Wealthy Affiliate Review

INTRODUCTION

Wealthy Affiliate (“WA”) is many things to many people, even to the point of being called the best affiliate marketing program for beginners. I think it best to describe it as a training program with an emphasis on teaching you to create your own first class websites and lead you into the world of online business.

Before we go too far, I have to advise you that if you decide to try out Wealthy Affiliate and ultimately sign up for the Premium account, I will get paid a commission after you upgrade. Remember, you can try it for free and you don’t need a credit card. If you want to cut to the chase and try it out, then simply CLICK HERE.

PROS/CONS

PROS:

- Operating since 2005 and has been growing consistently ever since.
- The two founders are still heavily involved and accessible.
- 100 % free to join – no credit card required for the “Starter Membership” which includes 2 free websites. Consider this to be a free trial that has no expiry date (you can even keep your two free websites forever).
- Get as much free help as you need it, whenever you need it. They have successfully built what is known as the “WA Community” – upwards of half a million people are members and there is nothing that hasn’t been asked and answered.
- There is no “spamming” allowed within the community.
- The community is supportive, that is to say negative and insulting comments from members are not tolerated.

Training modules are clear, concise, easy to follow, and there’s over 1,000 of them!
The training leaves no gaps, that is to say you will learn to build a complete, professional looking, functional website straight away.
Live video training is offered , in addition these classes are also recorded so you can watch later at your convenience.
1 on 1 coaching (only for first 7 days on Starter Membership).
Starter Membership will still cover more than enough content to enable you to start your own online business
Once you upgrade to the Premium package, there are no “upsells” so you have access to everything.
Hosting of your websites (up to 50) is included. This alone is a great saving when compared to having other companies host them for you. The hosting is top-notch, secure and very fast, which is crucial when operating online.
SSL certificates are free of charge for sites hosted at Wealthy Affiliate.
You can purchase your domains there – the process of searching for a domain name to purchasing, registering and then starting to build my site, took me less than 15 minutes. Very much a “one-stop shopping” location.

A personal note here – Even I, with my computer experience limited to surfing the net and emailing, had a site up and running within hours.

CONS:

if you want to take the advance training, have private access to the owners, unlimited live chat and website support, hosting of 50 websites as opposed to 2, and much more, you will need to upgrade to Premium.
Remember that after the first 7 days in the Starter Membership, access to the live help feature will also not be available, unless you upgrade to Premium.
The community board has many wonderful people but also has a lot of misleading advice from people who know a little, or just enough to be dangerous. Look at who is offering advice by checking out their profile before acting on it.
Cost of $49 per month (after the free trial and the first month at only $19), unless you take advantage of the Black Friday special, may be an issue for some. The reality is that it is still cheap when you see all that you get but as I said, many just can’t afford it, especially if they come to Wealthy Affiliate to find a quick way to start earning money.
The main “bootcamp” course teaches you to build a site that essentially promotes Wealthy Affiliate. This had two conflicting parts for me as although Wealthy Affiliate is a fine organization and training program however, it is also in a brutally competitive niche. You can spend a long time building a fine site but could easily be discouraged because it will take a long time for you to show up in Google’s top results unless you throw a bunch of money at advertising. Therefore, my advice is to modify the training to build a site in a less competitive niche.
**If you sign up and at some point decide you don’t need Wealthy Affiliate any longer, you will need to move any sites hosted with them to another Web Hosting Service. Also, if you decide to re-join, you can only get back in as a premium member.

WHO IT IS FOR?

Wealthy Affiliate is for you, if you……

Want to learn how to start an online business.
Already have a business but want to expand either locally or globally.
Are looking to learn new skills in order to change your career.
Wish to upgrade your skills for use at your workplace.
Have become wary of online scams that take money without offering any product in return.
Feel left behind due to the advances of technology in the workplace.
Are retired or a stay at home parent and wish to take advantage of being at home to learn something new.
Simply want to earn extra money but don’t have much, or any cash to invest right now.
Are interested in learning how to build a website and always thought that you had to be a computer geek (trust me, you do not need any previous skills).

As you can see, it really is for everyone – your age, location, experience are not barriers.

TRAINING/TOOLS OVERVIEW

The following is a summary of the training offered by Wealthy Affiliate:

Classrooms – Clear and concise instruction

Certification Courses – Courses to start and build your business.

Video Training – Detailed video demonstrations

The following are just a few examples of video classes available – a new class is added frequently, usually every week:

Content Writing
Editorial Calendar
Winning Niche Case Study Series
Getting Started with Email Marketing
Niche Brainstorm
Getting Graphic with Images
Ways to Get Your Content Noticed
Finding High Traffic Keywords
Power of Google Web Tools & Analytics
Anatomy of the Blog Post Creation
Elements That Build Site Trust
Styling Elements for Increased Conversions
Creating Graphics for Social Media
Article Creation & Promotion
Tips on Improving a Site’s Ranking
You tell me the Niche, I Build the Site
Effective Use of Images in Content
The Seven Deadly Sins of Online Marketing
Branding
Humanizing Your Brand
How Site Speed Affects Rankings
Social Media Breakdown
Spring Cleaning Your Site!
YouTube live Streaming
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Being an Amazon Affiliate
Writing Reviews
Hosting a Webinar

A screenshot of the Video Training Section showing a few of the classes available to watch.

SUPPORT

The support available comes in a few different forms:

Technical Support

I have to say that the “Site Support” at Wealthy Affiliate is the best support I have received from any business, anywhere. This has been the case consistently over the past seven years that I have been with the program.

If you have a technical question perhaps related to your website, simply submit a support ticket. Whenever I had an issue on any of my websites and needed help, I submitted my support requests and the problems were solved, usually within a few minutes. I have yet to come across any problem they couldn’t resolve.

If your issue requires a little longer to deal with, they keep you informed constantly.

From transferring domains to transferring entire websites, repairing broken sites to fixing plugin issues, they handled everything perfectly.

This support is available 24/7.

The Community Activity & Archive Page

This is the place where you can find the answers to just about every single question that you will probably ever come across – it is an amazing resource.

Anything related to building and maintaining your websites, the training, general internet issues, marketing, writing, ad blocking, buying domains, getting started, making money, even general motivation questions – you name it, it’s here!

Another great thing about this is that you can have what you might think is a really stupid question, but here you simply type in what you need to know and subsequently the solution will appear in the archives, so no need for a Google or Yahoo search. AS a result, no feeling embarrassed (not that you should anyway – we all started somewhere).

I just looked at the main page and here are a few topics on the current board:

- - - Writer’s Block – What Tips Work For You?
    - About adding a YouTube Subscribe Button To Your Website
    - How To Get People To Share Your Content
    - Earned my First $
    - How long does it take to create an online business?
    - Attitude Adjustment
    - Attempting to Create my Blog. Here goes
    - Facebook I need some help please.
    - Don’t Beat Yourself Up
    - How do I advertise on Instagram?
    - How can I start being an Amazon affiliate?

This is where the “WA Community” truly shows what it is about. Feedback is provided quickly, positively and it gives you an opportunity to join in and help others also.

Live Chat

Just join in the conversation, ask your questions. You will often find Kyle and Carson, the founders, here supplying input. Again, the topics seem endless.

PRICE

Starter Membership: $0.00 per month.

Premium Membership: $19.00 first month, $49.00 per month thereafter, or $359.00 annually.

See this chart for more details of what is included:

Is “Premium Membership” worth it?

In my opinion, yes.

You should try the starter membership first though to make sure it is for you. You will find that the resources provided, the training and support, the sheer quality of everything available to you at such a reasonable cost, along with the belief that you now have the ability to finally start a genuine business for yourself, will all combine to convince you that it is worth it. It works for me.

For example, I would like to share with you just one of the benefits of premium:-

In the recorded section of the “live video classes” – only available to premium members – there are two or three complete “Live Niche Case Studies” that show a website being started from scratch, finding a name, designed, built and promoted, step by step, clearly demonstrated and explained – one of the sites was even making sales before it was finished! Another also included help on finding which niche to build a site in.

To me, those video classes proved to be worth the price of membership alone but there is a lot more.

As stated earlier, the hosting that is included is also a considerable saving.

FINAL OPINION/VERDICT

Wealthy Affiliate is a unique, easy to follow program. You will become a website builder, an online marketer, a writer and learn everything you need to start your own online business. Most important of all, you will actually learn new skills.

The free trial takes away the risk as you will still learn an enormous amount, but to obtain the full benefit of what is on offer, you will need to upgrade to a premium membership.

The cost is remarkably low especially when you consider the volume of material and resources available to you.

Cheapo’s Tip: If funds are tight, then sign for the free trial, upgrade to premium when the first month is only $19, then after another two or three months you should have learned enough to get you going properly, then cancel. **Beware of the consequences of this (see the “Cons” above).

Do I recommend this to you? YES.

Would I recommend this to my own family? YES

Would I recommend this to all my friends? YES

Read Real Testimonials: READ REVIEWS HERE