Wealthy Affiliate Review – 3 Months Later

I promised I would write a bit more about my experiences with the Wealthy Affiliate paid forum.

After spending quite a while researching affiliate marketing I have gotten used to the sales pages and the phoney reviews that go hand in hand with promoting these kinds of products. There are hundreds of pages describing any of these products and I’m not sure if any of them can be trusted. Especially when the prices can reach into the thousands of dollars! I’m sure there’s a case to be made for spending a huge amount of money for something if it is a worthwhile investment but that’s the kind of money I simply don’t have.

Every other day some “guru” marketer releases a new ebook with the “latest technique” to make millions. Most of these marketers are only successful at selling their own product and building the kind of frenzied hype that can earn The Rich Jerk and Day Job Killer their millions.

Have you ever been trying to learn something, a language, a computer game or a in a new job and found yourself wishing that there was someone you could ask for help?
Sometimes you walk over to the coffee machine and can’t figure out how it works, so you just get a glass of water instead?
Nobody wants to feel stupid, nobody wants to be the one student in the classroon that puts their hand up and says “I don’t get it”.

The one thing I feel most embarassed about is when people think I’m stupid. And to be honest I often feel stupid because I’ve been trying to make a living from the internet for over a year now and I still haven’t received a check.
I’ve read the same blog posts as you have with people talking about their six figure incomes (per month!)

So, enticed by a sales letter I signed up for Wealthy Affiliate. Why was this time different to the the last time I was suckered by a sales letter? Because three months later, I don’t feel like a sucker. I feel like I’ve learnt something.

The heart of WA is its forum. At first it’s less than impressive, it runs phpbb and has the bog standard template and features, but its value is in the quality of its posts.
There are quite a few people new to affiliate marketing and they, understandably, ask beginners’ questions.
Anyone who has frequented regular webmaster forums has probably seen the flaming and the directions to “use the google” that usually follow.

WA actually have pages of posts responding to users’ specific questions and offering advice. The sites founders Kyle and Carson are available to answer questions via PM and the founder of “Bum Marketing” Travis Sago is a bit of a superstar on the site because of his informative and insightful posts. His South’rn Draaawl stands out when you listen to one of his videos also!

I’m learning how to think about making money from the internet as being the same as making money anywhere else. There’s lots of specific advice and tools for learning how to identify a target market. For most people trying affiliate marketing that means finding a product on Commission Junction or Clickbank and then trying to sell it.

The proper way to go about this is to find that potential customer with a need/problem

and fix that problem or satisfy that need.

If you can provide a product that can do this there’s no way that people won’t buy it from you.

I’m learning how to separate the tire-kickers from the buyers. There are plenty of people, like myself, that do the vast majority of their research on the internet before they make a purchase. There is little point in trying to sell something specific to someone when they are merely trying to find more information about what kind of item they will buy.
Identifying someone in the right part of the buying cycle can avoid costly mistakes when you’re driving your traffic using PPC marketing from google or yahoo or MSN.

One of the reasons I am attracted to doing business as an affiliate marketer is because I don’t have to do things like customer service that take up so much of a business owner’s time. So I was surprised to find that it’s mentioned frequently on the site.

Taking a longer term approach than “Making the sale and run” means more profit and having an advantage over your competitors. This advantage can be the difference between a loss and big profits on your advertising spend.

The lessons I’m learning are not narrow or tied to a specific search engine or type of site. (although there are subforums for PPC with google and yahoo) I’m learning how to be a marketer. How to create something that people will value. And by providing value, I can make money. Everybody wins.

This is one of the longer posts that I’ve made on this blog and to be honest, it was one of the easiest to write because I’m excited about the topic. I’m excited about the community in Wealthy Affiliate, I’m excited about how I can apply the knowledge to my existing projects and websites and I’m excited that I could earn enough money from this to earn a living.

“To do what you love means never working a day in your life”

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. If you’re new to affiliate marketing and would like to make an effort to create a real business online from anywhere in the world, I can recommend Wealthy Affiliate. The techniques are suitable if you have money to invest in Pay per Click or if you need to make a start for free, writing articles, promoting them and making sales from the items you recommend.

If you’ve already done research and understand some of the techniques involved you’ve probably put your mouse on all the links in this post and realised they’re affiliate links. You’re right! I will make some money if you sign up to Wealthy Affiliate by visting through those links. If you do be sure and PM me! I use the name scoby on WA forums as well.

I’m going to keep you updated on my progress as I go and I hope to bring you all more good news as I make my journey to become a Wealthy Affiliate.

Click here to sign up to Wealthy Affiliate