A Review of Wealthy Affiliate
In my search for making money online, or through blogging. I ran into a few walls. I was a beginner, and I couldn’t find anything that fell into the ‘how to learn affiliate marketing for beginners’ category… until I found Wealthy Affiliate.
What Makes Wealthy Affiliate Different?
Kyle and Carson are the Founders of WA. I have found them to be the ‘open book’ type guys. They’re upfront and honest.
You can remain a Starter Member for as long as you want, but you will lose one or two features after the first 7 days. (Chat, and community forum participation, etc.).
You can still access the Free Training, which packs tons of information in that you will need to be successful, and you get 1 free Website.
To Go Premium or Not?
You decide. With Premium, you have access to 10 Websites (Free)! All in! I’ve paid upwards of $500 elsewhere for the same features… True Story! (And yep, I’m a tad choked about it)!
Added Training
It never stops at WA!! There’s Training for just about everything Web-related!! From how to Build a Website, E-Commerce, Social Media, maximize your site, and beyond!!
Wealthy Affiliate will show you how, where, and what you need. You just have to bring your willingness to learn!
You will not:
1. Make huge money overnight
You will:
1. Need to want to learn
2. Need to Invest your time
The WA Promise? To give you the Training, tools, and support needed to become an Online Presence.
Other Affiliate Sites
In my reviews here, I will not mention the ‘other’ names or websites. I will tell you the tactics I saw, the small print, and what I didn’t like, but not their names and sites. You may be asking why.
The answer… that’s just not who I am. It’s not my style. You will find negative reviews on every Affiliate or Online Marketing promotion you can find. Remember, they are trying to promote their own training program, just as Wealthy Affiliate does as well.
Site 1
Here’s training that ‘claims’ to be worth OVER $10,000.00, but you can get in for $97.00 today, and today only! But Wait, don’t go… We are offering this to only a few people today for $27.00!! Congratulations!!
I download the free w book of Top 12 Niches for 2019… these are, have been, and will be the Top Niches forever! Nothing new here.
What the heck, I’ll save you the download time (no particular order):
1. Health
2. Fitness
3. Self-help
4. Illness and Cure
5. Enhancement Products (generally a dangerous category)
6. Internet Marketing
7. Grow a Business
8. Adult Content or Dating Sites
9. Money
10. Protection of Assets
11. Make Money
12. Investing
13. Cryptocurrency….. (That’s a bonus one for you).
It’s no Secret that many of these are on the top, and will stay there. OK, so there you have it… let’s go back to the ‘offer’.
If you act on the $27 offer you get in. Otherwise, it’s $97. Sounds good so far. Then, as you read the excited reviews, and success, you find that people are PAYING $5000.00 a month (investment on potential Profit)!!
So I ask, what if it doesn’t work? What if I pay my Investment money of $X thousand, and no return?
And what are they paying for? You have to join to find out. That means, pay, proceed, and maybe earn.
Site 2
Open an Online Store. This has potential. The problem? Very little support and training provided in your monthly fee. You have to pay extra for that.
The product can take forever to be shipped, and often runs out quickly.
While they can be successful, you do need to know how before committing to it.
How do I know this? I had 2 Online Stores. Both were hot niches, I had traffic, I was making sales… then it happened. No product delivered. I was forced to refund the money and lost money in this venture. I did gain a learning experience!!
Site 3
Pay $X and receive $5000 in your first month!! There’s no explanation of how you make the income, just invest your money, and you will make HUGE returns. You have to pay the amount they ask for before finding out how to make the return. I ‘fell’ for it, and scheduled a call. The mere ‘investment’? $12K… yep $12,000 for them to teach me how to do Online Marketing. You can potentially make your ‘investment’ back in 3 to 6 months, was the closing argument.
These are generally Ponzi style or Pyramid. The only people making money are at the top.
Site 4
I really want to tell you who these guys are, but darn it! It would ruin my ‘personal rules’ for this post!
This site is full of negative reviews about other programs, especially Wealthy Affiliate. The hook? He was a member!! That’s his pitch!
I watched his video, and I will quote some of his drivel:
“My clients have to pay me month after month, or I will sell their leads to a competitor”.
“My clients cannot fire me, because if they do, I will sell their information.”
“Create false locations for clients.”
“After everything is set, I can ignore the client, and move to a new client.”
There is no information on what his training costs. You have to schedule a recruiting call to even get in the door. That sends up red flags for me now.
I am now done my RANT…back to my original thoughts on:
Wealthy Affiliate
I signed up to the free training with little hope, but I had the time, so I figured… why not? What’s the absolute worst that can happen? I waste my time… again!
Amazed! Oh my, yes indeed! And we’re not talking 10 minute sound bites… it’s full of training! More than enough to get started!!
I had a better understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Keywords, and Google Ranking than I ever had hoped I could get!
I was SOLD. I paid for a ‘Special Month’ offer of $19 to access everything the platform offered, and I will be honest… MIND BLOWN!!
Here’s what the Banner ad doesn’t tell you:
The Community & Coaching
From younger to older, we are a community. The help that we give, and receive, throughout, is nothing short of phenomenal! You have a question, there will be an answer!!
You will have me as your coach, as well as everyone else on the platform! And this includes Kyle, Carson, and Jay!! That’s over, at last count…100,000+ Coaches! I’m not kidding… we help each other out on a daily basis!
Weekly Webinars
Every Friday Night at 6 PM Mountain Standard Time, there is a Live Event known as WAbinars. These are recorded, and in the ‘Library of Knowledge’ (That’s my personal term for it). This is where Jay, our Live Trainer, teaches us the ways of the internet, Google, Bing, online marketing, and building websites… plus so much more!!
And So Much More (But No Free Steak Knives)!
There is so much more! I feel as if I’m doing a disservice, to you dear reader, in that I cannot make a full list. (That is NOT meant as ‘Click-Bait’… it’s just the truth of it).
Time Investment
Earlier I mentioned a Time Investment. This is a flexible idea. Some people spend 3-4 hours a week on WA, for others, it’s a full-time gig.
In my case, I am self-employed, and when I’m not working on clients, I’m usually in Wealthy Affiliate creating, researching, building, and working.
Making Money with WA
Your next question is pretty obvious now. Am I making money? I joined WA in July 2018, so 9 months ago by this post date. The answer to your question… NO, I’m not. (Keep Reading)…
This was a personal choice on my end. I wanted to learn as much as I could BEFORE I started to promote niche products, Affiliate Marketing, and I have been working tirelessly on a project on my original niche site.
That was my choice to not dive into the money aspect and earnings. People are making part-time/ extra income, full-time income, and beyond.
I could go into great detail on who has made what within the Community here, but seriously, until you try it, see it, and meet these people, why would you believe something you read here?
That would be me being ‘that person’ in the mentioned Site Scenarios that I listed. I would be promising you the Sun, Moon, and Stars, just because I can type it… or video it.
Thank You for your time in reading this! Feel free to ask questions, in the comments section below, or check out the WA Free Training and decide from there!
Shaunna
I like your website, its true its not easy to make money at all.
Everything you need to make an effort, time and more time to make it work.
This is the only website I trust because I learn a lot from WA. And you also get help from the Community.
And you can basically make more than one website. Hopefully you write more insight about affiliate Marketing.
This was a great review of Wealthy Affiliate. I’ve come across quite a few reviews, but yours is one of the more unique and upfront ones. And I00% agree with you that most people need to actually give WA a try, or any program/product a try to really get the feel for it.
Nate,
That’s what drew me to WA… the transparency of it!
I’m pleased you enjoyed my blunt honesty!
Shaunna
Hello Shaunna! I found your site searching about niches. And continued searching around and found this post. What a great recommendation. I appreciate you have shared part of your story. Good training and great tools, this is exactly what we need to get started with affiliate marketing!
I appreciate your honesty. July 2018 is almost a year but I understand any business need a lot of hard work and time!
Hello Henry!
Thank You again! I’m glad you found some useful information here!
I Love WA and all the tools we have access to!
Shaunna
I like your website, its true its not easy to make money at all.
Everything you need to make an effort, time and more time to make it work.
This is the only website I trust because I learn a lot from WA. And you also get help from the Community.
And you can basically make more than one website. Hopefully you write more insight about affiliate Marketing.
Thank you for checking out the site!
I will be adding more insight into Affiliate Marketing, in stages as there is so much out there!
So happy you found WA… I know I Love it!
Shaunna
While reading your blog post, I got reminded of a man who was hailed as the person behind the huge success of some of top online network marketing distributors. We became friends after I tried his lead system and because I am one of his active promoters, he gave me his list of leads which normally he sells to interested marketers.
At first, I was happy but then after discovering that the leads he gave me are all fake, some are real but the persons in the list complained when I called them that they did not subscribed to his list actually, that got me very disappointed.
Unlike these shady marketers and companies, Wealthy Affiliate and its founders are the real deal. In fact, I’m no longer spending money in Wealthy Affiliate, I now use their system all for free and thanks to their Site Comments platform. I’m getting paid money for contributing comments, money that’s then used for my site hosting.
If I am to list the good reasons why I love Wealthy Affiliate, the list will be endless. Some of the reasons are intangible, meaning, they can’t be measured like for example, the friendship you will establish with the founders and leaders of Wealthy Affiliate. So, guys, if I were you, I should get in and join Wealthy Affiliate. It’s worth a try!
Thank you for your awesome words of wisdom! So many have experienced the same scenario that you did…
I’m glad you found WA!
Shaunna