Hi all-
I'm another SBI owner (I always hesitate to say "owner". I feel more like an SBI member!)
"How long" is definitely a tough question. I'd go even further back: first define success. My definition of success has changed over the time I've been building my site.
I began my main site about 22 months ago. I feel like a slow poke, but that's relative. The name of the game is "build content".
Content pages are like real estate: the more pages you have, the more potential revenue you have.
Currently I get about 10,000 page views per month. That isn't good or bad. Some SBIers reach that in a few months. Took me 22 months to get there.
The money is relative too. Depends on your niche, your monetization models, your traffic (which with SBI has improved EVERY month for me)... bunches of factors.
Best suggestion I have for anyone who wants to start a site: YES, just get SBI.
Re: traffic stats: yup, it's in there. They aren't mad stats, if you're a real number junkie, but you can always add Google Analytics if you want. And that's easy. But the traffic stats that SBI offers are enough to let you take your site's temperature, see what your next moves should be.
Last point: SBI allows me to focus on the important stuff: content (did I remember to mention that content is the most important thing?) and allows me to completely ignore the stuff that makes me no money whatsoever (coding, etc).
Last, last point: (and this may be the most important): pick a topic you're excited about, that you can think about and write about frequently. That's where most of your content will come from. SBI offers lots of support and help on how to create the content. You will provide the why and what.
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