Wealthy Affiliate Review – The Good, The Bad, and My Honest Conclusion
Name: Wealthy Affiliate
Website: Wealthy Affiliate
Owners: Kyle and Carson
Price: 0$ for Starter Membership; 49$ for Premium – Sign Up Here
Who Can Benefit: Brand new to Seasoned Veteran
What To Expect
There are so many programs and information related to Internet Marketing, it’s difficult to know what’s legitimate and what’s simply hype. I researched A LOT of internet marketing over the years but was simply scared off by a lot of the programs out there – when something sounds too good to be true, I usually avoid it.
For an affiliate marketing platform to be considered a good program, I look for evidence that shows it’s been around for a long time, has good reviews, and lots of members to back up it’s claims. If these criteria are met, I’ll be happy to research further.
So when I came across Wealthy Affiliate, the above criteria were all met. There was no excessive hype of overnight rags to riches non-sense, just honest reviews of people currently using the program and having steady success.
The common theme was that they had to work at it and were slowly building successful online businesses. Because the membership is free to join, I decided to give it a look.
Training
- Includes Keyword Research and Competition tool
- Unlimited Cloud Hosting
- WordPress Website Builder – and over 2400 website themes available
- Rapid Writer feature, helping you with content development
- Thousands of Training Videos and Tutorials by Kyle, Carson, and hundreds of other knowledgeable members
- Forum of over 800,000 members to answer questions about anything related to your online business.
What You Will Be Doing
This is where it gets fun! There are so many different directions you can go with Wealthy Affiliate. But to sum it up, it goes as follows:
- Find an Interest, Hobby, or Passion
- Build A Website
- Get Visitors To Your Site
- Earn Money
At this point, people often say, “Well I’m not much of a writer so maybe this isn’t for me. “One counter question I then have is, “Can you talk to your friends, family, or other enthusiasts about your favorite interest?” “Do you write emails to your friends and family?”
If the answer is yes, then you can put together some content on a website. Writing content for your website is more conversational in nature – not like writing a paper for English class. Boy am I thankful for that! That’s what makes this business so accessible for so many people.
As you write content, you will begin finding ways to earn revenue from your site. The more you write, the more visitors you’ll get and, therefore, more revenue. I’m sure you’re getting the gist of this by now. Over time, this can translate into a great full time online business!
Some backstory – Just before researching Wealthy Affiliate, I had been hoping to find a program where I didn’t have to write content, do SEO (Search Engine Optimization) etc. I just wanted to buy traffic and make quick money in PPC (pay per click). It seemed like such a great way to make money online!
Well, my naivete soon wore off and I realized I was in WAY over my head. I didn’t fully understand how to use PPC, how to make landing pages for successful PPC campaigns etc. So I realized that I needed to find a method that was tried and true – and I needed a blueprint to make it happen.
Don’t get me wrong, PPC is a great way to earn money, but there is a big learning curve involved with it and I jumped in too early. Just so you know, I never claimed to be the smartest guy in the world – I let my excitement jump ahead of my brain. Since then I’ve learned to temper that a bit, whew! (smiley face emoji here:)
I also realized that success could not happen quickly – I needed to rid my mind of all the hype I’d been reading about. All of these so called “pie in the sky” online businesses where people were getting rich right away…they don’t exist.
Instant success is not possible – I needed to slow down and work at it to produce real results online.
And maybe like many of you, I was at a career crossroads – after 20+ years in my Counseling career, it no longer brought me the sense of joy it once had. Don’t get me wrong – I still find enjoyment in it since I like helping people, but I no longer want to “move up the ladder” in this line of work.
I also want to work independently for a change. My guess is many of you are searching for this freedom as well!
I realized that I can still tap into my desire to help people, but I can do so using a different format…Affiliate Marketing. A major bonus to all of this is I can also help them from the comfort of my own home! Wealthy Affiliate can help make this happen.
The Good
A Community of over 800,000 – this was important to me. With a large membership base, at least some of them are making this work!
Access to the owners, Kyle and Carson – I don’t know how they manage to do this, but if you have questions, they will reply to you. I was skeptical of this at first considering there the size of the community but, after writing Kyle to ask him a question, he got back to me with an answer – and not just a “pat” response, it was helpful and solved my problem.
FREE to get started AND two FREE Websites to boot! – This put my mind at ease when signing up, knowing I had an out if it wasn’t a good fit.
A Forum to Ask Questions – With such a large community, there is always someone who has an answer to a problem. And it’s 24/7, so help is there whenever you need it.
Live Webinars – One hour long webinars about a topic relevant to all marketers.
Over 13 Interactive Classrooms – A wealth of information, nicely organized and easy to follow. If any of the concepts are difficult to grasp, people are always willing to help.
Wordpress Hosting – Fast, Reliable and Secure.
No Spam! I love this – no spam links anywhere.
The Learning Process is set up Step by Step – very helpful when starting out as there is a lot of information to sift through.
The Program Is Always Evolving – Kyle and Carson are always working to make update the program and keep it streamlined.
It’s a Program For All Experience Levels – Novice to Pro!
The Bad
Although I have found Wealthy Affiliate to be an amazing program, it’s not without flaws. And I’m speaking here of my own personal experience.
Hard To Take In All The Information – Depending on how you look at it, this could be seen as a good thing as well, showing just how comprehensive the program is.
But as a newbie, trying to take in all that information can be overwhelming. There is so much to look at and it can be discouraging to suddenly realize how much you don’t know.
However, the program is set up for you to go through in a sequential manner – something I didn’t do when I first signed up (oops). After each class or lesson, there is a set of tasks to be done before moving on to the next class or phase.
Final Thoughts
I hope by now I’ve shown you a fair assessment of Wealthy Affiliate. Is it perfect? No. But it has everything in it I was looking for in a work from home opportunity – honesty, great information, and a community of people that help one another.
I have been a member of WA for around a year now. Truth be told, I didn’t always follow the program as it was set up. I had some experience in Internet marketing from a years back and thought I could skim some of the training without really taking it in – BIG MISTAKE on my part.
Because I didn’t follow the training sequentially I often became sidetracked, trying a lot of different ideas I wasn’t yet ready for, and simply became overwhelmed. I could see the program’s potential, but I tried to learn it my own way which messed me up and made for a steeper learning curve.
I carried on this way for a few months before I realized I was going nowhere! So I humbled myself, went back to square one in the training, but this time I slowed down to really learn it. It’s really helped. My knowledge base increased dramatically and things started to click…finally!
As I write this, I remember how I came across Wealthy Affiliate. I was reading a review about a different program I was researching and I clicked on a link to a review of Wealthy Affiliate instead. Reading that review is what finally ended my search for the BEST online marketing program.
I hope you will consider trying out Wealthy Affiliate for FREE. You’ll truly need to decide for yourself if it meets your expectations. The free period is what solidified my commitment to internet marketing and Wealthy Affiliate – I knew I’d finally found the place where I could really learn all there is to know about this craft!
Freedom and Independence is possible with Wealthy Affiliate! It’s renewed my belief that there are honest programs out there that truly try to help people.
I am not financially able to quit my job yet to pursue this full time – but I now see the path which will take me there!
I truly believe self employment is possible with this program, given enough time and persistence. Many members of Wealthy Affiliate have already experienced this freedom and I’m right on their tails!
I write more about the ins/outs of Self Employment here.
Thanks for reading my review and please leave a comment for me if you have questions about the program. I don’t claim to know everything yet, but I will definitely get you the information you need. Best of luck to you!
To check out Wealthy Affiliate for yourself, click here.