Before deciding whether or not to choose Wealthy Affiliate, it is important that you have a better understanding of the world of affiliate marketing. Then you will be able to determine if Wealthy Affiliate is a good choice for you and the success of your business.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a way that entrepreneurs make money by helping retailers and/service owners offer and sell their products and services online. This is done by using a combination of tools including content marketing, affiliate links, and promotional campaigns.
There are three distinct roles of affiliate marketing:
- Business owner or advertiser – This is the company or party that sells the products.
- Publisher or marketer – This is the person (you, once you get started) who is marketing the products and or services offered by the business owner who pays you a commission once the product or service is sold.
- Consumer or customer – This is the person who is buying the product or service from you.
Who markets products for a commission?
There are so many products and programs available globally that the affiliate marketing professional can be anyone who wants to make extra money or launch and grow their business. Many launch their affiliate marketing careers part time until they are making enough money to work on a full time basis.
Affiliate marketers are students, housewives, moms, dads, professionals, even athletes and retirees who find a product or service they are passionate about (niche) and decide to market it (sell) to others to make money. Affiliate marketing is the perfect home-based business (and you will quickly learn why by the end of this article). It is also a great business for those who travel or need very flexible schedules.
How do I get paid?
Most affiliate marketers are paid by check and through online money sites like PayPal, TransPay.
Can I do affiliate marketing on my own?
Of course you can, but it would be better, especially starting out to sign up with a company that not only provides training, but ongoing support, tools, information and community to help you thrive and build a successful business.
Why do you recommend Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is a thriving community with over 1 million affiliates that shows you step by step what to do to launch your affiliate marketing business and how to do it so that you learn the right way to launch a longterm and profitable career in the world of affiliate marketing.
Wealthy Affiliate is an online training center where you can learn everything about Affiliate Marketing, Networking and Internet Marketing.
Wealthy Affiliate is not a get rich quick scheme. It’s a step by step business building process taught through training and coaching. You even learn how to use marketing tools and other platforms that will help you build, grow analyze and create systematic strategies to launch and manage your business.
Wealthy Affiliate – A little history
Founded by Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim in 2005 with no experience but strong interest in building an internet business. Their hard work and dedication to success created the platform to help others also succeed in affiliate marketing that we still use today.
Kyle and Carson teach you everything they have learned to grow and succeed as an affiliate marketer in a step by step easy to follow system. They have built a community of successful entrepreneurs who give back by helping to support each other with additional training and guidance.
WA training – a brief overview
Step 1 – determine your interest, then break it down to a specific product or service, also known as a niche. Affiliate marketers become specialist in their area of interest.
I have many interests and at first found it a challenge to narrow down to one specific thing, but when I better understood the process, it actually makes it easier to get your business up and moving. Wealthy Affiliate will help you to take your interest and break it down into a specific niche product or service based on your interest that you will be able to market successfully.
Step 2 – build a website. Wealthy Affiliate makes building a website easy. Your website is your storefront, the cornerstone of our business. Wealthy Affiliate’s platform integrates WordPress. They walk you through step by step from choosing your domain name, to picking a theme. They even have templates to help you create your first pages…and NO CODING REQUIRED. (I was totally impressed at how quick and easy it was to build a WordPress site without coding. You also have access to royalty free images). It takes just a few minutes to build your website on the WA platform.
Step 3 – get visitors to your website. Without visitors you have no one to market or sell to. WA walks you through the process to create the content and strategies to get people to your website. You will learn how to get your website ranked in the search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo to bring traffic to your website.
Having a great system is so important and you will not only learn how to get visitors you will learn how to measure your strategies to success from your first day as an affiliate marketer.
Step 4 – make money. Making money is the reason we choose to become an affiliate marketer right? Wealthy Affiliate introduces you to affiliate programs. Discovering the thousands of affiliate programs available was an eye-opener! Did you know that “affiliate programs” are completely free to join?
Affiliate programs allow you to promote almost anything you can imagine!
- No need to create products yourself.
- No inventory needed.
- No shipping or product support.
- You can operate your business from anywhere in the world.
As an affiliate marketer you will send the traffic to the company website, they pay you a commission when your visitors buy something.
I personally made a small commission during my first 30 days and I was excited because it proves the program really works!
How much does it cost to join Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is free to join. With the Free Membership you get 2 free websites and training so you learn the inner workings of becoming an affiliate marketer. You will quickly see how easy it is to get started at zero cost.
Wealthy Affiliate does offer a Premium Membership. Premium Wealthy Affiliate members are allowed 50 websites.
The training platform is where you will learn how to get your business up and running.
Online Classrooms (each contains many training modules including video):
• Getting Started
• WA Affiliate Program
• Keyword, Niche and Market Research
• Everything WordPress
• Authoring & Writing Content
• Search Engine Optimization
• Social Engagement & Marketing
• Website Development & Programming
• Local Marketing
• Video Marketing
• Email Marketing
• The Wealthy Affiliate Platform
• Pay Per Click Marketing
Certification Courses:
• Online Entrepreneur Certification – Getting Started – Level 1
• Building Your Own Traffic Producing Website – Level 2
• Online Entrepreneur Certification – Making Money! – Level 3
• Online Entrepreneur Certification – Mastering Social Engagement – Level 4
• The Business of Content – Achieving Maximum Success Through Content Creation – Level 5
Additional Tools:
• Websites & Hosting
• Keyword Tool
• Link Tracking
• Keyword Lists
Wealthy Affiliate Bootcamp:
There is a WA Bootcamp training section that teaches you how to promote the WA Affiliate Program. (This is an optional course, members are not required to promote WA. I chose to review and promote this program because it’s a good, solid, business program.) The bootcamp has advanced affiliate marketing training, with many distinct modules within each Phase of the training:
• Getting Your Business Rolling – phase 1
• Content, Keywords and Conversions – phase 2
• Giving Your Site Social Value – phase 3)
• Get Visual. Get Aesthetic. Get a Brand Through Media – phase 4
• Knowing Your Audiences & Catapulting Your Referrals – phase 5
• Bing, Yahoo, & The Power of PPC – phase 6
• How to Scale Successful PPC Campaigns – phase 7
Wealthy Affiliate is FREE to join! (Get started now)
Wealthy Affiliate is the #1 Affiliate Community. If you are ready to start a business and want to be a part of a supportive get started today. Remember the cost to join, $0. Click this link to join
What a great and thorough review. I have read many but none have been as complete as yours. You did a great job!! I like all the personal notes too.
Tried and True
Elaine
Thank you Elaine! I really appreciate your comment.
Thorough introduction to the world of affiliate marketing and Wealthy Affiliate so thank you. I love being a part of the WA community as it has so many other benefits about being with such supportive and positive people, knowing there is always someone their to ask, and just interacting with other like-minded people. If anyone was in any doubt as to whether to join, I’d say “go for it”. There’s little to lose except your doubts.
Gail thank you for your comment. It’s fantastic to learn that you also love the WA community which provides a fantastic support system to new and established affiliate marketers.