What Is Wealthy Affiliate?
Product Name: Wealthy Affiliate
Creator: Kyle & Carson
Date Created: 2005
Grade: A+
Price(s): $0 (Starter Membership), $49/mo, $349/yr
Official Website: www.wealthyaffiliate.com
An In-Depth Review From A 6-Year Member
Being honest here, the name “Wealthy Affiliate” does sound a bit like a scam, so it’s completely understandable to be hesitant about signing up for it. For that reason, I decided to write this review to help you decide if Wealthy Affiliate is worth it for you.
I have broken this review into segments, so feel free to jump to whichever you feel is most relevant to you, or read it through to get a clear picture of what to expect with a Wealthy Affiliate membership.
The Wealthy Affiliate review that you are about to read is written by myself, a 6-year member, to help guide you through one of the biggest decisions of your college career. At the end of this review, should you decide you want to give Wealthy Affiliate a try, I have a few special offers for you.
What Is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate at its core, is an online learning platform designed to teach people how to legitimately make money online through affiliate marketing. Through self-paced, guided “boot camps” which I’ll discuss more in-depth later, Wealthy Affiliate teaches people how to start a website and earn a profit from it through various internet marketing techniques.
In addition to the boot camps, Wealthy Affiliate features some of the best affiliate marketing tools you will ever find to be successful online.
How Will You Make Money With Wealthy Affiliate
As mentioned, Wealthy Affiliate teaches you how to build a website and turn a profit through the use of affiliate marketing. However that is just the core program. The core program can be simplified like this:
Step 1
Choose An Interest
Step 2
Build Your Website
Step 3
Attract Visitors & Develop Your Audience
Step 4
Generate Income
I understand that seems to be oversimplifying it but at its core, it really is that simple. Again, this is just the core program. There are several others ways covered within Wealthy Affiliate that discuss how to make money online, whether it is making money on Fiverr, flipping websites, ghost writing and much much more. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of different techniques for making money online taught. This is one of the great perks of member-created training at Wealthy Affiliate. If a user finds something that works well, they create training programs that help teach members how to earn more money online.
Wealthy Affiliate Features
Industry Leading Training
Bootcamps
When you first join Wealthy Affiliate there are 2 guided boot camps for members to choose from:
- Build a Website to Teach Others Online Marketing (Affiliate Bootcamp)
- Build a Website in Your Own Niche (Certification Course)
The choice here is more dependent on your own preference. When I first got started, I decided to do my own niche, since I didn’t know much about online marketing and felt I would be more helpful to my audience teaching something I know and love: guitar.
That being said, you will learn the same skills on developing and promoting your website regardless of which boot camp you choose. The lessons are just structured differently to better cater toward different types of websites.
These guided boot camps feature several small tasks to complete to help you not only measure progress, but see your growth:
Webinars
Want to talk with industry experts about dozens of relevant online marketing topics? That’s exactly what the webinar series at Wealthy Affiliate is all about.
Every Friday a webinar is help where an industry expert discusses a topic relevant to online marketing for roughly an hour. At the end of the webinar a Q&A is held where everyone watching can ask questions.
Every quarter Hot Seat Webinars are held, where you can submit your site for review and get critiqued by industry experts as well as be given advice on where you should look next in terms of growth strategy.
Personally, I feel these webinars make the cost of Wealthy Affiliate more than worth it on their own. The site has been around since 2005. Since then there has been on average 1 webinar per week on various online marketing and affiliate marketing topics.
52 weeks per year * 13 years = 676 webinars.
That said, I am sure there were several weeks where Jay, the presenter that hosts the Webinar, was sick or had to miss one. So this number is almost certainly smaller. However there are still hundreds of training videos to supplement the learning materials and since I joined 6 years ago I think Jay has had to cancel maybe 3 Webinars.
Member-created training
In addition to the boot camps and Webinars there are also member-created training modules. This is another one of my favorite features of Wealthy Affiliate. With member-created training you get the peace of mind knowing that as soon as a new strategy is discovered, or Google updates its algorithm there will be a training on Wealthy Affiliate shortly after to help prepare you or train you on how to be successful.
Support
What keeps me coming back to Wealthy Affiliate year after year is the supportive community. Once you are a member (free or premium) you gain access to one of the most expansive support systems in the industry.
Wealthy Affiliate has thousands of members, just like you, working to learn how to make money online through internet marketing.
There are also hundreds of veterans who have been doing this for years, so whether you need someone who can relate to your current road block or looking for insights into what to do next, there is someone ready to help.
Support is easily accessible in a variety of ways, including:
- Chat
- Classrooms
- Questions
- Private Messages
Tools
The tools Wealthy Affiliate provides are truly one of a kind. Which tool is the best or most effective will change depending on who you ask, but my personal favorite is the Keyword Research tool.
Keyword Research
The Wealthy Affiliate keyword research tool is nothing shy of incredible if you’re an internet marketer. I have been working in Search Engine Optimization professionally for almost a decade and I use this tool for both work and for my personal websites.
The tool is called Jaaxy, and it was developed by Kyle & Carson, the creators of Wealthy Affiliate. To call Jaaxy a keyword research tool is almost insulting to its capabilities. With it you can:
- Research domain names
- Research and discover niches
- Track how your website is performing for certain keywords
- Search for affiliate programs based on keywords and platforms
- And, of course, research keywords
Free Site Builder
Included in both the free and premium memberships is the Wealthy Affiliate SiteBuilder tool set. The SiteBuilder is built on the SiteRubix platform, which is incredible easy to use. The completed SiteRubix website is simply a WordPress site, so it is easy to use and already has loads of support and documentation available for you.
You have the option to purchase a domain, use a free SiteRubix domain or import a domain you already own to Wealthy Affiliate to install your site onto.
Once you have decided on your domain and installed WordPress onto that domain you can browse through the free theme selection. There are thousands of themes to pick from. You can preview each one to see how it looks in a full web browser before you decide on which one to install.
Once you’ve built your site on SiteRubix there are a number of tools at your disposal to set you up for long term success. A few of these tools include:
- SiteContent: WealthyAffiliates custom-built content editor that has built in content templates so you can set your writing goals, proofread your content for spelling/grammar issues, as well as its overall SEO friendliness.
- SiteFeedback: Get feedback on a number of aspects, depending on what you’d like. You can request feedback on a certain page, a page’s content, your overall website design and more. Feedback is run on “tokens” so you have to leave feedback to earn tokens and then can spend those tokens to get feedback on a 1:1 ratio. This ensures everyone gets their fair share and keeps the community strong.
- SiteComments: Comments work on the same 1:1 token system as Feedback. You submit a piece of content and request comments on that content. Likewise, you can leave comments on other members content to earn credits.
Managed Hosting, Included
WealthyAffiliate has one of the best hosting packages I have ever used – and it is included with both free and premium memberships. While there are more features on the premium membership hosting plan, the free membership gives you more than enough to get your site going.
With a free Starter membership you get:
- 2 websites
- 12 themes to pick from
- SiteContent Access w/ Template Builder
With a Premium membership you’ll get:
- 50 Websites
- 25 Domains & 25 Subdomains
- Unlimited Site Email
- HTTPS
- Content Delivery Networks to keep your site running fast
- Security – Built in website security
- Site Health Monitoring
- Site Support
- Daily website backups
- Much, much more
Compare Wealthy Affiliate Features
Affiliate Program
What would an affiliate marketing education be without its very own affiliate program? Wealthy Affiliate does offer an affiliate program for anyone you refer to Wealthy Affiliate. Their affiliate program also pays better than most any program that you’ll find out there. The cookies are lifetime, which means if you refer someone with your link, then they click somebody elses link while they are still considering, you still get credit for that referral. The affiliate program is available for both free and premium members, however premium members get a 100% increase in commission per referral.
Pricing
As I’ve mentioned there a 2 price points for Wealthy Affiliate Memberships:
- Starter Membership: Free
- Premium Membership: $50/mo or $359/yr (a 40% savings)
A free membership will give you all the tools you need to learn and be successful in affiliate marketing. I always recommend the free membership to folks who are unsure about if this is for them.
I understand there is a lot of skepticism about the idea of “making money online” and a lot of scams out there. For this reason I recommend a Starter membership so that you can get a hands on experience to see that this is the real deal, and also to decide if the upgrade would be worth it for you. No tricks, no credit card required. This account is 100% free.
Now, if you know you are ready to take the next step and are fully committed to never working another part-time, minimum wage job again then I high recommend the jump to premium. However, you really have to be ready. I don’t want to see you joining and letting that membership go stagnant. If you go premium, I want you to find me (DevenD over at Wealthy Affiliate) and ask me any questions you may have.
Still, on the fence?
Compare Starter vs Premium Memberships
Bottom Line: Is Wealthy Affiliate Worth It? + Special BONUS
If you’re looking to get-rich-quick then no, Wealthy Affiliate is not worth it because that won’t happen. Wealthy Affiliate is designed to walk you through and learn how to legitimately make money online. With that comes the understanding that you have to do your part. You will get out of Wealthy Affiliate what you put into it. If you are ready to make the commitment to ditching minimum wage jobs, pay for your college education or even just gain some financial independence then yes, Wealthy Affiliate is 100% worth the Premium Membership cost.
As a thank you for creating your free Wealthy Affiliate membership through my link I have a few special bonuses for you. There’s only one catch: You have to actually set up your account. Don’t worry, you will be walked through the very simple account set up process. This just shows me that you are serious about committing to your success with building a profitable online business. Once you’ve done that, I will reach out to you within the first hour of joining with my special offer:
- A 61% discount on your first month should you decide you want to upgrade to premium within the first 7 days – that’s only $19 for your first month
- If you create your Premium account through this special offer I will also give you free, direct access to me. Any questions or concerns you have along the way, I will be there to help walk you through it
- I will send you a link to the Diamond Traffic Program, an exclusive guide to building a website that not only drives excellent traffic but also converts.
Ready to take the next step? Sign up here and meet me over at Wealthy Affiliate!
Of course, if I’ve left any questions unanswered, please feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll answer them for you ASAP.
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