Does SEO even work? I Want To Make Money ASAP (or I Quit!)

Does SEO even work? Does Wealthy Affiliate even work? Does the training from Wealthy Affiliate work if you put it into action? These are the questions I asked my self when I was starting out - can you relate?
I was just reflecting back on my start with my main website in July 2018 and looking back on my traffic. For me, I started in January 2018 with a niche coaching website and realised after 5-6 months that I wasn't really passionate about that niche and industry anymore.
But I did realise after a month here, that there was so much for me to learn and after the first month of premium at $19 a month, I took the plunge and invested in myself for a year to fully get trained, produce content and see how far I could go with the exciting new skills of:
- Online marketing
- Keyword reserch & SEO
- Blogging
- Traffic
- Making money - Income from affiliate marketing and a digital product I created.
Other things that attracted me to the training and community here is that:
- I could do it 100% from home
- do it part time in my spare time (I was working full time)
- I like learning
- and also like not having to sell anymore (I'm sure many of us have tried direct selling before).
Also I love a bargain, so Wealthy Affiliate Premium annual membership gave me a lot of savings over monthly, gave me that mental commitment and not worrying about monthly/ongoing costs at all. I figured that many people spend that annually on football memberships, Netfilx subscriptions and even daily takeout coffees. Once I realised it was only it was a $1/day in 2018 (now $1.36 a day, still cheap!), that was a no-brainer for me.

Anyway - Does SEO even work?
I didn't pay much attention to website traffic and Google Analytics until the training told me to do so and focused on the income producing activities of - Keyword reserch & SEO, content creation - just from learning and applying the training here.

I started this website in a highly competitive niche, I wasn't too bothered about it becuase I enjoy learning, I could do it 100% from home and still spend precious time with our young family. Oh and I didn't have to sell or recruit.
So I really just put my head down and did exactly what the training taught me to do.

What happened in my first 6 months?

I wrote many posts, I am more quality over quantity, I did various types of post - How to posts, Finding profitable options and Reviews. To build out my framework of content initially.
- I noticed at the time that I got some rankings from Bing and Yahoo earlier
- I learned about the "Google Sandbox" for your first 6 months or so
- I didn't get much traffic at all - as you can see almost no traffic after 6 months and only 51 users from organic traffic in my 7th month of February.
- Did I make any money? - NO
- Whaaaaaat!
Like Kyle keeps mentioning in the training, I didn't focus too much on analytics, instead focused on producing quality content and learning the skills.
What else happened in those first 6 months?

Well, eventually 3 of those review posts got to page 1 on Yahoo and Bing, and soon after Google!
With that Bing and Yahoo gave me more traffic, so did Google - the big G!.
I was following the training and my social media channels were working for me too (Social traffic not shown in this screenshot, that is additional traffic)
Anyway I had a "purple patch" in making quality content from month 3 to month 6 here. Those 3 posts for example didn't blossom, bloom and really grow my traffic until month 6 to 12. Look at that TRAFFIC GROW!

If I had've quit after 6 months, I would've made no income.
Many people would give up after 6 months sitting in my position.
I fully committed to 12 months Premium so just as well I reassessed after 1 year here
(perhaps I am more patient, but after years of below average results in another business model, I had learned to be patient! and I learned it takes some hard work to master a new profession).
I reckon most people tend to give up in those first 6 months but if you keep going it's not possible to lose.
WHAT!?
I suggest you have another read of that last sentence.

If you really want to succeed at anything then always work hard, have faith, don't listen to the naysayers, be consistent and go for it!

SINCE THEN: This turned into a far longer post than I intended, I'll make separate posts about my journey since but some highlights are:
- I've had challenges, I've worked hard to overcome those challenges (Google Mobile Speed and website overhaul)
- did I mention naysayers? more of them...
- I didn't listen to those naysayers...Gen X naysays are my favourite naysayers (not and LoL)
- I'm now earning every month,
- I even got a Google featured snippet! on that first niche website I hadn't touched since June 2018!
- I've chucked many "shiny ojects" in the trash can - after wasting some time
- AND I'm extremely excited about the future

MINDSET TIPS:
Creating a profitable online business is NOT easy.

You will need to put in TIME and EFFORT to see the results you would like. You’re likely to come across challenges on the way and you will need to do things that you won’t see immediate rewards for.

Setting the right expectations for yourself:

1. Unlike working X hours for Y dollars/hour (e.g. a Job) or even selling something straight away to your friends (e.g. MLM).
2. Do not even bother starting if you're looking to get rich quick without putting any effort in! (spoiler alert: ‘get rich quick’ methods don’t exist)

What are your thoughts?
- Does SEO even work?
- How long should you commit to online marketing for?
- How long are you committing to Wealthy Affiliate for?