First off, I am Kyle Loudoun. Co-founder of Wealthy Affiliate, a platform that Carson Lim and I created over 18 years ago and that has turned into a true lifelong passion project. We are a company that focuses on YOU, and how to best help people build thriving businesses within the online world!

To do this, we combine technology, education, and community to offer you the most forward-thinking platform to build an online business within. If you ever feel stuck along the way, scroll down to the comments area of any of the training resources and ask a question. You WILL get help.

Tasks for this Lesson:

• Familiarize yourself with the Affiliate Hubs Platform
• Leave a comment below. Share a bit about yourself and your goals within the online world (and of course any questions that you may have)

Now let’s talk business…and the first steps.

Being “overwhelmed” might accurately describe how you're feeling right now, but there is no need to feel this way because by the end of this lesson, you are going to have a solid grasp of the unlimited potential that awaits you here within Wealthy Affiliate using the "Hubs" platform, the training, and having access to all the levels of support and community.

Our goal is to help you tackle the online world with confidence, and to give you the capability to create a business of any level of success online, and the ability to do this within ANY niche, (passion or interest).

My role is to guide you through this process with a well-calibrated compass, a treasure map, and practical survival lessons. You being the one who takes this guidance, and reaches the pinnacle of the mountain top (that is, significant affiliate success).

Your success is our success, that has been our focus since day 1.

Excited? Let’s get rolling…

Unpacking Wealthy Affiliate’s Hubs Platform.

Enter Wealthy Affiliate’s Hubs platform, your comprehensive environment where you are going to manage your website, research, and content game plan all from one location. Think of it as your virtual headquarters, designed to streamline your entrepreneurial journey.

Upon logging in you will be able to access your Hubs platform from the main dashboard.

Within your Affiliate Hub you are going to be building out your business, and following through the training in a sequential manner....no experience required!

Here is a look at how the Hub environment looks upon arrival:

Now let's chat about the POWER of Hubs, and why this evolutionary environment has become a game changer for newcomers to affiliate marketing, as well as seasoned "super affiliates" alike.

Key Features of YOUR Affiliate Hub:

• Website Management Area. This is where you are going to be able to manage your website, login into your website (Premium & Premium Plus+ members) and to initial your content creation. All websites here are hosted on our high speed, high ranking, and ultra secure Managed Wordpress Hosting framework
  
• Core Training. This is where you will be accessing your key training, which initially is 22 lessons in length, and has 12 additional classes that will help you advance your traffic capabilities and your website development skills as you move through it. As you complete these lessons, additional and more advanced training will become available to our Premium/Premium Plus+ members within this scroll. We are going to truly advance you from any level of marketer, to an expert through this core training +.
  
• Your Path to Success. This is where you can track your progress towards your financial goal. Within the initial onboarding process, you set a monthly revenue goal (which can be updated at any time), and we are going to be providing you with concise tasks that you can follow to reach this goal.
  
• Website Structure & Organization. This section is going to help you discover a broader blueprint for your business, and categories that you can touch on within your niche. The research is done for you, and this will give you over 100 high opportunity content ideas that you can use to build out your business. You can build on these sections with a click of a button as time goes on. This is never seen before "research" that is done for you the second you build your hub.
  
• Task Manager. Manage your writing task through the “To Do” list. This is going to help you streamline your entire business, and give you a focused road map to success within your respective niche. You can add ideas to this list at any point, and it will be pre-loaded with some initial key pages that you want to add to your website.
  

• Niche Research. This is where it gets really fun, you are going to be able to get “ideas galore” related to your niche. This is going to provide you with 100’s of low competition, and highly targeted ideas across your niche that you can use to build out your business...generate high value traffic, and drive revenue to your business.

Embrace this platform. Jump into its features. It’s designed to turn your initial “niche” idea, and create a road-map to a long term and very successful venture online.

Setting the Stage for Success: Your Goals and a Roadmap

Let's talk about planning...

Think of setting up an online business as a journey. Like any worthy journey, it requires an initial roadmap. Let’s understand what you'll be accomplishing in just the next 8 weeks, and how that will set the tone for the year ahead and the success of your business.

Week 1-2: Laying the Foundations – From understanding online business models to niche selection.

The first two weeks are all about constructing a solid foundation. A house built on sand won't withstand the storm, and a business without a strong base will falter. You'll be getting your website and brand set-up, which includes getting your own .com domain! Your piece of the internet is starting to commence!

Week 3-4: Building Your Online Presence – Crafting a website that reflects your brand's voice.

Just as a building takes form with the development of its outer structure, your online presence begins to materialize in weeks 3 and 4. You'll be crafting your website that's true to your brand's voice, starting to build out content, and starting to see indexing into ALL search engines, along with some traffic!

Week 5-6: Content Creation & Marketing – Driving traffic, Integrating Affiliate Programs

Next up, weeks 5 and 6. You've built your “house” (ie, the website), now it's time to invite people over. Enter the world of content creation and marketing—where you attract people from all the key search engines (Google, Bing and Yahoo) and start to reach out your tentacles. We are really going to start ramping up the content creation, and you can do this efficiently with the Article Designer & Author platforms here at WA.

You will start to get rankings and traffic, and move into a positioning of a “scalable online business”. Also, your website is going to be full integrated with affiliate program offers and you will be in a position to apply to ANY affiliate program (and earn revenue from it). This is an exciting time in your business, you'll learn how to drive traffic, foster engagement, stir interest, and incite action.

Week 7-8: Monetization & Scaling – Converting visitors into customers and taking your business to new heights.

Onto weeks 7 and 8. Monetization and scaling. You've got the buzz, you've got the audience, now it's time to really hone on on converting visitors into customers. During these weeks we will introduce you to conversion tactics and strategies to amplify your operations—to take your business to new heights.

At the end of just the first eight weeks, you will have more than just a functional business. You'll have a brand and a vision—an understanding of your destination and the "Road Map" through Affiliate Hubs to get there.

Up next, we are going to be getting into the "brand" side of your business, and how to establish that in the early stages.

Tasks for this Lesson:

• Familiarize yourself with the Business Hubs Platform
• Leave a comment below. Share a bit about yourself and your goals within the online world (and of course any questions that you may have)