If you are interested in learning how to make money on Wealthy Affiliate, you have come to the right place. I this post, I will share my experience with Wealthy Affiliate and help you decide if it’s right for you. People from all over the world have turned their passion into a successful online business, and today I want to give you an honest, inside look at this unique platform.
You have to be careful when you are vetting potential ways to earn money online, because there are not only scams out there but programs that will provide little or no guidance.
I had a lot of questions when I was getting started and researching WA, and I am sure you do too. Questions like:
- How does Wealthy Affiliate work?
- How long does it take to make money?
- Do I have to be technically savvy?
- Can I do this if I have never built a website before?
- How much does Wealthy Affiliate cost?
- Is Wealthy Affiliate for real?
Let’s peel back the layers and take a detailed look inside. I have learned a ton since I have been a member of Wealthy Affiliate and I will share the ins and outs, the good and the bad about Wealthy Affiliate.
Table of Contents
Wealthy Affiliate Review
Name: Wealthy Affiliate
Website: WealthyAffiliate.com
Price: $0 for Starter membership or $49/month for Premium (Join here)
Owners: Kyle and Carson
Recommend: Yes
First, a little bit about me
Before we get too far, I want to share a little bit about me. I have been working in corporate finance and accounting for about 20 years. I don’t particularly like my job, but hey, it pays the bills. Over the years, I have had some decent jobs and some really crappy ones. I have put up some absolutely awful bosses, and also had a couple of good ones.
I am a “regular” guy, married with two kids and I work full-time. So, if I have time to sit here and pump out a review for my blog, I think anyone can do it.
I have been looking for more out of life, something my career to this point has not been able to offer me, freedom. I joined Wealthy Affiliate to learn how to build an online business, to earn some extra money, in hopes of someday quitting my day job to work online full time.
I don’t hate the work I do, but I am definitely ready for a new chapter in my life, and I believe that Wealthy Affiliate offers the pieces I need to help me achieve my goal. I know there are a lot of people out there just like me. People who get up and go to work not because they want to, or enjoy it, but because they have to.
There are those people who wake up and can’t wait to get to work. Man, I wish I was one of those people. That is what I am searching for with WA, and I am determined to get there. I searched online for a long time before I found Wealthy Affiliate and then I decided it was time to take the plunge.
What is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is a platform that will teach you the necessary skills to turn your passion into a thriving online business. Whether you are a newbie or seasoned internet marketer, Wealthy Affiliate offers something for everyone.
I will take you back to when I started. I had been looking all over the internet for ways to make money online. I don’t even remember how many hours I spent searching and searching. One day I came across WA and didn’t really know what to think. Is Wealthy Affiliate just another scam, or is there really something to it?
I soon realized Wealthy Affiliate was the kind of platform I had been looking for. Something that was affordable and I could learn about building an online business.
Like-minded people from all over the world are what make Wealthy Affiliate work. There is step-by-step training, about affiliate marketing, choosing your niche and target audience, and the fundamentals of writing content for your website.
They walk you through the actual building of your website, which is really pretty easy, then you are off and running. Each lesson will walk you through a step in the process whether it is how to write engaging content, or getting yourself out there on social media.
What is affiliate marketing?
Before you can understand how to make money on Wealthy Affiliate, you need to have some understanding of basic concepts, terminology, and ideas. Affiliate marketing has been around for many years, and you have probably been exposed to it without even knowing.
When you search Google for things like, “best pizza oven”, you see a list of results, including reviews. Someone has taken the time to write reviews for a bunch of pizza ovens, pointing out all the specs, and pros and cons, etc., ultimately helping you choose the best one.
Within the review, there will be a link or links, that will take you to a vendor, like Amazon where you can make a purchase. The link you just clicked on that took you to Amazon is called an affiliate link. This is what affiliate marketing is all about.
If you make a purchase on Amazon, after clicking on the affiliate link, the person who wrote the review will get a small commission for sending over the sale. That is affiliate marketing in a nutshell. As a consumer, you don’t pay any extra for the product or service you are buying, the vendor pays the person referring you a small commission.
There is no additional cost to you, the consumer and the affiliate programs are free to join as an affiliate marketer. You have probably run into this and may not have been the wiser. Honestly, before I joined Wealthy Affiliate, I had no idea this even existed.
There are a ton of affiliate marketing programs out there, and they span all different types of products and services. Most major retailers will have an affiliate program, and there are a lot of small companies that do as well. You can find affiliate programs for “soup to nuts” as they say.
For example, if you are into fitness, you can target the fitness crowd and recommend products or services these folks may be interested in using. If tennis or golf is your hobby, you can write “how-to” articles to help people improve their game. Along the way, you can recommend products that you have used that have contributed to improving your game.
Some of these affiliate programs pay a small commission, and some of them pay a pretty hefty commission, it all depends on the vendor and how their program is set up.
Wealthy Affiliate has an affiliate program too and I will get into that in more detail a little later.
So, if you follow me, there are a LOT of opportunities out there to get started with affiliate marketing.
What is a niche?
Another question that I think needs to be addressed here is what the heck is a niche? This is the funny word that people pronounce in different ways. Here in the United States, we say “nitch”. North of the border in Canada it’s called “neesh”. Sorry to digress, but I think that is pretty entertaining.
Well, a niche can be just about anything, horseback riding can be a niche, mountain biking can be a niche. A niche is a group of people with similar interests. You can start a niche website about running shoes if that is your hobby or passion.
You do want to keep the niche somewhat narrow though and not take on an entire industry. The more narrow the niche, for starters, the better. Wealthy Affiliate does a great job of defining a niche and how to choose one or narrow it down.
Now that we have covered some of the basic concepts, it’s time to dive in.
How long does it take to make money with Wealthy Affiliate?
This is one of the first questions people ask when looking into WA. I wish I could give you a finite answer, but it’s really not that easy. With any business, it takes time and effort to build. The same is true with the online business you create through the training offered at Wealthy Affiliate.
Some people have success pretty quickly, within a few months, they are gaining traffic and making sales. For other people, it takes longer, sometimes much longer. There are a lot of different factors at play here. The niche you choose, how competitive that niche is and how much work you are willing to put in.
You definitely have to put the work in. There are a lot of people who think building an online business is easy and believe that anything online will be an instant success. Nothing could be further from the truth. You have to put in the work to be successful. If you are willing to work, the training here at Wealthy Affiliate will get you going in the right direction to build a successful online business.
Wealthy Affiliate is definitely not a get rich quick scheme, but if you want to learn how to build an online business using SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as well as other tools, then this is a great place to learn. You have to put in the work, to have success.
How to make money with Wealthy Affiliate
There are four fundamental steps that are pretty basic to getting started making money on Wealthy Affiliate.
Step 1 – Choose a niche (something you are interested in)
As I mentioned earlier, you can turn just about any interest or passion into a profitable business if you do it right. Wealthy Affiliate will help you narrow this down if you can’t think of something right off the top of your head. You will also get ideas from other people inside the community, once you start to poke around.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to find some niche that has never been discovered, but more power to you if you can do that. Don’t stress about finding that unique niche that no one has unearthed, you can just follow your passion or interest. Honestly, all niches will be competitive and that is a good thing. If other people are doing it and making money, there is no reason you can’t do it too. It took me a while to understand that concept.
If you have personal experience with a niche, like a hobby, or interest, all the better. When you write content that comes from your personal experience, it really comes across as genuine to people and that is very important in affiliate marketing. When you build trust with people, they are more likely to do business with you. So even if you choose a niche that is super competitive, you can still be successful.
Step 2 – Build a website (easy to do at Wealthy Affiliate)
Raise your hand if you have NEVER built a website before. I know you can’t see, but I raised my hand, or at least that was me before joining the community here at WA. The process is incredibly easy, so don’t stress about that part. You don’t need a degree in web design to start an online business at Wealthy Affiliate. Building a website is covered in detail throughout the training and it is really easy.
Kyle will have you up and running in no time with a great looking website. You will sit back in awe as you look at what you created.
Step 3 – Attract visitors (taught here at WA)
The training at Wealthy Affiliate will teach you how to drive traffic to your website. After all, you want people to know about the great content you have to offer on your website. The reason you create a website is to attract visitors, which is covered in great detail in the training. Keyword research is taught in great detail, using Jaaxy, the keyword tool. Jaaxy helps you with keyword research so you can write content that will encourage people to visit your site.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is one way you attract visitors to your website so you can start converting this traffic into sales. Again, this is all covered in the training, so don’t fret!
Step 4 – Earn money
When you get people to visit your site, you can then convert those visitors into sales and get paid. When someone clicks on your affiliate links (we discussed this earlier) throughout your fantastic content, you get a piece of the transaction as a commission. Affiliate programs are free to join, so your job is to drive customers to items they are already thinking about buying.
Typically, that is how people find your website, they are interested in making a purchase, are doing some research, and you offer them some help with a product review. They click on your link, make a purchase, and you earn money.
To recap, Wealthy Affiliate is a platform that will teach you how to build a sustainable online business. I know it sounds kind of easy when you break it down to these four steps, but I will guarantee you that you have to put in the work to be successful. There is no getting rich overnight, but you will have the tools you need to build a successful online business.
Wealthy Affiliate training platforms
Within WA, there are two different training platforms, the Online Entrepreneur Certification courses which are geared toward niche websites, other than making money online, or Affiliate Bootcamp which focuses on promoting Wealthy Affiliate.
Online Entrepreneur Certification
This training module entails 5 courses and 50 lessons. You will learn the process of how to create a grow a business in whatever niche you choose. The lessons vary in length and are at most about 30 minutes. During this time, Kyle, one of the co-owners walks you through various aspects of building out your online niche website. Literally, Kyle starts at the beginning, for someone who has zero experience and walks through step-by-step how to build a business online.
For instance in Level 1, it’s all about getting started, from understanding how to make money online to choosing your niche to getting your website ready for the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo). Then you move on to Level 2. Each level will build upon itself, and before you know it, you have built a website and have content ready for the search engines.
Affiliate Bootcamp
If you are having trouble choosing a niche, or you are interested in the “Making Money Online” (MMO) niche, this is the way to go. The course very similar in that there are different levels of training and the product, in this case, is Wealthy Affiliate. If you absolutely can’t think of anything you are passionate about, or just really want to enter the making money online niche, then Bootcamp is a great way to go.
Regardless of which path you choose, you can rest assured there will be plenty of in-depth training to cover you.
Wealthy Affiliate Support
One thing I was very interested in with any platform I was looking to join was the support. Not just technical support, but a community of people who would provide support and insight. As a newbie when I started, support was essential to me.
Site Support is technical support for all things related to your website 24/7. These folks are there to help you through a lot of the technical or “techy” side of websites. These are also the people that make sure everything is up and running smoothly, so your website is operating at all times of the day and night.
A Community to help you
You can ask questions of the community and get answers from people who have been there. There are a lot of members at WA who have a great deal of experience covering a lot of different topics. If you need a suggestion for a plug-in, you can ask the community. Need advice on a theme, you can ask the community. There is a wealth of knowledge available to you by leaning into the other members here.
Search feature
Given that there are a lot of questions people have asked over the years, there is a database you can search for answers. There is a pretty good chance that someone else has probably had the same question. All you have to do is starting typing your question into the search bar, and you will see a list of results.
For instance, if you are interested in more information on Google Analytics, simply type a phrase or keyword into the search bar.
I really encourage people to start with the search function before posing a question to the community, since there are a ton of common questions that have already been asked. You can piggy-back on the questions people have already asked and a lot of times find the answer in a matter of minutes. If not, don’t be afraid to reach out to the community.
24/7 Live chat
If you are stumped and need immediate help, there is also a chat feature available 24/7. This feature is manned by other WA members, so there are newbies as well as folks with a lot of experience who will provide assistance. Kyle himself will pop into chat and answer questions for people as well.
So just so you know, the chat function is not operated by employees, it’s powered by the community of WA members. There are a lot of people with a lot of experience, so don’t be afraid to reach out.
A word on help
The training is comprehensive, but sure, everyone has questions. At the bottom of every lesson, there is a question/comment area where you are free to ask any questions about the lessons. Sometime Kyle will answer, but a lot of the time, its members who have been through the training already and can offer assistance.
This may not be instant like the chat feature, but people will get back to you within a few hours if not sooner. These questions are posed to the community so really anyone can step in to answer a question.
Wealthy Affiliate Training
I have mentioned Kyle previously, he and Carson are the owners of Wealthy Affiliate. Kyle does a tremendous job of walking through the training, no matter which path you decide to take. The training consists of posts to read, and most are accompanied by a video with a demonstration of the topic for that lesson.
Whether it is a tutorial on how to use WordPress, or setting up Google Analytics, Kyle walks through the steps in the videos. My only objection is that technology changes so fast, and updates are continually being made, sometimes the steps in the tutorials may be a little outdated. So the steps won’t look exactly like when you are performing them.
Conceptually the material is the same, some of the user interfaces may look different. For instance, with Google Analytics, the interface has changed over the years, but the video is outdated. But there are other more current pieces of training available to the community, so you are covered.
Free webinars – live every Friday
Jay has been around WA for many years and offers webinars every Friday, free with a Premium membership. These webinars cover a variety of topics, and you can learn a lot from these. The webinars are in addition to the standard training and are about one hour long. Webinars are live, and you can ask questions as the session is going, or at the end, Jay will offer some time for Q&A. So many people have benefited enormously from these webinars.
Jay has some incredibly valuable insight into the industry of internet marketing, and I highly recommend attending as many of these webinars as you can. Fortunately, all of the webinars are recorded, so if you miss it, or just want to watch it again, you can. Sometimes it’s hard for me to attend the live session, so I watch the recording at my convenience.
Training from industry leaders
There are training sessions available for a lot of different aspects of building your business which is outside of the standard training and webinars. People will publish training on a wide variety of topics, like setting up Pinterest, or Facebook, or uploading different themes for your website, etc.
WordPress training
Kyle walks through using WordPress, which is how you publish your content to your website. The WordPress interface is pretty easy to use, and you can add images, videos, and other media to your website. This is all covered in the training.
Other WA members have also published training on WordPress, like tips, tricks, etc. You can search for additional training using the extensive training database.
24/7 SiteSupport
As I mentioned, SiteSupport is available 24 hours a day, seven days per week to help you with the technical aspects of your site. There is live chat also available 24/7 if you need it. Live chat is a great feature, but there are certain times of day when it’s pretty quiet. Just be aware that you may not be able to get all of your questions answered instantly within the chat feature.
If you have a super techy question, someone in chat may point you to SiteSupport, or to a training video that is available. One suggestion I have is to check the search feature first, before you ask a question of the community, or ask in chat. There are a lot of answers out there already if you know where to look for them.
How much does Wealthy Affiliate cost?
WA Starter Membership
To start out, the membership is free. Yes, $0 for a Starter Membership. Don’t worry, you don’t even have to enter your credit card number. All you have to do is put in your email address, set up a username and password and you are good to go.
This is not a trial membership, you can stay as long as you like for free. You get to take your time, check out the community and the tools offered and see if it’s right for you. Now I will tell you the free membership is a limited version but you do get a good feel of what the community has to offer.
With the starter membership, you have access to the first 10 lessons on both the Affiliate Bootcamp and the Online Entrepreneur Certification courses. You also have access to 30 keyword searches in Jaaxy, the keyword tool. You can create 1 free website with a Starter membership.
So you can literally get started for free. You will also have access to me as your support coach, in addition to the community and the chat feature (7 days). Stay on as a free member as long as you like, you just don’t have access to everything WA has to offer, which I will get into next with the Premium membership.
Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership
If you are serious about building your online business and have a chance to look around upgrading to Premium is the next step for you.
Once you upgrade to Premium, the complete tool belt is at your fingertips. You unlock all of the features WA has to offer as a Premium member. You now have access to all 50 lessons that are available in the Online Entrepreneur Certification and 70 lessons in the Affiliate Bootcamp program.
As a Premium member here is some of what you get:
- You can build up to 10 websites!
- Hosting. Included in your Premium membership is hosting which allows you to purchase your domain right through Wealthy Affiliate, or you can move a domain from another provider. You can certainly choose to host your websites outside of WA, or you can transfer over any domains you have hosted elsewhere. Other companies can charge hundreds of dollars per month for the hosting services alone that are offered at WA.
- Jaaxy, a fantastic keyword too.
- 24/7 support. This includes both chat support (powered by WA members) and SiteSupport, which are the IT folks,
- A community of like-minded people. Folks with a ton of experience building successful online businesses.
- Website security
- Nightly website backups
- Weekly webinars hosted by one of the best in the business
- Private messaging with other WA members AND Kyle and Carson, the owners. Yes, they are very available and want to help you succeed.
- Free SSL certificates
You will also earn a higher commission from the WA affiliate program as a Premium member. You can still promote WA as a starter member, but as a Premium member, the commissions are double. There is more too, but these are a lot of the great features Wealthy Affiliate has to offer.
So, let’s get to it, how much does your Premium membership cost?
If you upgrade within the first 7 days of signing up for your starter membership, the first month is just $19. This is a great offer and you get a full month to check out the platform for only $19. After that, you pay $49/month if you choose a monthly payment plan.
Yearly membership is where it’s at
If you decide that Wealthy Affiliate is worth the investment, I encourage you to upgrade to yearly and pay $495 which works out to $41.25/month. If you take the plunge and pay yearly, you save about $93 which is roughly 2 months of membership on a monthly basis. I highly encourage anyone who is thinking about that to do it.
Just think about all you get, hosting, training, 100 websites, access to unlimited keyword searches, 24/7 support. Anyway, I am done with that little rant. I just think it’s an incredible value to be able to build an online business that is very affordable. Especially for someone who is new, Wealthy Affiliate has designed this as an all in one package.
WA’s affiliate program
As I mentioned earlier, there are a LOT of affiliate programs available today, no matter what your niche is. One of the best programs out there is the WA’s affiliate program. You can choose to start your online business following your passion, or you can work in the making money online niche and promote Wealthy Affiliate. Once again, WA will provide the training, all you have to do is follow along.
When you promote WA, and someone clicks on your affiliate link, you will earn a recurring commission. So as long as that individual is a member of WA, you will earn a commission each month. The WA affiliate program can be very lucrative. The commissions you earn by promoting WA vary depending on how the member pays. I cover the details on how much WA costs later in this post.
If you are a Starter member here is the commission structure. You will earn based on what plan the individual signs up for.
- $495/annual – Commission = $235 recurring
Now if you are a Premium Member, you can double these commissions. If you are a Premium Member, you can also earn credits that can be used within WA. So if someone sets up their profile, you get a $1 credit, if they purchase a domain, you get a $1 credit. So, there are other benefits to begin Premium.
Jaaxy keyword tool
Jaaxy is available for a Starter as well as Premium members. You are limited with a starter membership to 30 searches, but once you upgrade to Premium, you unlock unlimited searches. With a Premium membership, you are at the Jaaxy Lite level, and that will allow you unlimited searches. Check out my Jaaxy review here.
Jaaxy can also be purchased as an entirely separate option from WA if you are looking for a great keyword tool. There are upgrades available within Jaaxy as well, but I will discuss those in another post. The basic idea I want to convey is that as a Premium member at WA, you have access to unlimited searches with Jaaxy.
Who is Wealthy Affiliate for?
- Newbies who have absolutely zero experience building an online business
- Business owners who are looking to capitalize on local SEO
- College students looking to earn some extra money
- Retired folks who want to earn retirement income
- People who are looking for something better than a regular 9-5 type job
- Someone looking to grow their business whether it’s an online or offline business
- People who like to vacation a lot
- People interested in the internet or web building/design
- Stay at home moms (there are a lot of mommy bloggers out there)
- Anyone looking to sell their own product online
- People looking for financial freedom (hand raised high!!)
Pros:
- You can create a starter membership for free $0
- Upgrading to a yearly membership gives access to all that WA has to offer for about $29/month
- Live training
- Video training
- Premium membership includes hosting, 24/7 support, Jaaxy Lite with unlimited searches, 10 websites, and much more.
- A wonderful community of people who have a lot of knowledge to share
- You can build a website from the ground up with no prior experience
- Premium membership unlocks ALL of the content at WA, there are no upsells, like so many other programs available. The only additional thing would be to purchase a domain for about $14/year.
- Wealthy Affiliate is a GREAT place to get started!
- The WA affiliate program is very lucrative
Cons:
- This can be overwhelming because there is so much great information
- It typically does take some time before you start making money, especially if you are new. But people have had success pretty early
My final opinion + Get Your BONUS
Take advantage of the starter account, it’s free, $0. Take a look around WA and if you don’t like it you can come back here and leave me a comment about it. But, I think you will like it. There are a lot of people who can take advantage of the training and development offered at Wealthy Affiliate. Whether you are a newbie or an experienced internet marketer, there are opportunities for a wide variety of people to learn and earn.
Sign up today and get these four bonuses
If you become a Premium member in the next 7 days, I will offer you these bonuses.
- Huge discount on your Premium membership. Normally, a Premium membership is $49/month, but if you sign up now you will get the first month for only $19
- Live weekly webinars to help you grow your online business
- Direct access to me via Private Message to help you get started building your online business
- 1 on 1 help from real people who want to help you succeed
==> Click Here to Create Your Free Account <==
If you are experienced and just want to boost your traffic, Wealthy Affiliate can help you with that. If you are brand new and have never built a website, there are plenty of success stories here too.
I do want to reiterate that Wealthy Affiliate is not a scam. You can literally create a starter membership for free and hang around as long as you like. You will need to upgrade to unlock all that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer. This may not be for everyone.
It takes a LOT of work to build a business from the ground up. I want people to know that going in. Sure, some people do have success sooner than others, even within the first few months. Overall it does take time and effort, and that is why some people don’t succeed. You have to put the work in. A business does not build itself.
With that said, Wealthy Affiliate offers you all the tools you need to be successful. If you follow the training step-by-step and have some patience and perseverance, you can definitely build a successful online business using the platform at Wealthy Affiliate. In my opinion, there is no better place to get started than with Wealthy Affiliate.
If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. I look forward to hearing from you.
Steve
