I wanted to write this Wealthy Affiliate Review, because Wealthy Affiliate has worked for me in multiple ways. I stumbled on it when researching ways to earn some money working at home. I found many offers that were scams of one sort or another, and some work-at-home jobs that involved phone calling, which didn’t interest me. My criteria was that I wanted to work my own flexible hours, not have a supervisor to answer to, and be able to earn some extra income.
I found Wealthy Affiliate, and was immediately interested, although a little intimidated as my computer skills were a bit limited. What drew me to the program was the step-by-step training, and the fact that I could check it out see if it was for me without paying anything.
What Is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is an online program to help people develop an internet business. I’m sure it’s easier if you have good computer skills to start with, but even those of us with just basic skills can learn to build a website and a successful online business!
You start with something you are interested in, build a website around that interest, and learn how to make money from that website. Build a website? The very idea panicked me at first! But what you are reading now is my third website. When I first learned of Wealthy Affiliate, I never thought I could do it!
What Has Wealthy Affiliate Done For Me?
Aside from the online business I’m developing, Wealthy Affiliate gave me new skills online, and built my confidence! Learning to do something you previously felt was beyond you is very empowering. And that new skill led to increased enthusiasm in general, and a new interest in maximizing my potential. I’m in my early 70s, but am improving my health and fitness, taking on new challenges, and hoping to help others do the same. I had never before been into social media online, but am finding connecting with others with similar interests and ambitions is very satisfying.
What Are The Steps To Success?
You can sign up for a Starter Membership completely free. This gives you access to many of the features of Wealthy Affiliate, and gets you started toward being an online entrepreneur. There are 4 major steps toward a profitable business:
- Choose an interest.
- Build a website.
- Attract visitors to your website.
- Generate revenue.
Step By Step Training–Makes It Easy
There are two training programs–the first class of each included completely free with the Starter Membership. One is the Certification Course, which is a step by step in depth course that will take you through building an online business around any interest you have. Not sure what to choose? The other program is the Affiliate Bootcamp, that helps you build a business around being an affiliate of WA itself–one of the most lucrative programs in the industry.
Choose An Interest–Your Niche
Your interest, or your niche, can be absolutely anything that attracts you. Lets say your hobby is gardening. That is pretty broad, so perhaps you want to narrow it down to organic gardening, or flower gardening, or gardening for kids, or any aspect of gardening or gardening techniques.
You could also choose a niche you don’t know anything about, but you want to research it and learn about it as you build your business around it. It is totally up to you, and the possibilities are endless.
Wealthy Affiliate’s training includes how to choose your niche. They offer personal support to help you come up with niche ideas and to select your niche.
Build Your Website–Your Foundation
This is something I never dreamed I could do! Wealthy Affiliate provides Starter members with a website through their platform Site Rubix. This allows you to build WordPress websites within the Wealthy Affiliate program, and offers you all the technical support you need. With the training programs and Site Rubix, you can build your own website in 30 seconds!
If you choose to upgrade to Premium, you receive one free .com domain, and can host up to 10 of your own domains (I didn’t even know what that meant when I started, now I own 3 domains).
Your website will be the foundation of your business. As you build out your website, you will become an expert in your niche, and will be able to help people learn more about your topic, inform them, offer related products and services, and build reviews offering your opinions on these products and services.
Attract Visitors–Traffic Needed!
Without people visiting your website, so they can buy things through you or take an action you recommend, you won’t have an online business! You need traffic! Visitors to your website that you can sell things to.
Wealthy Affiliate will teach you how to attract visitors to your website. You need to get your website ranked, and get traffic to it. Wealthy Affiliate will teach you what you need to get ranked in search engines, and how to leverage platforms in social media (Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, etc) to drive traffic to your website. They know all the best techniques and strategies, and share them with you!
Generate Revenue–Make Money!
This is where being an affiliate marketer comes in. You have your website, and have built it out so it has information that attracts and helps visitors. By becoming an affiliate to any one or more of millions–literally millions–of online businesses, you channel traffic to their site and get a percentage of what they earn.
So let’s say you review a gardening product on your gardening website–maybe a type of tool. If your visitor clicks on the link to the company selling the tool and buys it, you get a commission. How much varies a lot–from a few percent to 75%.
There are many ways to earn income from your website, and Wealthy Affiliate guides you through all of them. You can generate income from advertising, selling your own products or services, by building an email list, or even by reselling your traffic to others!
You can earn money as an affiliate to Wealthy Affiliate itself–it has one of the most lucrative affiliate programs in the industry!
Awesome Training
To me, as a person who had limited online skills, the Wealthy Affiliate training was what attracted me the most. There are two step by step training programs covering everything you need to know to set up and thrive with your online business. You can check it out as the first training of each is completely free for Starter members!
There are weekly live training presentations you can take part in, free to Premium members, and these remain available on the website if you miss them. There are literally hundreds of hours of past trainings available to you.
Support And Community–You Aren’t Alone
The support and sense of community is amazing at Wealthy Affiliate! In addition to the very complete trainings, there is Live Chat where you can discuss anything you need help with, or need ideas on, or just want to chat about. You can ask a question and get answers in minutes. If you want information on anything related to your online business, you can type it in the search bar, and get immediate past trainings on the subject. Or if you have a question about something technical with your website, you can go to Site Support, and get a response by an expert, usually within minutes.
The Tools You Need
All the tools you need to set up and run your online business! Everything from website building and platforms, to an awesome keyword research tool (Jaaxy), to site analysis tools that let you know how you are doing and what you need. There is extensive training on creating content, and even a Content Writer feature that helps you organize your content, checks spelling, grammar, punctuation, and originality, and allows you to publish directly to your website. There are tools to help you ask for feedback on your site, and to provide you with comments to your site. As I said, all the tools you need to build a successful website, and develop it into a successful business!
How Do I Get Started?
Check it out for free with a Starter membership, to see if this is what you want.
Why upgrade to the Premium membership? You get 10 websites (rather than the 1 with the Starter membership), additional training, unlimited 1-on-1 coaching, live video training, and increased access to the Jaxxy keyword and niche research tool.
But don’t take my word for how awesome Wealthy Affiliate is! Sign up for a Starter membership, completely free. Test drive it, try it out, see if it’s for you. Then, if you like what you see, you can take it to the next level with increased benefits and go for the Premium membership.
The Starter membership is free.
The Premium membership is $49 a month, or $359 a year (less than $1/day!). Truly a bargain for a ton of training, information, tools, and support!
Let Me Know How You Like It!
I’d love to hear your experience with Wealthy Affiliate. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave them below, or email me directly at jane@seniorssuccesscoach.com. Good luck with your online business and all aspects of your life!
Great, actually that’s the information I was looking for about Wealthy Affiliate and your ya e describes it really well. I have got all my questions answered on this single article. Thank you.
Wonderful! Glad it was helpful.
I’m a big fan of Wealthy Affiliate, simply because their training is SO easy to follow. It really is a step-by-step plan.
And of course everything you need is “under one roof”.
I started with the free membership and continued for an entire month before I handed over my money. Until this day I don’t regret it. I am making more than I have invested and continue to do so. Thanks for the post!
Thanks Brandon! I love hearing that it has worked for others the way it has been working for me. I also started with the free membership, and upgraded pretty quickly (a couple weeks). That is all it took for me to realize that it would work for me and my not super computer skills. The best part was finding that it was fun to challenge myself with Wealthy Affiliates’ help!
Thanks Jane for the good article. I’m a senior and this looks like something that can keep my brain active and healthy for a long time. A doctor told me once to never stop learning. Plus if I can add to my social security, that’s would be wonderful. Keep up the good work…
Thanks Charlotte. Keeping our brains active is probably one the most important things we can do for our long-term mental health. And if we add to our income, and have some fun as well–can’t beat that!