With this post I would like to answer the most common questions, I get asked regarding Wealthy Affiliate. My WA review received a lot of comments regarding the program and the page got cluttered to the extent where I have to delete comments just to better the page load speed. In addition, important questions/comments from readers get lost amongst the clutter. Keep in mind that this is not a review, just questions sorted out neatly to save readers some time and the agony of slow page load. You can read the original WA Review Here. I will try to answer questions as thoroughly as possible so excuse in advance, for a lengthy article.
How long have I been part of the program?
Since 2013
Most commonly asked question/statement – Is Wealthy Affiliate a Scam?
They exist for more than a decade and still going strong, you tell me, do you think a scam will last this long? A scam is something that takes your money under false pretense and does not give you what you pay for. The last time I checked (10 minutes ago), all the training was still there, my website is still there and my keyword tool (Jaaxy), still worked fine. In addition, the weekly live webinar is still on time with new training.
So why is everyone on the “scam wagon” now?
Who knows for sure, but I bet that many did not do all the training, nor do they have a website with at least 100 posts on it. Wrote nonsense on the WA mini-blog platform about the weather or politics and wasted time, instead of writing blog posts. It is easier to put the blame on the program than to look at oneself to see why failure had step in. I myself, do not always work productive and waste too much time, therefore goes backward instead of forward, cannot blame WA for that can I?
Lots and lots of expensive training available now that is “better” so duh, I can only imagine that affiliates are rather going for bigger payouts by promoting/recommending more expensive stuff like “Authority Hacker” to only mention one example. WA affiliates get $8 for a new signup; some other programs pay hundreds of dollars per signup! So yeah, does not take a genius to figure out why WA has suddenly become a scam. Is Authority Hacker a scam? ABSOLUTELY NO, it is an awesome program, actually it is beyond awesome and I am planning a review myself and once I finished the program, will most likely recommend it as well (Not for newbies). HOWEVER, the majority of my readers cannot afford much or do not yet earn much. I cannot for the love of money just sit back and make hundreds of dollars per sale of people who cannot afford it. If you mess up with $19 or the free version it is way better than when you mess up with $900 right? And really, if you cannot make at least $50 with WA’s training and setup, I doubt you will do it with any other program for that matter, just because it cost more.
For many years, people had built successful websites with WA, made money with them, and moved on to become successful marketers. Nothing has changed with the platform, still the same awesome WordPress hosting, still the same keyword tool and the weekly webinars is also still ongoing. Training is not outdated, it is geared towards newbies and still working if one can actually bring oneself to implement it instead of goofing around. What has changed? More expensive programs came along with higher payouts, as simple as that!
Are Wealthy Affiliate perfect and the number one choice for learning website development and affiliate marketing?
In your dreams! There is no such thing as perfect in the online industry. Every program out there has a flaw or two (some definitely have more than 2). What we do have are people from all different walks of life, some have money to invest, some don’t. Some have hours upon hours to work on their online venture, others are working and have to do with only a few hours a week. Many people do not mind blogging for cash, others despise writing. You might like to hunt down leads while the guy next door absolutely hates it. In addition, with so many ways to make money online and learning programs for each method, it is almost impossible to recommend something specifically, without knowing a person. So, we have to find the middle ground, something that at least everyone can start with that is easy to understand and manage.
You WILL NOT learn everything there is to know from WA and the plan is not to sit there for your entire online career. WA is an “entrance platform” that gives you everything to get started, your basic training, website(s), and keyword tool, to mention a few. If you are still at WA after 5 years and complain about insufficient training, then good grieve, you certainly got stuck, didn’t you?
Why do I still recommend WA after 7 years?
If you think it is about money, hahaha. Good grieve; there are programs out there that pay out thousands per sale and hundreds in recurring commissions! $700 vs $8 commission per initial sale, I must be stupid not to rip you off right? If you have lots of money then please, make my day and sign up for Authority Hacker via my link, I will truly appreciate it and my charity will too. Just kidding, I do not promote them, yet (hehe).
Most importantly, I DO NOT like to promote WA. (Will cover this in the question below) Not my favorite affiliate program since it takes up way too much time and requires a 48 hour day, which at this time is not possible since I struggle to get my time machine to work. However, in the end, looking at my readers, reading their comments, and taking into account their financial situation, WA is still the best platform that I can come up with to get them started at Affiliate marketing/ website development.
My biggest problems with Wealthy Affiliate (Yeah, I am not shy at mentioning them)
I have two issues with the program;
Community support – Was never a big fan of any platform with community support. The reason, the information will never be 100% accurate. Any wannabe marketer can now be an “expert” and provide help based on a simple Google search, not on actual experience. WA encourages community support and your ranking on the platform will depend on it. Members become too focused on participating in the community and thus neglect to do the training and most importantly, working on their websites. Some will literally spend hours “helping others”, which is good and noble but they end up broke and unsuccessful themselves, thus not practicing what they preach to others. The ambassadors of WA are a great feature, however again, you can become one without actually being skilled, depends on how much time you spend on the platform. I personally think that it would be nice if only a few skilled ambassadors were chosen and if only they were allowed to help members. Pay them part of the affiliate commissions, or something like that.
Personally, I am NOT a social person. Hence why I stay away from MLM’s. From time to time I like to socialize with members, my readers, and so forth, BUT NOT 24/7. 3 years ago, I had spent every waking moment helping others on WA, answering emails, private messages via my social accounts, and so forth to the tune where it just became unbearable with an 18-20 hour workday. No time to work on my websites and no time to review other programs or expand my knowledge. Definitely no time for proper sleep or do anything else. Everything just went downwards. It is a balance, and without one, the other will fail. This is what happens to many WA members, they focus on one thing and the other goes stagnant.
Some are beyond skilled as ambassadors; truly have a gift in working with people 24/7, me, not so much. Time is just not on my side until my time machine is fixed.
The Affiliate program – Like I mentioned above, community support is required to be a successful affiliate. All great if you only have a few referrals, it is a nightmare if you have too many. No matter how hard you try, you cannot help everyone! It is easy to manage 30 referrals, completely impossible to help 300. (I have massive respect for the WA ambassadors who actually do) This somewhat has the resemblance of an MLM right? I absolutely despise MLM’s, it is my worst nightmare, not because all of them are scams, just because it takes up every waking moment of your day if you want to do it right. To sum it up, you can refer as many people as you can “handle”, NOT more, which as an affiliate marketer is kind of a bummer.
My perfect Wealthy Affiliate would be where chosen, skilled ambassadors help members and leave the affiliates to do what they do best. I mean not everyone can be good at everything, right?
How do you make WA work for you?
Stay focused! There is a lot going on, on the platform and it is easy to become distracted quickly. Do the training and if you do not understand, do it again. Complete all the steps.
Create your website and work on your website. This is the moral of the story and the reason you joined the platform in the first place. Once you have one site up, start with another, build 20 niche sites if you must just build something. Your website is what will earn you cash, nothing else, so why focus on stuff that is not productive? After a year with WA, you should at least have a website with 50 – 100+ posts on it, if you don’t, then you wasted time on stuff that is not important.
Do not promote WA as a newbie! Massive mistake, to choose the “make money online” niche as a newbie. You are going to dance with the wolves in a highly skilled and competitive niche and most likely fail hard. Pick a niche like health, pets, or anything else for that matter.
Ignore the ambassador ranking until you have at least finished the training and have a website with at least 40 posts. You cannot teach others if you do not know how things work yourself. In addition, time is precious and you are most likely paying for it.
Do some affiliates write bad reviews just to promote WA?
Well yeah, they unfortunately do! This is the world of online marketing, completive as…well yeah, you get the point. Affiliate marketing is just like any other business there is, people, play dirty against their competition, and in return the competition fight back. It is what it is and people will always find ways to knock the competition out of the way and it will not always be clean fights. This goes both ways, other programs in return will label WA as a scam to sell their "perfect" product. Doesn’t mean either one is a scam, one simply just has more tactical affiliates.
Like I always say, keep an open mind, read multiple reviews, and if you do not have money to waste, go with programs that are affordable or at least have a free or trial option to minimize your risk. In the end, only you can decide if something works for you or not.
What makes WA different than other programs?
For me, that would be the WordPress hosting, keyword tool, comment feature, and the option to earn credits. The training is not bad, but not reason enough for me to keep the membership.
Let’s dissect:
Hosting – WA’s hosting still knocks a lot of companies straight out of the water. Websites do very well on their hosting, period. They make it super easy to manage WordPress successfully and you can host up to 20 websites with the premium plan ($49 monthly). They made WordPress as newbie-friendly as one can possibly do. Even with all the competition around, hey, WA websites still dominate the search engines and that is enough reason.
Jaaxy keyword tool - Nifty little tool that is without technical clutter and works well. Been using many tools over the years and ended up sticking with Jaaxy. Works just as well as other more expensive tools and I can give it credit for many first page rankings.
Comments/Feedback – A successful website that does well in the engines mostly depends on getting feedback in the form of comments. For new website owners, this is the hard part, to get people to give feedback because well obviously, you do not rank well enough yet to get traffic right? The “comment feature” helps you to get much-needed interaction on your new site. The feedback feature helps you to correct mistakes or gain expert advice from others about your site. If you are serious about creating content that gets read and obviously that do well in general, this is a must! And no, this website does not make use of the WA comment section as I get enough traffic and readers already, and obviously, this is not a WA website. (I have one at WA as well tho) No other platform has this important feature.
WA Credits – Okay, so I do not actively go out to earn credits myself by leaving comments or giving feedback. However, I always try my best to make the online journey for others as easy as possible financially wise by recommending things that will not make them flat broke and this is one of those. You can literally earn your premium membership with WA by just collecting credits, meaning, it pays for itself. You can even buy domains with credits. Last year, I paid my yearly premium membership with WA by just using credits that I collected and thus far bought and renewed my domain with credits. (See screenshots)
OR
You can earn credits and buy a few more each month to pay for your monthly membership like I demonstrated below. The point is, there are options to soften the financial blow, how many other programs have this to help members out? Where are you going to get hosting, tools, and domains by just earning a few credits? And for this reason alone, I will keep on recommending WA as a starter platform above all.
So yeah, to sum it up, there are better programs around, training-wise, but, they do not include hosting, at least not for 20 websites, nor give you a way to actually earn your membership and features like comment posting, a keyword tool, and content writer are not included. These usually sell separately and add up to quite a few dollars extra, not very financially friendly if you are a broke newbie.
Should you stay with Wealthy Affiliate?
Well, I am still here after 7 years; I mean good hosting, keyword tool, and a few other goodies that still do it for me is just way cheaper than other platforms. Training wise, heck, I moved on years ago to broaden my knowledge! The training was too basic for me from the get-go anyhow (I was not a newbie). If you plan to grow, well no, it will not be wise to sit in one place now would it? Like I said a hundred times, WA is focused on newbies, those of us who are skilled mostly stick around for the hosting and stuff.
Bottom Line...
They have a Free Version for most countries, with no credit card requirements. If it is not for you, move on to something more suited to your interest. There are MANY options available and many of them are really good. You do not have to stick around WA just for one thing, if you find the training to be a waste of time, why not use the hosting, commenting feature, or other tools and save a bit of money? They honestly have something useful even for the experienced marketer.
Do you have questions regarding WA or need advice?
I have a box on the right side of my website where you can leave a question. At this point in time, I ONLY answer questions directed from there as I have just too many platforms to manage and like I mentioned above, time is the one thing we cannot get more of. (would be nice right). Just easier to successfully manage questions via my email system that is set up for this purpose. Please be patient as I get a lot of questions/feedback and cannot always respond quickly as traffic sometimes sky-rocket, resulting in lots of questions as you can see below.
Thank you!
