Welcome to this quick Wealthy Affiliate review!
If you have ever tried to find strategies that you can use to an income online, chances are that you might have come across affiliate marketing. This is one of the most popular ways to make money online as it allows you to promote products – whether digital or physical – manufactured by other people in return for a specified commission. This means that you don’t have to be involved in processes such as manufacturing, packaging, and shipping. That said, affiliate marketing is not as easy as we are led to believe, which is why you will find many platforms that promise to help you get into the business. This article takes an honest and unbiased look at one such platform, Wealthy Affiliate University, to help you determine if it is worth a try.
WHAT IS WEALTHY AFFILIATE UNIVERSITY?
Wealthy Affiliate University, or simply Wealthy Affiliate as it is more commonly known, is an online affiliate training platform that was launched by Kyle (current marketing chief) and Carson (current design chief). As part of the Wealthy Affiliate community, you gain access to training, tools, and the support necessary to grow your affiliate marketing business. Wealthy Affiliate shows you how to make money as an affiliate in four steps:
- Select Your Interest
The first step is to choose a niche that will be profitable.
- Build Your Site
Relying on the tools that are provided by Wealthy Affiliate, you can build your platform.
- Attract Visitors
Use the various strategies provided by Wealthy Affiliate to generate traffic and direct it to your platform.
- Earn Revenue
Generate an income from affiliate marketing.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
To access what Wealthy Affiliate has to offer, you need either of the following membership options:
The Starter Membership
This option is available for everyone that signs up for Wealthy Affiliate. It is meant to offer you a glimpse into what you can expect using the platform, but it still features several useful resources. The starter membership is free. Here is what you can expect once you access the members’ area.
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Dashboard
This is where you can view your profile page as well as access the search bar and navigation links. You will also be able to access training and a variety of tools such as the website building tool and keyword research tool. You will notice that some of the functionality on the dashboard is greyed out. This is because starter members don’t have access to all the tools and training.
Training
As a starter member, you have access to the following training courses:
- The Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC)
This is a course that introduces you to the basic aspects of affiliate marketing. The whole OEC course is divided into 5 modules, each containing 10 modules. As a starter member, you can access the first 10 classes of the first module. Each class covers a variety of concepts and is accompanied by step by step videos. The topics covered in the free OEC module are as follows:
- Getting rolling
- Understanding how to make money online
- Choose a niche
- Building your website
- Setting up your website
- Getting your site ready for SEO
- Finding content ideas from keywords
- Creating quality website content
- Creating custom menus for your website
- Congratulations and your next steps
Affiliate Bootcamp
This course is divided into seven modules that contain ten classes each. The structuring of these classes is not too different from the OEC classes in the sense that they cover a variety of concepts and com with videos as well. The topics covered are as follows:
- Getting started
- Choosing your direction
- Building your website
- A website look around
- Activating your plugins
- Preparing your website for SEO
- Your initial framework of content
- Understanding the keyword research process
- Creating thoughtful, insightful reviews
- The exciting journey has begun
Once you complete a class, you are required to complete a given set of tasks before you can proceed to the next one. If you adhere to all the instructions and manage to complete the tasks, you can then launch your website.
Classrooms
For this section, you will find a variety of courses and videos that cover topics such as content writing, social engagement, WordPress, and other subjects related to affiliate marketing. As a starter member, you only have access to two of the classrooms
Websites
Under the website tab, you can access the website building and hosting tools provided by Wealthy Affiliate. Starter members can use the following tools:
Site Manager
When you set up your website with Wealthy Affiliate, you will access it from the site manager. Starter members can create and host two sites for free. This tool allows you to view all your sites as well as all the important statistics that you might need to access.
Site Builder
The site builder tool lets you create free websites. As previously, mentioned, starter members can build a maximum of 2 free websites. You have three options when it comes to creating a website with Wealthy Affiliate: register a new domain, use a free one or use one that you own. Starter members can only go for the free domain option. Additionally, you will have access to 12 free themes that you can apply to your site.
The site builder provides you with a step by step format on how to go about building your website. Once you fill the provided fields with the required information, the site builder will automatically create a SEO ready site for you.
Site Domains
You can browse for and buy a domain name for your chosen niche in this section. As long as you have an idea of the niche domain name that you want to use, the site domains tool will search for relevant variations of the keyword you input and presents them to you as suggestions.
Site Content
As the name suggests, the site content tool allows you to come up with content that you can use for your websites. This tool comes with templates that are meant to help you discover how to create affiliate pages such as the “About” page and the “terms and conditions’ page. You will also find a template for writing content that is keyword rich. Another function of the site builder is to help you divide up your posts into sections that have headers, and further into smaller sections, allowing for site visitors to have an easier time reading your content.
Other tools you will find in this content writing tool include a spell checker tool, sentence structure tool, and grammar tool which are intended to ensure that your posts are well written and easily comprehensive.
Research
When you click on the research link, you will be redirected to Jaaxy, which is a research suite. Starter members can use the keyword research function, meaning that you can do your research on specific search terms. You can also access domain data and competition data. Another function that is available to those that have starter memberships is the ability to conduct up to 30 keyword scans and 30 keyword searches.
Live Chat
Interact with other members of the Wealthy Affiliate community in the “Live Chat’ section. You can pose questions that are related to affiliate marketing or even get help if you encounter issues when trying to build your site. As a starter member, you can only access the live help section for 7 days. However, you can still get answers to the issues you might have even after the 7 days have elapsed by typing in your question or using a few keywords in your question at the search bar that you will find at the top of the site.
The Premium Membership
With this option, you have access to all the tools and resources on the platform unlike with the starter membership where some items on the menu are limited. Here are the menu items you will come across as a premium member:
Training
In addition to the free ten classes you can access as a starter member, you will gain access to 40 additional classes in the OEC course as a premium user. There are also 60 additional classes in the Affiliate Bootcamp course. All the classes are divided into text lessons and come with step by step videos. To move to the next class, you are required to complete a set of tasks first. Unlike with a starter membership where you have access to only two classes, premium members can access all classes.
Websites
In addition to the sections you can access as a starter member, you can also access the following under the website category:
Site Comments
Comments are important for increasing the engagement rates on your site as well as for boosting SEO. Wealthy Affiliates allows you to request a variety of comments by fellow members to be left on your site or blog.
Site Feedback
This feature allows you to ask other Wealthy Affiliate members to critique your site content, layout, design, or even a specific post. To get feedback on your site, you are required to leave feedback on a minimum of 2 sites.
Site Support
Get access to the support staff in case you encounter issues on any of your sites or the platform with this function.
It is worth noting that premium members can host a maximum of 50 websites (unlike starter members who are limited to just 2). You also have access to 3000 themes as compared to starter members who can access just 12, as well as over a million high-quality images that are free to use.
Live Events
Access the weekly live training under the “live events” section. Typically, an expert from Wealthy Affiliate presents a live webinar on a specific topic regularly. If you fail to catch a webinar, videos of previous classes are available for viewing whenever you want.
Research
Premium members not only have unlimited access to the site rank and keyword tools but also get a wide range of additional tools that they can use to monitor the performance of their sites and gauge their competitors. These tools also allow you to find relevant affiliate programs that are lucrative.
Live Chat
Post relevant questions in the live chats and interact with other Wealthy Affiliate members and senior staff members.
Help Center
The help center allows you to access functions such as Live Chat, Site Support, and Private Message.
PRICING
As previously mentioned, the starter membership is free. On the other hand, the premium membership will cost you $49 per month. Alternatively, you can opt to pay $234 for 6 months, which amounts to $39 per month. Another option is to pay $359 for 12 months, which amounts to $29.92 per month.
PROS
- You don’t have to worry about being billed with the start membership
It is not uncommon to come across affiliate platforms that are advertised as free but then start billing you after a certain amount of time has elapsed. For the starter membership, you won’t have to provide your credit card information and start getting billed automatically without your permission.
- There are no upsells
You don’t have to worry about endless upsells as there are only two membership options to choose from and one of them is free.
- Simple and clear step by step instructions
The instructions provided are easy to follow and are combined with videos to make it easier to grasp the various concepts.
- An active community to rely on
Wealthy Affiliate has an active community of members that interact with each other regularly through asking questions and bouncing ideas off each other.
- Web hosting and a website builder is included
Even with a free starter membership, you still get web hosting as well as a website builder (WordPress)
CONS
- Starter members can access live support for seven days
Live Support is a very useful tool that allows interaction with the Wealthy Affiliate team and fellow members, but starter members can only access it for 7 days.
- The user interface can be a bit overwhelming (but that is why I am here to help you!)
The user interface requires a bit of getting used to, which means that first-timers will have a hard time when it comes to navigation.
- There is a lot of material to go over
Wealthy Affiliate provides you with a lot of material to go over, meaning that you will have to invest quite a bit of your time in the learning process before launching your affiliate business.
VERDICT
Wealthy Affiliate is a legitimate affiliate training platform that provides you with a wide array of tools and training to help you get started in the business. If you intend to break into affiliate marketing, I recommend trying out this product – after all, the starter membership is free. This is the exact community that I joined over 10 years ago to start my online business journey. I have never looked back!
CHECK OUT MY IN-DEPTH REVIEW OF WEALTHY AFFILIATE HERE!
See you on the other side.
To Your Success,
Mike Aha