What do you see as the major challenges or what challenges are you currently having? I would love to hear from you. Please leave your comments below.