Two Months at Wealthy Affiliate
SUCCESS!!
I have had some success already (if I don't count how much I have spent to be a premium member of WA).
I have made about $8 so far.
Most of it from google ads, rather than from any of my affiliate links. Only made about $3 on Amazon and none on the other affiliate programs I have signed up with.
According to Google Analytics, I have about 20 page visits a day. My site has about 12 posts and pages. I suspect most of the visits are from other WA members and dodgy robots from Ali Express and very little from any genuine organic search. Makes me wonder if perhaps WA people are the ones clicking the ads and following links to affiliate programs too? I could be wrong, but activity on my site seems to be directly related to how busy I am on the WA site if you know what I mean...
I know some people would be happy about this, but I want to know how successful my site would be without WA people doing that (if they are even doing that) and I want to know if it is possible for me to be successful. If I am going to fail, I want it to be quickly, so I can move onto something else.
Uncomfortable
Some of the stuff we are encouraged to do has made me a little uncomfortable. I am a relatively private person and I don't want the people who know me to see my attempts at being an online entrepreneur. What if I fail? I would rather fail without anyone knowing about it.
For this reason I still haven't ventured onto facebook with my online "business" I've created here at WA. I don't mind Google plus and Pinterest because I don't really know anyone there. I don't really get twitter and don't really feel that comfortable there either.
We are encouraged to use our real identities here at WA. At least, the course is set up that way when we are told to sign up for social media. But Kyle and Carson don't use their surnames. What's up with that? Makes me wonder if I should be keeping my identity private as well.
Don't get me wrong, I can definitely see the benefit of being totally open about who we are and building a personal brand. If that is true, then I guess there is no point in separating our business lives from our personal.
I read somewhere that Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook said that people who try to separate their personal lives from their business lives "lack integrity". I kind of see what he means, but he would say that wouldn't he? He probably makes a lot of money selling our information to government agencies and corporations.
Doubts about the training
I have followed the advice about sticking with keywords with QSR under 300 and have been amazed at some of the keywords that have thousands of searches a month, yet only have a QSR of only a hundred or so on the WA keyword tool. But when I target them, my posts are nowhere to be found! Very disappointing.
Surprises
In spite of the doubts, I have been pleasantly surprised by some of the backgrounds of the people here. I am a dentist and I have run into many other health professionals like nurses, podiatrists and doctors who are using WA to start their own niche sites. I assume these people are pretty bright and wouldn't get sucked into a scam?
Even if I'm wrong, I still take comfort that other professionals are going through this program with me.
I was also surprised to see that I have had some traffic to my website generated from Pinterest. I wasn't expecting that because I have no followers over there!
I will keep writing content on my site and see what happens. I still feel a little sceptical, but also hopeful.
Recent Comments
8
Sounds like your making good progress, I know what you mean about coming out of the comfort zone in regards to be very visible in a public way I am quite a private person to, now I do not dwell on it just do what I need to, still some stuff to overcome but then that is the nature of the business we are building here... well done and wish you many more sales to
Rabbit,
How long has your site been up? The reason I ask is that Jay points out in several of his training videos that throwing up any kind of affiliate links too early may actually hurt more than it helps (Google apparently frowns on that.) With only 12 pages/posts I think it may be too early. He recommends that you run "clean" and just put out great content until your site hits the first page on Google, then you can start slowly adding affiliate links. If your only getting 20 visits a day, it may be too soon. Just a thought.
As far as your privacy and doing things that make you "uncomfortable"... don't. Listen, Kyle and Carson are great guys. They are smart and definitely know what they are doing. And they have nothing but the best intentions for us at heart. But I am sure even they would agree that this is your business and you should run it as you see fit. Take their advice (and mine! lol) only IF it makes sense to you, otherwise just ignore the recommendation and move on. Besides, even if they recommended the best advice ever, if you're not comfortable doing it, how long do you think you would actually follow it? I've been in and out of the marketing game for many years, and even made a living as a professional copywriter in the pre-internet days. I've seen just about everything out there and, yes, a lot of it is crap. But I can assure you, Kyle and Carson are the real deal. No scam here.
Finally, I have seen your site. It's really good and I see where you're going with it, so keep going -- just think about what I said earlier. Also, if I might offer one idea, have you thought about a site that targets dentists themselves? You clearly have the DDS knowledge, and you also have what you have learned here at WA. Perhaps you could combine the two and go after other dental professionals and teach them how to set up blogs to attract clients to their practice. I know of a former insurance agent that did something similar, and after a few years he never had to sell insurance again; he was too busy teaching other agents how to :-)
Hi James
Thanks for the well thought out response. I appreciate it!
I have never heard that about not creating affiliate links until building the site out and it making the front page. I may have to start watching Jay's videos. Makes sense actually.
I may do what you suggest. I think a lot of dentists are clueless about using the internet to drum up business.
Actually, I was going to target dentists as well on the site, but decided dental consumers and dental professionals are too different to cater to from the same site so just focused on consumers.
Targeting other dentists has the potential to be very lucrative, but they are a picky bunch, so will wait until I have gained a bit more experience before tackling that niche.
Thanks again for your comment James and good luck with your own internet endeavours!
David
Hey There.
Thanks for your post. I can certainly relate to a couple of things you said.
Firstly, I too am a professional, I am a pharmacist.
I am building a niche site central around a health topic that is personal to me and try to work on it whenever I can. I currently have around 25 posts and 10pages and have had my site up for just over 3 months with no revenue generated at all.
I certainly can relate to the fact of not using facebook as a social media marketing, I have not gone there for the exact same reasons as you.
For me, I think and have faith that success will come when the time is right. I have seen it happen here and I do believe I can be one of them.
So your feelings of been skeptical is understandable. Like you said, lets build it and give time and see what happens.
All the best to you
Roopesh
Hi Roopesh. Thanks for getting in touch. I used to be a pharmacist before I was a dentist believe it or not! I am amazed how many professional people are on this site.
It's interesting you are a pharmacist and have tinnitus. I had a patient of mine complaining of tinnitus and I seemed to recall there is a drug for it, but couldn't remember the name for it!
I will be following you closely and wish you all the best. Who knows maybe we can join forces in the future somehow?
David
Hey David
That is good to know.
Regarding the drug for tinnitus, there are a few trials going on and I try to keep up with what is going on. It is such an interesting field and there is things to write about all the time.
Your suggestion of joining forces sounds good. You never know what can happen
Take Care
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I might be a bit late on this conversation, but the fact that y made 8$ two months in is actually pretty good! I think Kyle said he was like 6 mos in before he made any money. And the after 6 to a year it boomed for him! So just keep pushing forward!