I’ve been in the make money online niche since January 2013. I’ve purchased a good few programs and I tried just about everything out there.
But I never really got much out of these programs. I remember paying $1,000 to join a program whose owners claimed that I’d be making $500 per month within my first few months.
In fact, they claimed that they would work with all members until we were all making at least $500 per month, or we would get our money back.
They closed the program 9 months after it opened.
Yeah, and none of us were making $500 per month!
What’s worse is that we all had tons of “money sites” built on their network, and if we were to keep those websites alive we were now going to have to pay quite a substantial monthly fee (I can’t remember the exact amount).
That sucked because I DID manage to make my first online dollars with a couple of my sites that were on their network (considerably less than $500 per month, though. $100 per month at best). And now I had to move them on to a new hosting plan and start paying monthly hosting fees.
What’s even worse, though, is that I lost all the backlinks that I worked so hard to get for those sites because my subdomain urls (from using their hosting network) were now gone.
I couldn’t access their system either, of course, to redirect the various urls to my new site. So I soon lost my Page 1 rankings for the high-traffic keywords that I had gained-and my earnings followed suit by going back down to zero.
Oh well, a lesson learned and gosh darn it, I was NOT going to get taken by any other program like that again!
Fast forward to late November, 2016 and I have hardly found any affiliate marketing training programs worth recommending, let alone worth writing a review on….until now.
Wealthy Affiliate Review: What I Like
The Owners and the Community
Kyle and Carson are the 2 owners of the Wealthy Affiliate community. Yes, it’s not just a program-it’s a community-and there are more than 10,000 internet marketers actively involved in it! I mean, this thing is ALIVE with people who really help each other out.
Not only that, if you have a question, you can private message Kyle or Carson. They’ll get back to you within minutes or hours, NOT days! This is invaluable.
More often than not, newbies (and seasoned IMers) get easily put off course if they can’t get answers to pressing questions in good time. You certainly won’t have that problem here.
And the chances are that someone else in the community will have already experienced your issue. They CAN and DO help you find the answers you need.
The Free Membership Provides Serious Value
If you don’t want to jump right in and you need to give this a little bit of a test drive, you can sign up on their free program. You’ll still get plenty of training. They show you how to build your website from scratch and how to get it up and running in those ten free lessons.
Even the way they teach you how to pick a niche is refreshing. They keep it simple but still show you effective ways to come up with your niche.
You’d be surprised at the amount of people who agonize over this, only to be given all this complicated advice from the other so called “gurus” out there. Then they end up picking the wrong niche, or something so broad that it kills off any chance of having success.
They also show you how to optimize your website and how to come up with top-notch content so you can get your websites ranked. Their free integrated keyword tool helps in this regard. Plus, they show you, in great detail, how to do your keyword research properly from the get go.
They even give you free hosting for 2 sites! Now, granted, you have to use their SiteRubix platform, so you end up with a domain like, siterubix.com/yourcoolsite. And hey, that’s fine for a lot of people. But personally, I prefer something a little more brandable.
Nevertheless, you can still host 2 sites for free FOREVER if you so wish to.
The good news is that once you’re making money, you can switch over to their premium membership at $49 per month, and you can use your own domain. Once you become a premium member, you can host up to 50 sites for free (25 on your own domain and 25 on the SiteRubix platform).
Now that alone is worth $49 per month because they use a premium, state of the art hosting platform.
Oh, and just make sure to switch over before you do any serious linkbuilding. Although, you could create some 301 redirects to keep that Google backlink juice flowing through to your new urls. It’s just a hassle, that’s all.
All the Extras that Come With Your Premium Membership
Not only can you build your site in a few minutes, but also you get to choose from thousands of plugins and themes to customize your sites. Premium themes and plugins can be very costly, so this is a real money-saver.
Of course, you also get free email accounts for the sites you host on their platform. And another cool thing is that they provide 24/7 site support. You’re NEVER left in the dark if you happen to have a technical issue with one of your sites.
After all, it IS their own hosting platform and they WANT it to run like clockwork.
Which brings me to another feature: their web health checker. You can tell, with just a click, just how healthy your website actually is. And if something’s not quite right, you can bet that they’ll help you get it optimized until it’s at full strength again.
It’s nice to know that they have the best interests of you and your digital asset at heart.
Last, but not least, I really like their site comments tool. It’s a great idea, really, and it’s available for all sites that are hosted on the Wealthy Affiliate platform.
Basically, you earn one credit for commenting on a post published by any of the sites in the network. In turn, you can request comments to be made on your site. This will cost you 2 credits.
So because of this system for encouraging comments, you now have a clever way of boosting your SEO efforts. You’re enhancing your rankings by having an active, engaging site that has attracted several comments.
Wealthy Affiliate Review: What I Don’t Like
Well, there’s not really anything I can think of, to be quite honest. Although the 24/7 live chat feature can be a little dodgy.
If you submit a question this way, there’s a chance your question might get buried if there happens to be a lot of other members chatting in there at the same time as you. So I only use this feature if I have a quick, short question to ask.
The only other thing I can think of is how Wealthy Affiliate community is full of people following one another, chatting and liking posts, etc. While that’s not a bad thing, it reminds me of Facebook and how I can get lost in there for hours, just being social.
You just need to remember to stay disciplined, manage your time and to focus on your goals (which they help you set) to make sure you don’t get too distracted.
Wealthy Affiliate Review: Overall Thoughts
First of all, if you want to be successful in your business, you need to invest in it. $49 per month (or you can get a cheaper price on their yearly payment plan) is a mere pittance, considering all the benefits you gain from becoming a premium member.
One thing I forgot to mention is that premium members get access to 12 additional training “classrooms”, which cover topics from email marketing to traffic generation, PPC advertising and beyond.
Not only that, their training is updated all the time, so you know you’re not implementing outdated techniques that no longer work.
And if the need ever arises, the owners will analyze your site for you for free if it’s not getting the results you want.
The free hosting for 25 sites on your own domain is a no-brainer for me. The vast, active community, the extra tools discussed above and the premium security and monitoring of all my sites makes it an even easier decision.
And as for that nightmare first experience I had of trying to learn affiliate marketing?
It’s all a distant memory now.
By the way, Wealthy Affiliate were offering a “Black Friday Special” that ran throughout the Thanksgiving weekend just gone.
They were offering a premium membership for a one-time payment of $299, which is practically at half-price.
The good news is that they have extended the deal through December 3rd, 2016! 🙂
Click here for your last chance to get the Wealthy Affiliate Black Friday deal.
I hope my Wealthy Affiliate review above has helped clear up any questions or concerns you may have had about their free and premium membership programs.
Here’s to your success! 🙂
Mike
P.S. Are you a current member?
If so, do you have a success story that you can share with us?
If not, do you plan on joining?
In any event, please let us all know your thoughts in the comments area down below.
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wealthy affiliate review
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