Wealthy Affiliate
Overall Score: 9.5/10
Founders: Kyle & Carson
Price: $0 Starter Membership (sign up here)
Website: wealthyaffiliate.com
Challenger Approaches!! What is Wealthy Affiliate?!
Wealthy Affiliate is… well, it’s many things. It’s best described as a complete training course in affiliate marketing, a community of like-minded internet bloggers and affiliate marketers, and a website builder all in one.
That’s kind of a mouthful. But it’s an apt description of what WA has to offer. It offers a training course (for free) that is leagues better than any other paid course (and there are a lot of those in the industry), and basically walks a beginner through the steps of creating an online business. By the end of the training, I felt cheated of all those months wasted. But more on that later.
The defining trait of Wealthy Affiliate, as you’ll come to know, is the fact that it’s a community of thousands of beginners and veterans, and everyone in between. Discussions and live chats make it so that I never got stuck on a problem for long. Experts were always there. Even the owners are regular contributors!
WA is also an all-in-one website service.It lets you create high quality websites in a few clicks, AND hosts it too. All website issues are handled on WA, without having to find help in a dozen places.
In short, Wealthy Affiliate is a comprehensive program that teaches you how to start an online business, and helps you manage it.
What’s the Good News?
Good question. If the intro above wasn’t comprehensive enough, here’s a quick list of what you can get from Wealthy Affiliate for free:
- Getting Started: A Full Tutorial on How to Get a Website Up and Running
- Thousands of Community Members, All Willing to Help
- 13+ Full, Interactive Classrooms
- Absolutely NO Spam: Zero Tolerance at WA
- In-depth Video Lessons on Hundreds of Topics
- Reliable and Advanced Hosting
- 24/7 Live Chat: You Get Help at ANYtime!
And the best part?…
This is all FREE. Yes, it doesn’t cost you a cent to get access all these features. With so much benefits, you’re guaranteed to be a success! Well, almost guaranteed. You have to take action!
Is it Really For Me?
I’ll just say this: if I can do it, so can you.
The great thing about Wealthy Affiliate is that it’s accessible. No technical background is required. No programming, either, and that’s one of the big turnoffs of online business. It certainly was for me. I used to think websites required years of training!… Then I built one at WA in 2 minutes.
A total beginner will find themselves comfortable at WA. The training starts from level 1. Or level zero, if said beginner requires it. But make no mistake, skilled online businessmen are also part of the user-base, showing that WA is for all levels of expertise.
WA is also a worldwide platform. It’s usable at any age, and with it’s ease of use, anyone from a grade school kid to college students to retired pensioners. So yes, if you want to put some effort in, Wealthy Affiliate is for you. Really, it’s for anyone.
Complete Training? The Tools of The Trade!
Training is the core of Wealthy Affiliate. When I went through the first course, I was amazed!
Each course is made up of several lessons, and each lesson usually has a video tutorial. I loved watching the videos; moderately paced and highly detailed.
The lessons themselves are based around tasks: you only move on if you finish these tasks. Well, you can move on even if you haven’t done them. But I felt motivated to finish them, because each one was beneficial to my end goal.
Besides the lessons, there are also:
- Live Training Classes
- Q&A Sessions: These are like Reddit AmA’s in that everyone can ask an expert or a notable person a question!
- Organized Classrooms (on specific topics)
- Interactive Discussions: The one I use the most. I’m pretty sure everyone else uses it the most as well.
Even after finishing the main training, I’m still combing the site for more knowledge. There are training modules for tons of online business models, and small tutorials for miscellaneous skills. Every little skill helps, no matter how small!
In addition to training, WA gave me more tools than you can find on Batman’s utility belt. The use of these tools varied, but they all had improved my fledgling website, from simplifying research to helping me write better. Here is a rundown of some of what I used:
- Keyword Research Tool: Keywords are hard to explain right away, but in short they help your rankings in Google Search
- WordPress Express (3 click website builder): My favorite aspect of WA. I had a website made in a minute!
- Access to hundreds of website themes and templates: I personally think this is a con, because I’m so indecisive! But there is a lot to choose from
- Ability to install thousands of ‘plug-ins’ to my website. These are basically extra features that enhance a website.
- Rapid Writer: A writing tool that lets you find content: I admittedly don’t use this much, but less experienced writers will love it
All this stuff works together.
You know how much of pain websites can be? There’s the domain, then hosting, themes… so many services in different places.
But WA consolidates those services. I didn’t need to go elsewhere to manage or improve a website. I could do it all on WA.
Progress in Danger! Community Support
One thing I always hated, not just about online business but about customer support in general, was that I always seemed to have a really specific issue that those troubleshooting pages never had. I often phoned the company so my problem would be resolved personally, but I hate being put on hold.
Excuse my rambling. What I’m trying to introduce is Wealthy Affiliate’s sophisticated community support. These are some of the different types of support I’m talking about:
- Live, 24/7/365 Chat
- Interactive Discussions
- Private access to community experts
The live chat is the reason I will never leave WA. Any problem or question I have is instantly resolved! It’s so refreshing!
It’s not just any help, either. Well, anyone can answer, I’ll admit that. But most of the time, an expert helps me out. Experts are easily recognizable, and are often extremely successful. Best of all, there is no arrogance among them. No matter how easy a question I had was, it got answered.
As you can see in the photo above, I was shocked when one of the founders themselves, named Kyle, actually answered me. When a CEO helps out personally, I think that’s great service, considering the scammy products out there that charge a fee!
How Do I Make Money Again?
A lot of you readers are probably thinking what Wealthy Affiliate even teaches you to do. As I’ve detailed previously, websites can make money in numerous ways.
WA focuses on making a website first and foremost. The website revolves around a specific passion of yours, a ‘niche.’ Like video games or books.
If you’re not that passionate or you just can’t choose (like me, at first) Wealthy Affiliate gives you a predetermined niche.
Either way, WA walks you through building a business from scratch. Once a website grows to a certain point, it can earn money from various sources.
Free to Start?!! The Wealthy Affiliate Bombshell!!
WA features 2 membership plans:
- Starter: $0 (You can sign up here)
- Premium: $47 per month, or $359 a year (sign up here)
Starter gives you access to the huge WA community, and access to the live chat, over 500 training modules, networking, comments, 2 FREE websites, and the keyword tool.
I used the Starter membership at the beginning, and I was never let down. But I wanted more out of the experience…
So I went with the premium plan! Although WA is free to use, most users eventually upgrade to premium, as it’s just too good a deal. Premium gave me access to the best training I ever had. Better than the free training I gushed about earlier.
Premium relieves you of a lot of the stress of running a website. It covers hosting, keyword research, writing, and a lot more. What’s more, unlike other programs in the industry (which are usually costly scams), which can run over 1000 smackers, Premium is the only paid part of WA. There are no up-sells whatsoever.
Yes, I loved the fact that I never had to deal with unsolved questions, or website building problems ever again. It was all done for me! Wait…
Closing Thoughts
You know how I said it was all done for me? That wasn’t completely true. No matter what plan you choose, you still have to work very hard. Building a business is no picnic, and I (and other WA members) work on my site daily.
That’s how I confirmed that WA is legit. It doesn’t sell itself as a get-rich-quick scheme. It doesn’t promise thousands of dollars right off the bat. It gives you the means to do so, however.
That’s why I highly recommend Wealthy Affiliate to anyone wanting to be internet wealthy. It’s a legit, professional program and you won’t regret it.
Sign Up For Free
Hold on!!
Don’t skip to the comments just yet! I’m offering a cool bonus and an amazing discount!
If you decide to upgrade to premium at any time during your first 7 days of Wealthy Affiliate, I’ll personally send you a FREE bonus list of hundreds of quality keywords! What’s more, I’ll give you a 60% discount off your first month of Premium!
If you have a question, or better yet, would like to share your own Wealthy Affiliate experience, leave a comment below! I appreciate all feedback!
Your pal,
-Makki
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Makki, Nice review of Wealthy Affiliate! I am glad you spent some time explaining and showing the training available. There are many really good interent marketing training sites online, but none as good as what you just showed us.
Thanks for leaving a comment Glen! Yes, Wealthy Affiliate is a godsend to hopeful marketers. It’s not a scam and is worth it in the long run.
Hi Makki,
You’ve given me a wealth of information regarding Wealthy Affiliate here. I have heard a lot of good reviews about them but none as clearly defined as you’ve put it.
I have a niche and I understand that they will teach me how to build a website and how to market it with this fascinating keyword tool they teach.
The only thing I’d like to know is:
Is this a video based learning course as I don’t like text based courses? I prefer to watch someone do it before I copy them, I learn much better that way.
Looking forward to your reply,
Simon.
Hello again there Simon. I hope you’re not just being nice with that praise!
Wealthy Affiliate’s lessons are both video and text based. What I mean is, each lesson is text based, but there is always a video showing you exactly how to do what the text tells you. I prefer text myself, but I watch every video, because Kyle (the founder of WA and the instructor of the lessons) always has extra information.
Hope this helps!
Excellent review. You leave nothing to the imagination. This sounds like it is the “Be All” in internet education. One question… Is there a time limit on the free membership until you have to go premium? Thanks!
Wow! That’s pretty high praise! I’m honored. I’ll hope to keep up this standard.
Anyway, the free membership is unlimited, but for your first seven days, you get access to premium features, like live chat. After that, your privileges will be reduced, but the core will remain. You don’t lose any of your existing website.
Thanks Grant! Your contribution is highly valued. I hope you visit again!
Hello Makki! Thank you for sharing this very in depth review of the Wealthy Affiliate platform. I have been a member of the site now for several months and I totally agree with your verdict of the training and tools inside the members area.
I particularly like that fact that you don’t try to hide anything. Wealthy Affiliate isn’t a get rich quick scheme or some fast cash system. In your review you say that building a business is no picnic sometimes and you are quite right! Building a business in Wealthy Affiliate is hard. However its also very enjoyable and rewarding at the same time. There is no such thing as easy cash, so you might as well put in the effort and use a proven system to make money the proper way!
My thoughts exactly! I’m having fun at WA! That’s how I know I’m on to something.
As I mentioned, Wealthy Affiliate only enables you to make money. That’s how you know it’s legit. Thanks so much for commenting Andrew!
Hi Makki,
When I first joined WA I was really impressed with the training and how easy it was to navigate the training, unlike some of the other affiliate marketing/SEO groups out there on the Internet. The community is also great and there is always someone online who is willing to help or at least point you in the right direction.
Thanks for posting this, it was really enjoyable to read.
Thanks for your input Ian. WA is worth it for the help alone, I’m happy you’re enjoying it as much as I am.
I appreciate your feedback!