367 Days Into Wealthy Affiliate - My Thoughts So Far

bycraigrut

1.6K followers

6 years ago

As the title says, this is a little rundown of my 367 days at Wealthy Affiliate. So I've broken things into a couple of key areas for those who want to follow along and those who just want to see the overall pieces.

Reasoning For Starting This Endeavor:

I started at WA because I'd attempted to build a website in the past on BlueHost, mostly just for fun, and I got frustrated one month in due to not getting my theme to show posts how I wanted them to show up. There was nobody to help and the theme forums were useless cause I wasn't a paid subscriber.

This led me to start researching other options for a site. I didn't want to just use Wix or a service that did most of the work for you. I wanted to learn. On top of this I have a background in corporate marketing and wanted to expand my skillset and figured affiliate marketing would be a viable long term option.

I ended up selecting WA because I had no interest in being an SEO expert for other people. I didn't want to start an agency. I work with agencies for my job and already know the ins and outs of how they function. I'm not impressed by most agencies (most agencies have most of their clients turn over every 3-5 years) and I already have a day job, thus I skipped out on potential courses like Bullet Proof SEO.

So What Did I Do?

I chose a niche of interest and I started building. I followed the standard training. I didn't want to start multiple sites at the same time. I wanted to focus in one area since I already have a day job and have limited time to dedicate here.

That and given that WA is basically a monster organization that promotes itself I thought it was silly to attempt to compete against other people that have been here 6+7 years promoting the exact same product out of the gate. I assumed I would be destined for bashing my head against my desk in anger.

Anyhow, I chose my niche (pet care) and got going. I did keyword research, I wrote articles, I downloaded and edited photos. I did everything myself. I didn't outsource a single task because I hate managers I've had in the past that tell me how to do X when they've never done it themselves. I wanted to get my hands dirty so if I decided to expand I would know what goes into building from scratch.

How Many Times Did I Almost Give Up?

Often. Many times. My site went idle for a solid month at one point where I posted nothing and was pretty close to just closing my account or never logging in again.

My site saw basically zero organic traffic for the first 6+ months. The first 50+ articles I posted were a total waste of time. The competition was high and writing 1000 word articles doesn't work unless there is zero competition.

Just The Numbers:

• How long I've been at it:
  
• Total Days: 367 Days
• Total Hours: 500-1000 or so (5-10 hours a week)
  
• How much I've spent in $$$$:
  
• WA First Month: $19.00
  
• WA 1 Year Membership: $357
• KWFinder 1 Year Membership: $314
  
• Domain Registration: $13.00
  
• Total: $703.00
  
• How much I've earned in $$$$:
• December 2017: $14.59
• January-March 2018: $110.37
• April 2018: $50.74
• Total: $175.70
  

• Traffic Related:
  
• Page Views: 10,000
  
• Bounce Rate: 72%
  
• Users: 4336
  

Have I Been Successful?

I'd say yes and no:

• Yes:
• I built my first functioning website and it looks somewhat professional
  
• I learned a ton about affiliate marketing and why 24 hour cookie periods suck
• I have started getting consistent traffic to my site for a few articles
• I have started making sales, albeit small ones
• I learned I despise the term "internet marketing" and wish people would stop using it
  
• No:
• My site is absolutely not profitable 1 year in, it didn't even cover the WA membership
• Most of my traffic is based on 2 of over 100+ articles I've posted
• Link building does not happen naturally and it really matters

What Do I Recommend?

What to do:

• WA has a wealth of knowledge and will teach you to stand up a website step by step. Definitely take the training because it is helpful to get the full picture.
  
• Use the community, use the community built training. Talk with people that are more advanced than you and PM people if you think it might help. People here are genuinely nice.
• Knock out the basics of SEO on each post. Jay / magistudios has called them out in a million posts and videos. But don't depend on this alone to drive a lot of traffic.
• Link build. There are numerous trainings here at WA on how to do it and numerous other websites with recommendations. Spend time link building.
• Get a social sharing plugin immediately so people can easily share your posts. It'll be a large source of your initial traffic, especially if you have a large following already.
  
• Get and setup Google Analytics ASAP, but don't check it for the first 3 months.
• Setup Google Seach Console and Bing Webmaster tools ASAP.
  
• Reach out and engage with other people in your niche. I don't mean ask for anything. Say hi to them, comment on their posts, tell them you found their articles useful. Follow them on social media and share their tweets etc. Do this weekly, it should be part of your routine.
• Choose a method for building content and stick to it. I have a few random YouTube videos and I don't think they've ever driven a single visit to my site despite a combined several thousand video views. Don't get me wrong, you can monetize youtube, but it has been a largely wasteful side project for me.
• Choose whatever keyword tool you like. I chose KWFinder cause I thought it looked nicer than the free WA version and I didn't particularly like the Jaaxy interface. That being said, I've compared and contrasted a large number of them just using the free trials and they all come up with different answers to every question I ask. Pick one and run with it unless you can afford to buy multiples and then try to aggregate answers yourself.
  

What NOT to do:

• Do not focus on your WA rank. It is pointless and it should be removed from the website in my opinion. Rank has nothing to do with success. I was rank 150 at one point and hadn't earned a dollar.
  
• Don't just assume that long tail keyword targeting with mid length content is a recipe for success. Large amounts of research from numerous websites (like Backlinko, HubSpot, Kissmetrics) have proven again and again that link building is paramount to ranking effectively in today's search world.
  
• Don't get sucked into WA chat. If you don't need immdiate help turn it off (by logging into your website Dashboard) and focus on what you're doing. Run videos full screen to block it out if possible.
  
• Posting content consistently isn't necessary. If you're not producing good content don't bother posting it at all. Posting 3 times a week shouldn't feel like a necessity. Google DOES NOT CARE about frequency.
• Don't get hung up on other people's random success posts at 1 month and 1 week in. This is not normal and will likely not happen to you. Success takes time. If you can't commit to a year I wouldn't even bother starting cause you're not likely to see success.
  

Wrapping It Up - Will I Renew?

My subscription comes up for renewal in May. I'm likely to renew unless something drastic happens between now and then. Maybe someone will offer to buy my site for its gross potential 3 years down the road. I doubt it though.

All in all I'd consider my time here well spent. I think this is a great place to learn with great people to learn from. I would love to see some changes/updates go into the training to reflect some of the more recent changes in search, but obviously that's an ongoing project for Kyle and Carson.