New Mindset, New Beginnings
I joined WA well over a year ago after endlessly searching online trying to find out how to make a living from home. I have a 4 yr old and a 12 year during the day then work at night when the better half or 'mommy' takes over. I knew there were many "scams" out there and on the other end a lot of people that were successful at online business. When I entered the certification course with my trial membership I started to tell a difference between this program and many that I tried before.
In the beginning I thought I had it all figured out. I could just make a website about something I like, post some products with my affiliate links and watch the money roll in. I was constantly being challenged to post "content" and somewhat become a writer to captivate my audience while engaging with the WA community, both being uncomfortable for me. I'm no writer and I don't even like to read much. I continued through the training, step-by-step with the wrong mindset. I had some pretty good content but basically tried to direct users to affiliate links without connecting with them.
Money got tight and I took a break at WA to get my health and life insurance licenses to work for a company selling insurance virtually online. Getting those licenses was the most studying and reading I had ever done in my life but I gave it all I had and passed both tests on the first try. After a ton of cold calling and virtual meetings I had small victories but in reality working on the phone with a 4 yr old running around wasn't the best idea. I still worked late nights at the other job I had been at the whole time too.
I was promoted at my night job and money has been great but I felt empty, something was missing. A few months ago WA was running a promotion so I joined because I needed something to help drive my dream for online business. WA can only hold your web site content so long before they have to delete it when you are no longer a member. They inform you in several emails leading up to this so my site, FindMyFlatScreen.com, was gone. I had to start from scratch.
It was discouraging at first and started to change niche but this site was my "baby" and the new goal was to make it better. I went through the WA certification course again and after the insurance sales experience with a few other events in my life I started to see things in a different light. The point I was missing before is we are here to help people first. Every article I write is geared towards simplifying things within my niche for my "user" while guiding them through my site with helpful information. Then your affiliate links are not forced but available at the user's convenience. Even if this site doesn't bring me boat loads of money I am learning how to do business the right way while building professional websites and learning to optimize SEO to get pure traffic. These skills are priceless.
I always say "Wealthy Affiliate is a University for Online Business without all of the student loan debt". My journey is still a huge work in progress but I know for sure I am headed in the right direction.
Thank You Wealthy Affiliate and the WA Community,
Anton
Recent Comments
1
Great post. I can totally relate to not quite getting it the first time around, and it's great that you swung back around to WA.
Something you might consider to help you with the writing challenges. One strategy some people have used is to make a video of themselves just talking about their topic. This video can then be hosted on your YouTube channel as an additional social media presence and then embedded in your site. All of that is obvious.
The less obvious part is that you can then include a transcript of the video on your site. This text will get you the SEO traffic you need and it also provides the option to read the content for people like me who prefer to skim really fast to get to the main points. You can still use the training in the courses. Just make an outline for what you want to talk about in the video the way Kyle talks about breaking an article up into individual headings. Some people find this easier to do, and often times the transcript of a single video can be broke into multiple parts so you can generate a lot of content pretty fast this way. Video is also a good way to connect with your audience as you were describing because they get a better sense of connection to you.
Hope that helps. Keep up the good work.