The Pros of Wealthy Affiliate
1. Training and Tutorials
There are many tutorials at Wealthy Affiliate to help you learn all about affiliate marketing. There is training on paid marketing techniques and also free ways to make money (often called bum marketing). Other WA members also upload their own tutorials and videos to help train you on every aspect of making money online. There is more training at WA than any other site I have joined.
2. Support
There are lots of sites where you just get a short guide and are left on your own to figure things about. But Wealthy Affiliate is nice in that you can get help and support. The forum is great and many people are willing to answer your questions, and you can even send messages to the owners of WA if you need extra help.
3. Certain Tools
There are some tools that really come in handy. The keyword tool is easy to use for beginners and they recently upgraded it (and it is much better than the older version). The Clickbank Research tool makes it is to find products to promote for any market. And the newest tool, WordPress Express coupled with the free website hosting, makes it very easy to make your first website quickly, even if you don’t know anything about making websites.
4. WA Community
Many people consider this private community as the “WA family.” Members can be very friendly and help each other. In the WA Jobs section, I have met people that I work with regularly now to make more money, and I have also made friends with some people in the forum who I chat with on a regular basis now.
5. Updates
I have joined many sites that only have a little bit of content that is already outdated. But at Wealthy Affiliate there are always new tutorials to read, they add new tools every now and then, and resources are updated. At the end of 2009, they remodeled the whole site and called the new and improved version Wealthy Affiliate Platinum.
The Cons of Wealthy Affiliate
1. Too Much Information
There is a lot of content at Wealthy Affiliate, and if you are new to internet marketing it can seem a little difficult trying to absorb all the information. Some people call this “information overload” since you are suddenly exposed to all kinds of new training. There are lots of good tutorials, but everything is not always organized as well as it could be (although they recently remodeled the website to make things a little easier). Information overload is the main complaint that beginners have, but it all makes sense once you get used to the site and start going through the training.
2. Little Video Training
Some people learn better by watching instead of reading, and video training would be helpful. You would think that these days it would be easy to create more video tutorials to explain. There are some videos at Wealthy Affiliate, but the majority of the training is written, although there are pictures to help explain things too. I think that adding more videos would help the people who are new to the site. (To help with this problem, I can give you an added video course to explain things better…keep reading for more details).
3. Certain Tools
There are some tools that are nice, but there are others that aren’t helpful at all. Site Rubix is a tool to help you build a website, but it can be a pain in the butt to use. WordPress Express is a different tool for building websites, and it does work well if you are a beginner. But if you have experience making websites, then you will realize that this is a fairly basic tool that doesn’t save much time. Also, the free web hosting isn’t as reliable as other webhosts (but it is free, so it has pros and cons).
4. Price
It costs $47 to join Wealthy Affiliate, and to some people that seems like a lot of money. It used to cost $39 per month to be a member, but eventually they raised it to $47. The members at WA will tell you that it is definitely worth the price, especially the more experienced marketers who have paid more for programs that weren’t nearly as good. But if you are new to internet marketing, this might seem like a high price, and is a complaint that some people bring up. You have to decide if this is right for you or not.
Tips for getting the most out of Wealthy Affiliate
After reading all the Wealthy Affiliate Reviews you finally decided to join the program but now you don’t now where to start, here are some useful tips. Go through all the training. When you first join, make sure to start the Action Plan and go through all the tutorials. Try to stay focused on the main tutorials and not get sidetracked by the newer, more advanced lessons made by other WA members.
Participate in the forum and ask questions. The tutorials are good, but you might have questions at some point. Instead of “winging it” or hoping for the best, ask questions and get answers. You are paying for personal support, so you might as well use it.
Take action! Again, it takes effort to make money. Just going through the training won’t make you money…you have to use your newly acquired knowledge and take action. Make sure to get something done every day (keyword research, writing an article, making a blog, etc). Don’t just read the tutorials, listen to them and use your skills to get some work done.
Don’t lose focus. It takes time and effort to succeed and persistence pays off. Some people join the site and quit after one or two weeks of making no money. Follow the training, ask questions, keep working, and eventually you will see results.
