This must be the most common question that I get asked here on WA, by email and pretty much every other place where I hang out.

How Long Does It Take To See Success?

I'll give you the answer that you don't want to hear: it depends.
How long does a new restaurant take to become profitable? How long does it take for a new car dealership to become profitable? How long does it take for a new corner shop to make a profit?

The answer is always the same: it depends.

There are simply too many variables to give you the right answer. I don't know your niche and the demand for it. I also don't know your competition and how hard they've been working. I don't know your work ethics. I don't know what exactly you are doing in order to grow your business.

The truth is, a typical brick and mortar (offline) business takes 3-5 years to become profitable.

The good news is that success normally happens faster online.

The second good news is that an offline business will invest $30k-$50k-$100k or more to launch their business while you can do it for $30/m (if you join Wealthy Affiliate as a yearly member) + $14 per year for a domain name. That's all you really need.

What Does It Take To Succeed?

Besides having built several niche websites in the past 9 years I've been closely following other folks building their own niche websites and using affiliate marketing to monetize these sites.

In the past 2 years I've been noticing a very interesting trend. Websites that are only 1-3 months old aren't getting much traction. This is very understandable. You bring in a brand new websites and you're trying to compete with older, established sites. No wonder Google doesn't give you great rankings and traffic right away.

Yesterday Jay did a Hot Seat live training (https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/hot-seat-...) and he spotted something very interesting. A one month old website was ranked for 1 single keyword. A 3 month old website was ranked for 3 keywords. This surely was a coincidence but it's obvious that Google takes several month in order to consider your website. They don't want to rank a brand new site and see it abandoned 2 months later. They want to be sure that you are serious about it and that you will be creating fresh content for years to come.

However, "new" websites that have been around for 6-12 months are much better off.
It seems like the 6 months mark is where the rankings and traffic starts growing exponentially! (don't quote me on that, it's my personal observation).

Of course let's not forget that the more successful websites are those that keep getting more and more fresh content.

Some might say that they "don't have any ideas for content" or that "writing is hard" are simply making excuses. English is my 4th language, I used to hate writing and I never had any content ideas - but I just stuck with it. I know it's hard and this is the reason why not everyone succeeds. If you jump into it thinking you'll start making money by next week - you will fail.

If you start building a new website understanding that you are in it for the long haul - your chances of success increase exponentially.

Some Niche Site Results

I've been following a niche websites that concentrates on drones. The website was launched just a little over a year ago (January 2016).

The owner put out about 15 articles per month. On his 4th month he finally started getting some rankings and made his first $20.

On 6th month the site made almost $1,500.

Last month (month # 12) the website earned $6,000.

How is that for results?

The secret to this success? Consistent content. The owner wrote at least 15 articles every single month for a whole year. After the first 4-5 month he still had nothing to show for it but he stuck with it because he knew that success takes time. He understood that rewards are not instant. He knew that it might be frustrating now but it will be worth it later on.

$90,000/year

Another interesting person that I had the chance to interview is a Man's Style Blogger. His niche is: "How to dress if you're a man below average height". How's that for a niche?
His started his blog in 2012 and barely out any work into it. In 2013 he wrote more articles and finally made a few dollars. In 2014 he wrote a lot of content and was able to make a few thousand dollars. This is when it clicked. Hard work = results.

In 2015 he decided to go full time on it and worked 30+ hours a week on his blog and managed to pull in $36,000 for the year.

In 2016 he wrote more content, he started tweaking certain things on his blog and he earned $90,000.

He explained that the first 2 years he was just a tire-kicker and instead of writing quality content he kept on looking for "shortcuts". He is sure that if he was to start all over again he'd be able to achieve the same success within 2 years because he realizes the importance of hard work and time investment.

There are countless case-studies of niche websites earning $500/month, $2,000/month, $10,000 per month and the common trend is the time that it took to get to that level. In most cases it's within 6-12 month. Many niche sites seem to peak at 20-25 months. This means that it takes 2 years of consistent work to reach the full potential for a small niche website. If you can expand on your niche than you'll probably never reach the full potential because you'd keep on growing your income ;)

Are You Ready?

I hope this post clears things up a little. I know that many of my WA referrals sign up for a yearly membership because they understand that success is not instant and they need to fully commit if they want to succeed.

I know it's difficult. I know it might feel like you aren't getting anywhere. I'd like to leave you with one of my most favorite illustrations about achieving success:

Let it sink in.

Alex