Welcome to my review for Wealthy Affiliate. Having been a member for over 7 years I know I can give you a detailed insight into what Wealthy Affiliate is all about.[divider]
NAME: Wealthy Affiliate
OWNERS: Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim
PRICE: $0 Free Starter Membership (get your free account here)
SUPPORT: 24/7 365 website support plus Direct contact to the owners!
WHO’S IT FOR?: Complete Beginners to Advanced
READ REAL TESTIMONIALS: Read reviews
[divider]
A BRIEF HISTORY OF WEALTHY AFFILIATE
Wealthy Affiliate was started way back in 2005 by two Canadian guys called Kyle and Carson, since then the platform has continued to evolve into what we see today.
Here’s a snapshot of what it looked like back then
Word soon started to spread that Wealthy Affiliate was a place you could learn how to make a living as an affiliate marketer (if you’re not sure how that works check out ‘How to get started’ here) safely and more and more people continued to join with now over 800,000+ members!!
and what it looks like now
As you can see, Wealthy Affiliate has been around for quite some time and shows no signs of going anywhere soon. Kyle and Carson are two people who are very much hands on and are extremely involved in the community and continue to make changes for the benefit of its members. For example they will soon be introducing Free SSL so your website can accept payments for goods if you are selling products on your website. Available for websites on domains other than SiteRubix.com domains.
UPDATE: Free SSL has been integrated into Siteplus+, a suite of site enhancements that include Sitespeed and Siteprotect (more on these a bit later) and these are all included in your premium membership.
[divider]
TIME FOR A LOOK INSIDE
Wealthy Affiliate has so much to offer that it’s difficult to know where to start.
[alert-note]Lets start with the FREE training[/alert-note]
The first training module you start with is appropriately named ‘Getting Started’, which is the first of a TEN part course that walks you through the steps of creating your very own income generating online business.
Yeah, but Sharon, I hear you ask, you mean I have to give my credit card details to register? right? NOPE absolutely not, all you need is your name, an email address and a password and you’re good to go. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you, you don’t know me from Adam so why should you trust me?
You shouldn’t, not right away anyway, always check things out for yourself, ALWAYS.
So go see for yourself right here
Then if what I’ve told you is right, it will go someway towards building trust between you and me.
Right, back to the free training.
Not only do you get the ten part course, but you also get One FREE website so you can actively build a working website along side the actual training, how cool is that?
These websites are part of the SiteRubix website platform and are incredibly easy to create and of course you’re shown how to do that every step of the way, no just leaving you to work it out on your own because believe me if you are new you are going to need that help setting things up.
Did you know that the average time to build a website using SiteRubix is a staggering 34 seconds, that’s just insane. With technology the way it is today it really is just a matter of point and click. Probably the hardest thing is choosing what theme you’ll use for your new website. [divider]
FIRST FEW DAYS
Things can be pretty overwhelming in the beginning, but don’t worry you also have access to the 24/7 ‘live chat’ which is active for the first 7 days. This can be a great comfort to most people as you can ask any question you might have regarding things like ‘how does it all work’? or ‘do people actually earn money doing this’? and have an answer or someone point you in the right direction almost instantly.
You also have access to premium support for the important first few days.
So you have a vast array of options open to you to answer any questions you have. There’s always someone to help 🙂
Other nice free stuff includes access to 2 training classrooms
your own personal blog space so you can interact with other members or just document your journey.
You also get phase 1 of the Wealthy Affiliate Boot camp, this is their very own affiliate program where they take you through the best way to promote WA, which you can do as a free member.
you get video walk-throughs to help you understand the lessons and you also get 30 free searches using Jaaxy keyword research tool.
[divider]
WHAT COMES NEXT?
Believe it or not you can stay on the starter package for as long as you want safe in the knowledge it won’t cost you a penny. But if you want access to the further training and the other options that expired after your 7 days then you will need to take it to the next level and to go ‘premium’.
[alert-note]Let me tell you now it’s the best thing that I ever done.[/alert-note]
You have 2 payment options:
- pay monthly
- pay yearly.
If you pay monthly it will cost you $49.00/month and yearly will cost you $359.00 which is quite a saving on the monthly option, but it all depends on personal circumstances. I personally pay yearly.
So what do you get if you were to upgrade to premium?
- unlimited live help
- private messaging
- 10 websites
- website security and backup
- live video classes
- All the beginner training courses
- All the Bootcamp Training
- Access to all the classrooms
- unlimited keyword searches
- 100’s training tutorials
- 24/7/365 Website Support
- Website Analysis
- Website feedback platform
- Website comment platform
- over 700 training updates per year
- direct access to the owners (Kyle & Carson)
I have personally reviewed endless make money ‘opportunities’ and I honestly haven’t seen any other program that even comes close to what WA offers!
Every Friday evening, Jay, Wealthy Affiliates resident expert, hosts a live webinar and these are not to be missed.
Don’t worry too much if you can’t make the live broadcast they always record it so it can be watched at a later time if need be, say for arguments sake if you’re in a different time zone.
They’re always extremely informative and reflect the current trends in affiliate marketing, there’s generally a Q & A at the end if he hasn’t got carried away and I don’t mean that literally 🙂
[divider]
THE DOWNSIDE
So far I’ve been singing the praises of Wealthy Affiliate because I truly believe in their ethics and what they are trying to do, which is to help people to either start an online business or learn new practices so they can move forward with an existing internet business, but having said that there are some issues that I need to address.
- You could get information overload with the vast amount on offer. I would say start at the beginning and work your way through in order, don’t be tempted to jump ahead before your ready.
- Not all countries can join the starter membership, they are:
Nigeria
They can however join the premium membership.
- You can get caught up in live chat and spend way too much time on there. Live chat is good for a near instant response, just be aware of the time you spend there.
- You are not allowed to advertise or sell within Wealthy Affiliate
- As a free member you won’t have access to the live training
[divider]
[alert-note]Some of the many successes at WA[/alert-note]
SO JUST TO RECAP
You can stay on the starter membership for as long as you want or feel the need to, if you are new to affiliate marketing then you will learn a hell of a lot from the 10 free lessons and you will have 1 FREE website to build.
-
First month subscription of $19 instead of $49 (that’s a 60% discount)!
-
A direct line to me for any help you need
[divider]
FINAL THOUGHTS
I’ve reviewed many programs that will have you believe that everything is easy and that if you join them you will be making a boat load of cash in very little time without having to do any real work and they then want you to believe that they are going to let you have that goldmine of information for the princely sum of $9.95.
Well I’m going to tell you something that you might not like to hear, but it’s got to be said and that is they really don’t work and you know the worst thing about it is, they will be selling something new the next week telling you exactly the same thing.
But you know the worst part, that is that people are buying them, I should know, I was one of them.
Until I found a review for Wealthy Affiliate.
I decided to do some digging and found I really liked what I was able to find out and with the free trial I got to pull back the curtain and see the inside for what it is…..an absolutely fantastic place to learn and earn, but not only that, they also have a fantastic community that are always willing to lend a hand.
You never feel like you’re alone.
If you’ve found my review for Wealthy Affiliate helpful in any way, drop me a comment below or via my wealthy affiliate profile page at WA
[divider]
I will contact you within 24 hours should you decide to take the plunge into the exciting world of affiliate marketing.
Hope to see you on the inside 🙂
Hello…. Sharon accept my warm greetings….
I must confess that I am impressed with your honesty.
I also want to commend you for the good review….I stumbled to on WA some years ago in quest for financial freedom but couldn’t appreciate it then. If I had come across your review at that time I think I would have been singing hallelujah….
Please, Sharon I would like to ask for your hand in mentorship.
Of course I will help you, once you sign up with WA just reach out to me and we can move forward
How do you generate traffic?
Hi Isikeli, my traffic comes from ranking reviews in the search engines, it what WA teaches and it is a very successful way of doing things.
Hi Sharon
After providing my email and other personal information, am being asked to pay $49 for a premium package. My country which is Ghana is not listed among countries which have to with the premium package. Pls can you explain?
Hi Cletus, You shouldn’t have to do that. I will do my best help to help you. Can you send me a screenshot of what is happening so I can get a better idea. Also when did you sign up? Have you been able to create a starter account at all? Or is it asking for $49 straight away? What exactly is it saying?
Sorry for the questions, but they will let me know where I need to start to get this sorted for you.
You can send screenshots to: sharon@escapetherat-race.com
Don’t worry I’m sure we can sort this out for you 🙂
Hi Sharon
I’m Sheldon . I am also a member of WA.I found your site under the Hunting Affiliate programs.Its a niche I’m comfortable with.I wish you good fortune and All the Best in your marketing.My website is still under construction.
Hi Sheldon, I wish you all the best with your website.
Hi Sharon,
I’m not new to building websites but I haven’t done anything for a long time. What i would like to do is:
(1) Build websites with recurring affiliate programs.
(2) Drive traffic to these websites as a passive form of income.
Does WA give good, targeted fast forms of traffic. I’m not really into SEO as it takes too long to get results.
(1) Could you please elaborate on the traffic sources WA suggest
(2) Do they help with all privacy policy, GDPR etc on your website?
Your help would be appreciated,
Regards, Geoff
Hi Geoff, Fast forms of traffic are always going to be hit and miss and will cost you money, sometimes a lot of money. I personally know people who have spent hundreds and I mean hundreds on paid ads and Solo ads and made very little back if anything so even though SEO may be a little bit slower it is by far the best way to go. Paying for traffic is very short lived whereas SEO can last a lifetime.
WA teaches SEO the right way so you will continue to get traffic even when the search engines roll out new algorithm updates. They do have training on PPC, but that’s only once you’ve got to grips with the SEO side of things.
WA have all the help with privacy policy templates and GDPR that you need, but if you’re not really into SEO then I would say that Wealthy Affiliate probably isn’t for you.
What I would suggest is you take a look for yourself here, it won’t cost you anything, go through the free lessons and take it from there then you’ll have so much more of a better idea if WA is for you.
I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you find.
If I can be of any other help just reach out and I’ll see what I can do 🙂
Ok.
Thank you.
No problem.
Sharon,
I’ve stumbled upon your site because I wanted to check possible complaints about the List Warrior. I appreciate your comments and pointing out King Sumo and I decided to purchase the product and studied it yesterday night (not too convinced but I don’t want to jump to conclusions yet, nor am I in a hurry).
While reading your standpoint to the above, I noticed Wealthy Affiliate but I got confused. You are reviewing a product of which you are an affiliate? Isn’t there a conflict of interest? Look, I’m trying to help a friend who has lost all his savings of 17 years of hard work as a food delivery subcontractor by helping out a startup with a magnificent market potential lost because of an insanely headstrong female CEO. And he even indebted himself to save the company and will now have four more years to repay the loan from the bank for an LLC that simply has been shut down and its CEO disappeared. So I kept mentioning to him the affiliate business also because his own work is dwindling, swallowed up by Uber and Lyft. I would like to spare him new unpleasant surprises, he simply cannot afford them.
I see that I got myself on WA while I actually would have tried it in a few months or when time permits. I thought I’d receive an email from WA in which I would have to confirm my step but this common procedure seems not to apply to WA. Instead, I was let in right away (?!) and asked to upload my photo. I noticed the WA members talking positively of their experience but there is not one who talks of the bottom line, not one who expresses figures. On the other hand, I saw no scarcity of people on the web disappointed by WA. Of course, several of them may have their own agendas.
So back to square one. I guess I’ll have to do some more research. How did you come in touch with WA?
Hi Karl, thanks for dropping by. Let me see if I can address some of your concerns. First of all I’m sorry to hear of your friends predicament.
Yes I am an affiliate of Wealthy Affiliate, but that is how affiliate marketing works, having said that I don’t put my name to products that I don’t believe in.
I notice you say that you got yourself into Wealthy Affiliate, but are finding it hard to find people who talk about how much they have earned. I personally don’t like to advertise how much I earn, but here’s a link to some income posts on Wealthy Affiliate that you can check out:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/jerryhuang/blog/made-7-395-in-a-week-first-black-friday-results/a_aid/a1386d51
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/littlemama/blog/what-a-year-can-do-2017-374-vs-2018-3-470-black-friday-results/a_aid/a1386d51
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/mday849/blog/my-first-30-000-month-well-almost-29-330-68-to-be-exact/a_aid/a1386d51
These are really just a handful to give you an idea of what people are achieving on this platform when they put the effort in and that is the bottom line, you need to put the effort in.
I had researched many make money online opportunities and it was will doing more research that I came across a site, I think it was Nathaniels’, I’m not sure, but it took a while for me to trust what he was saying about the platform and through even further research I decided to try it out and the rest as they say is history, that was over 4 years ago.
I can wholeheartedly recommend Wealthy Affiliate to your friend as a place where learn without the fear of losing money. Tell him to take a look here at the free training they offer to see if it’s something he can see himself doing.
Whatever he does I wish him all the best.
Hi Sharon,
I appreciate your honest review as it really is a minefield out there!
All these products are geared towards those that wish to be affiliate marketers, whereas we have our own products and are struggling to locate affiliates to market our products. Where do we start 🙂 Are there products that you are familiar with that would assist us in finding affiliates?
FYI we are a team of integrated health practitioners, published authors (evergreen books translated at last count into 6 languages) with unquestionable expertise in natural fertility and preconception health care. Any thoughts/suggestions would be most welcome.
Kind Regards
Jacquie
Hi Jacquie,
I really haven’t had any experience with marketing my own products so I’m not the best person to ask I’m afraid, however if it is just books/ebooks then are they self published or through a traditional publishing company?
If you are self publishing then a great way to do that would be through your own website, a blog and that is something i do know about 🙂
If you want to know how you can maximise your potential then feel free to contact me again.
Thanks for the review. Will be checking this out later. Have a job to work at today. So in the next day or so will come back here to see what it has to offer. We have so much debt. Am believing this will be an answer to help with that. So many scams out there. They all sound to good. Again thanks. Saving this for later.
Hi Vicky, Whatever you choose to do just be very, very careful, as you say yourself there are so many scams out there and it’s true unfortunately.
Please don’t think that Wealthy Affiliate is going to make you rich overnight because it won’t, it will take a lot of hard work to make the kind of money you need, that being said i can’t think of a better place to make it happen 🙂