A word to new members
A few words to new members on Wealthy Affiliate. Why a dictionary? My first point is that the dictionary is the only place that you will find success coming before work. In real life you are going to have to work BEFORE you obtain success. WA is no exception. If anyone tries to tell you that they have a push button system to earn you money run away from them. The only people that are going to make money from that is the person trying to sell it to you!
I haven't been here very long, but I have noticed some things that keep popping up. I'd like to address these issues here. Let me try to do this as a list.
1) Do the training in the order it is presented. Do the tasks as they are presented as well (or you will fall seriously behind). Each lesson builds on the last lesson and I can assure you that everything is covered in your lessons. You will probably want to go premium as soon as possible. It's really a great bargain. Once you go premium you can't go back to a starter membership, so be sure that you can afford it. Annual is the cheapest way to do it if you can afford it. You don't need to buy anything else for a while. The only purchase that you WILL want to make at some point is your domain name. I recommend that you don't do this until you are sure of what your niche will be. Many people think they know, but a week or a month later they want to change it, and once you purchase the domain name it is yours.
2) If you have a question pose it in the discussion under that lesson or in live chat if you need a quicker answer. Do NOT spend hours in live chat, it is addicting like other social media platforms (I am guilty of doing this, but I won't anymore). Also, you can try to use the search bar at the top of the page to look for answers. I also highly recommend the weekly live training with Jay. Look for the live video classes link under the left sidebar to register or watch past trainings.
3) Don't try to monetize your site too soon. Many affiliate programs will want to see a working site with traffic before they approve you, and others, like Amazon, will drop you if you don't generate sales in X number of days. If you went to a website that only had a few posts and there were ads all over the place would you stay? I wouldn't and I probably wouldn't return to that site again.
4) Don't believe that content is king. Content is very very important, but GOOD traffic is king. How do you get good traffic? By writing great content and lots of it. It will take a while for Google to give your site much consideration. They want to see that you are serious about your site. Don't pay for traffic. That kind of traffic is garbage and may give your site a fleeting boost in traffic, but what you want to do is build steady repeat traffic. If Google finds that you used paid traffic you will be penalized in the rankings.
5) When you choose a niche it's not a fatal mistake if you change your mind. Try not to make too many changes, but be comfortable in your niche.You'll want to be able to write at least 2 posts per week each with at least 1,000 to 1,500 words. Make sure that you can write this many posts for a year. Choose a niche that you either really like or want to learn. That way you'll never feel like it is a chore to write. When writing your content write like you are talking to a good friend. You don't want to sound like an encyclopedia, but a real person. That will build trust with your readers.
6) Be prepared for it to take up to a year to monetize your site with any regularity. You will probably make a few small sales around 3-6 months, but for a steady income allow a year to eighteen months. You MUST keep adding good content during this time.
7) Don't fall victim to shiny object syndrome. You've seen it or done it before. Ooohhh, that sounds good, let me try that. If WA won't work for you that new thing won't either. Stick this out and become the success that you seek. Those who jump to the next shiny object will never know what they could have accomplished had they stayed.
I hope that this will help some new people. That's it for now. LET'S DO THIS!
Recent Comments
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Thanks Bryan..that is good advice..my only problem..other than having a lot of trouble getting my website right...is that I do need to make money as soon as possible. After my husband's open heart surgery in January, he still has very low heart function and cannot work. I am on Social Security..and going backwards. But I want to do this right and really learn it.
It's really easy to go backwards on SS..... This will take some time, but it's worth it in the long run.
Thanks for your words of wisdom to new members. I especially like #3 about Amazon dropping you if sales aren't generated ... also #4. Great content gets getting good traffic. Plus not paying for traffic because of possible penalties ... finally #7. shiny object syndrome which makes us look like a dog chasing its tail.
Glad that I could give some wisdom. Thanks for the kind words. I wish you the best on your online journey.
Very good advice needs to be given to every new member before they start the course. It is encouraging if you are a novice to the internet marketing platform, helps to understand how it all works as it took me a couple of weeks to see where I was going and how it all worked.
Thank you for this
Awesome! Thank you for the information. As a newbie, I have made quite a few mistakes already, but I learn :) with helpful posts like these. Luckily, I have prepared myself to not expect anything major for up to two years from now, but hope to see, like you said, something small a bit sooner.
Very useful post, and a good read!
Hey Wanda! Welcome to WA premium and thank you for the kind words. I truly believe that every single member on here has the ability to become successful.
The difference between those that are successful and those that are not is in their drive and how they persevere in their journey.
I agree with 99% of your profile and I am now following you. The only thing that I somewhat disagree with is the skeleton, some of us are or have been much more broken up than others ;-)
Best wishes to you on WA and if you have any questions or need advice feel free to pm me as I won't be hanging out on live chat anymore.
Bryan
I am truly a newbie and work on it when I have time which isn't as much as I would like. You have been a great source of help to me and look forward to the future. Your ranking of 262 proves that you are doing something right. You are truly a person who cares about people and are honest and trust worthy. Thanks for your help!
Thanks for the kind words. What my ranking really means is that I've been guilty of spending a lot of time in live chat, to the detriment of my site.
I'm still willing to help anyone, but I won't be hanging out in live chat anymore. I'll pop in a couple of times a day, but if anyone wants my help or opinion it's best to pm me from here on out.
Best of luck to you and everyone else at WA!
Great post, Bryan. I'd like to add a few words to the newbies if I may. I have been thinking about writing a post about it, but this will be just fine.
I have noticed that some profiles contain website and contact info for social media. I might add that this is not always on newbies' profiles and posts.
When I was a newbie, I did not realize that we were rules that we are to abide by in the community. I saw people doing certain things and thought that we were expected to do them.
It is my understanding that this is considered to be spam by WA and should be avoided not only in our profiles, but also in our posts. WA is a spam-free community where we can share our ideas, questions, and successes without fear of being bombarded by requests to look at or promote anything.
I am still a relative newbie with a lot to learn. When I was really new, though, I did not understand all the ways our profile pages can be utilized. The place for us to share our websites and contact info for social media is on the profile page, below the list of our posts.
It is good that we have a standard place to share that information. I like being able to go look at a person's website without having to ask them to send me a PM with their website on it in order to avoid spamming.
Carol
Great points Carol! I too have seen the posts with websites listed. This really is a very friendly and knowledgeable community. I've never been a part of something like this before and while it is currently a financial strain on me I have no intention to leave. Almost every day I am impressed by a number of people in the WA family. I believe that I have found a home.
couldn't agree with you more, Bryan. We are so fortunate to have found this special place we now call home!
That is well said Byran, you have made some very good observations that will help folks. The system here at Wealthy Affiliate is robust and dynamic and the changes that are coming are going to lift that to a whole different league. In the beginning, it can be a case of following what works.
There is plenty of time to scale, thank you for sharing your insights.
Alex, thanks for your kind words. I've always been told that it's better to give than receive, so I try to help share knowledge when I can. Best wishes to you!
Hi Bryan I'm little disagree with you about the frequency of posting. I'm newbie and I chose a sightly liked niche for make it fit, not my very liked niche-> so i think the good frequency is starting with one post with 1000 words per week, and then later about 3 months, go up to 2 posts per week. I think writing in English is one obstacle for newbies or someone whom English is not native speaking language. Besides, it has family duties and job demand plus many thing else.
Just my though as newbie....
Thank you for reading.
Yes, some people have reasons to not post that amount, but what I have suggested is one of the quickest ways to get posts ranked and build traffic.
For those that are not native English speakers I can say that it will be more of a battle for you. I can also say that your English is much better than my attempt at ANY foreign language. If I had to write in another language I would be forced to use Google translate which of course is not perfect.
As for time we all have 24 hours per day. How you choose to use it is what matters. While you may choose to watch television I choose instead to work on my business with every available moment. All of life is a choice. What is right for me may or may not be right for anyone else.
I wish you luck in your online journey.
okay :) i'm totally agree about time management, but to me at this situation.... I have family duties....and I don't have tv or time to watch tv or watch YouTube. If it was YouTube, it would be research about videos which has content related to my post as following Jay's 7 steps optimized post.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Bryan. I appreciate you and your experience in the trenches. Premium membership is a lot of money and Im going to go yearly because its cheaper. WA is an investment in myself and I really need to take the steps outlined here at WA. I like what I have seen and experienced here. Im trying to stay focused and its the community here that makes a difference for me!
The other thing that I can tell you is that they supposedly have a black Friday sale where annual membership is about $300. If you can wait until then save an extra 5 bucks per month.
It's true, they DO! I joined WA about 2 weeks or so prior to that sale, and I waited until then to upgrade. It's my understanding that we get that same yearly rate when we are due to renew. Is that correct?
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Thank you,Bryan for the good advice! I just started 3 days ago and I wonder if I should go premium right away after this initial training or wait until I can have a clear view of what I am doing and getting a little bit of experience with my 2 sites I have created?!
You CAN succeed without going premium, BUT it would be easier if you are premium. I say that because there is SO much more training available AND you can host a .com domain for your site then (25 of them actually....). I use a siterubix domain as a practice site for anything new that I want to try out before publishing it so that I can make sure it will work.
I use the same theme and everything on my practice site just to test things.
One of the big questions is can you afford premium? Once you go premium you can't go back to a free starter membership. Many people don't realize this (that's why it's in the post).
As for the do I need a dot com name, would you rather go to Amazon.com or Amazon.siterubix.com ? That should give you the answer. Of course you could build your site on siterubix and then transfer it over to your own domain with just a couple of clicks, so in the end, it is all up to you, your ambitions, and your goals.
I wish you much success at WA!