How Long Will Success Take?
ByThanks to the poor economy, there are more would-be Internet marketers than ever. One reason for the low success rate is that few people really understand how difficult it is to achieve online success. Simply earning a steady $100 per month online is no easy feat! Don’t get me wrong. It IS very doable…it’s just not easy.
Without a doubt, giving up too soon is why the vast majority of “newbies” never see a dime of profit. There are many stories, mostly urban legends, of folks making instant riches online. Beginners are motivated by those stories and the 7 figure incomes some “gurus” earn. What the beginners don’t see are all the train wrecks and endless trials and errors required to eventually enjoy those types of results.
How long will it take?
I get that question a lot. There is not a simple answer to it since there are many variables. How much time do you have to work on your business each week? What skills are you beginning with? What are you past experiences you can pull from? etc…
But allow me to give a hypothetical example and put perspective on the question.
Let’s say Sally is a stay at home mom who has a few hours a day to spend building her new online business. Over the past year she has already taught herself skills for choosing a niche, working with domains, hosting accounts, WordPress, and SEO. In other words, she knows the basics for how to build sites and what is required to rank them well in the search engines.
(Getting to that point alone requires significant effort. However, there is NO reason to actively focus on building a new business until you have those skills and knowledge in place.)
From that base level of skill and education, what is ahead for Sally before she sees that first milestone of earning just $100 each month? Again, there is no across the board answer that fits every situation or person. MAYBE Sally will hit a home run right out of the box (she might win the lottery too). However, more likely is the scenario where Sally will (must) resign herself to “failing fast” as she goes down the road of trial and error and “on the job” training.
If I’ve said this once, I’ve said it a 1000 times: “Internet marketing success is not a paint by numbers process.”
What works for me won’t necessarily work for you. And vice versa. Success online, and with any business, is about combining your unique personality, interests and skills into a profitable outcome. I like to use the example of building a women’s makeup website. No doubt there are countless opportunities there. But I have no interest in it. And for me, having some interest in the topic is a requirement (maybe not for everyone, but it is for me). I believe that matching personality and interests is a vital component for most beginners’ success.
Ok, how long then does Sally have to “fail fast” before she begins earning a steady $100 monthly income?
By the way, I use the $100 milestone simply because once someone knows how to earn that much, they ALREADY know how to earn $500 a month..and then $1000 a month…and so on. All that’s required is simply ramping up or re-implementing what’s already working.
Although I can’t say exactly how long it will take Sally, I CAN say, with reasonable assurance, that it won’t happen in just a few months. It might, but that would not be the norm.
On the other hand, if Sally has been working her 10 to 15 hours a week for a year and she’s still not seeing progress, I would take a close look at exactly what strategies she is using.
I guess, if I had to say, I’d be happy to see her earning her monthly $100 anytime within the first 6 months of steadily working and learning what works for her.
Now BEFORE that scares you, let me remind you that the first $100/month is the HARDEST…once you reach that point you’ve got what it takes to then easily (relatively) move that income into the 4 figure range.
Can you see now why so few new marketers ever succeed? There are not very many people willing to devote the months of work required to earn even that basic income.
Remember, if this was easy, EVERYONE would be doing it. Once you reach success, the rewards are awesome. Nothing beats staying home, sitting in my living room’s Lazy-Boy, looking out my big pictures….as I run my online business.
Hopefully, a few people reading this post will revise their expectations and renew their dedication to success.
• Maybe they’ll dig in and DECIDE they will have success…come heck or high water.
• Maybe they’ll decide that the ones having success are NOT more intelligent than they are.
• Maybe they’ll realize that “luck” is not involved.
• Maybe they’ll stop trying to hit that “home run”… but begin building a solid foundation to grow their business on.
Will you be one of those few people?
Thank you very much for this Steve. I have to say that I have always found you most generous, helpful and encouraging — never annoying, boastful or condescending as so many “gurus” can be. You know, look at me in my big house, with my big car and lovely wife and children! Now, why are you not like me?
Thank you.
Andrew.
thanks Andrew….yeah, I’m just a plain ole Okie for sure 🙂
Steve, I 100% agree with you. Anyone you read or talk to, who has broken those monetary barriers, will tell you there were set backs, there were thoughts of indecision (maybe this doesn’t work), but all agree if you stick with it you will achieve success.
As a society I believe we are drifting away from the “Quick Buck” mindset, the recession is helping in that area, and I hope it continues.
Regards
Thanks Ric….I hope you are right…but it seems like I get just as many (if not more) people contacting me now who are in the middle of trying to figure out how to make work the scam they got suckered into. Maybe there are those who have learned lessons. But then again I think there are many in “desperation” mode that leads them to the quick buck offers.
Great post Steve – I appreciate it, and I love your story. Let me ask you this. I saw a website for sale today on a specific product in the outdoor living or backyard niche. Upon closer inspection, it’s a pretty dang competitive niche. I’m seeming to find niches getting more competitive. Couple that with the google changes, and the lack of passion most would have for a super micro-niche (hard to get passionate about a robo pool cleaner), and you have a recipe for low traffic, no profit websites.
Do you still go for micro-niches, or for a website which can be built larger with multiple niches? For my example above it might be outdoor life products vs. a pool cleaner micro site. Not to mention so many of these amazon product sites are highly seasonal in nature. Thanks!
Well, I don’t really agree….there are zillions of opportunity with little competition. I’d have to see the niche you speak of to know really if it’s too competitive or not….but in most cases, I usually find it more doable than most people believe.
I also don’t believe that Google updates have made this harder. It is only harder if you used to be a spammer. Now, since they are getting them out of the way, it’s just as easy or easier for white hat.
As for choosing many micros or one macro site, it’s all about personality. You sound like a macro guy. It may be hard to believe for macro types, but there are many people who get very excited about micro niches like robo pool cleaners :):)
I have clients who have just one site and others who have over 100. One is not “better” than the other. I myself lean on the micro side (outside of Weber Internet Marketing of course)
“Seasonal” is good for micro types….it makes it even easier to target and make it even more micro.
Hi Steve,
Another excellent post by the way.
I’m a believer in having a mixture of macro and micro sites.
I have one main macro site which I’m really passionate about and am building up a following for over time.
I’m also creating a number of micro niche sites which I’ll research, build, have some fun with and when they’re earning a little money I’ll just leave them and research/create the next one.
That works for me because I have my core site which I love doing while the micro niche sites keep me on my toes, learning new things and creating passive income.
If I get bored of a micro niche site then it doesn’t matter because I can just leave it and start the next one.
Anyway, thanks for the free advice and as ever I’m looking forward to your next post.
Jason.
Yeah, I like the combo of Macro and Micro too….I think everyone who does micro niche sites ought to have one bigger area they work at….at least in their “spare time” along the way.
Thanks Steve! Well, it must be Monday, after re-reading my post, it sounds a bit negative. That was not the intent. My intent was simply to provide some additional analysis to your well-constructed post.
BTW – the niche I mentioned as being competitive was not a pool cleaner micro-niche, I simply gave that because it popped into my head. But, just for grins I researched “pool cleaners” and “automatic pool cleaners” and, guess what? After looking at both on the Google External KW tool and on Micro Niche Finder, both come across to me as highly competitive – almost overly competitive. I found maybe 5 KW’s out of 400 that looked do-able.
Just for a case study – would love to see your thoughts on this niche after applying some of your Market Samurai secret sauce strategy and see what you think Steve. Appreciate it!
Hey Jason,
You are right on target with my strategy, have several irons in the fire at once with each one reciving varying degrees of attention…
Brent
Hello Steve, great advice, copying exactly what others do will probably not turn out right, because it is not you.
This is definitely right, it is hard and takes a long time. I’ve got a couple of dot info sites which are not making money, even as I enjoy tinkering with them.
I want to build a hundred niche sites, each making a buck apiece, that would be enough to pay the bills.
awesome post Steve…this is exactly what I think everyone really believes about this business down deep, but doesn’t want to admit.
“consistent hard work” – that is as close to paint by the numbers I think we need for ANY endeavor
Yeah, you are right…automatic pool cleaners is competitive. I spent about 5 minutes looking at it. It would not be a quick, make a 10 page adsense site, and move on. However, the high competition, along with about a gillion Adwords ads, makes it a good candidate for digging in there and deciding you’d be an authority site for that area. It could take a year, but the rewards could be awesome. For a plan like that, you would not even filter the keywords…you’d be writing content for all of them. You’d optimize the home page for the big one. So in that sense, keyword research is a lot easier 🙂
I saw a bunch of keywords in the range of having 50,000 to 100,000 competing sites. …not good for a quick Adsense site, but definitely doable for longer term work.
Hi Frank…that’s a good plan and one I have clients doing. That would give you about $3000 a month at a buck a day each. However, be aware that the way it usually works is that 80% of your income will come from just 10 or 20 of those sites (or even less). Sure, it would be nice if you could know which 10 it would be…:):)
But just dig in and do the best niche selection and SEO you can on each site. If you do that, I promise it will work for you.
That is for sure! Across the board, consistent hard work is the key in the beginning.
Thanks for the input Steve – awesome.
great post:) thanks im impressed witg ur blog, u’re showing the real stuffs. I’m doing much of what i read in ur blog posts. I have simple blog. I own 3 websites now and i’m happy i’m doing it the right way. Being an indian, it was hard for me to enter into this market but i’d desire to learn and succeed, so i did. I made my first sale after 4 months of trial and errors. My first sale was $21. I was amazed to know that one can make a lot of money easily from affiliate marketing (not so easily though lol). I created a product however it didn’t made me millionaire, so its not worth mentioning. I’m 19 yrs old and want to be a millionaire before 30. Lol.
Again thanks for all the great content u’ve on ur blog.
Hi Ashish,
Cool! I remember that first real sale I made with my first real website (by just using 100% SEO to market with)….That was a great feeling!
Inch by inch….just keep experimenting…keep focused ….apply a LOT of action every week.
Great Post!
I’ve been reading many of your posts and if anyone understands that it can take some time before you make any money it’s me. Been workn’ on my site for some time now but now ready to hopefully start earning some cash.
Thanks Steve for your insighful posts.. !
Frank