The truth about Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate is an online educational institution. It is an extensive site that offers unlimited training on every aspect of starting, building and maintaining an online business.
Wealthy Affiliate does not offer a guarantee to a successful online business. Yes, success is possible. But success is completely dependent on the tenacity, the drive, the desire, the skill level and creativity of the person who starts the business. Wealthy Affiliate can provide the tools but it is the person that has to follow it through.
Wealthy Affiliate does not provide a path to getting rich quickly. When someone comes here because they are unemployed and they need to pay their bills and feed their family, they are going to be sorely disappointed if they think that following all of the steps will lead them to a full time income in two months. There is no get-rich formula in starting a new business. You need to create a brand (finding a niche and choosing a domain), build a store front (setting up your website from the ground up), do consistent and diversified marketing (SEO, social media, video, email marketing), build trust in the community (writing consistent quality engaging content that supports you as an authority), and maintain and grow the business even when there are no customers (continuing to write and grow your website and your reach despite that fact that you are getting to little or no traffic). These are the same steps that are taken if you want to open a restaurant or a gift shop in your neighborhood. It takes time, and sweat, and tears, and tenacity, and the confidence that despite the odds (because the odds are indeed against you) that you will succeed.
The fact of the matter is most people who come to Wealthy Affiliate will not succeed and there a couple of reasons for this.
Some will not see the immediate result of their labors and after a couple of months they will drop out figuring that they will go to one of those other programs that promise you $1000's every month if you just pay these astronomical fees. We all know what happens in the long run.
Others will not succeed because let's face it, this is not easy. The learning curve is huge. Yes, Wealthy Affiliate offers a "wealth" of information, more information than you will get anywhere else, and that information is well-organized and presented in as simple terms as possible. But if you have little to no experience with computers, the internet, social media and a plethora of other things, you will find great difficulty understanding even the simplest of tutorials. I am a freelance web designer but I found that navigating around Wordpress was challenging at first. I had to ask lots of questions and go on the support forums of the products I was using numerous times in order to get my website to look and behave the way I wanted it to. Certainly, the support is there to walk people through the steps, but it is a steep climb to proficiency when you are starting from zero. Some people will not have the capacity or interest to overcome this steep learning curve. Think about it, everybody can go to college if they want to but for lots of reasons, not everyone can succeed in college.
The certification courses, classrooms, discussion boards and bootcamps make Wealthy Affiliate a truly excellent online learning university. However, the greatest asset of Wealthy Affiliate is the community. You are encouraged to interact with others who are trying to do what you do - some are succeeding, some are struggling, some are just starting out. If you have a question about anything, even the simplest thing, you can reach out to the community and get an immediate answer. If you have had a success no matter how small, you shout it out to the community and you receive an incredible amount of accolades. If you are struggling and don't know how or if you want to continue, you reach out to the community and you are deluged with positive reinforcement and support to keep you moving forward. This is unlike any other e-learning site out there.
But in the end, YOU are completely responsible for the success or failure of your business. If you are up for it, joining Wealthy Affiliate can be the best investment you can make. But you have to commit. You have to commit to do whatever it takes to get over the hurdles - and there will be a lots (some seemingly unsurpassable) of hurdles. You have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone every day. You have to be willing to learn and apply and then learn again when it doesn't work out the way you expected. You have to be consistent in your work. You have to put yourself out there otherwise no one will know who you are or care that you have something to say.
If that is YOU, then welcome home!
Recent Comments
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Thanks, a great post with huge amounts of truth. WA as you say is not for everyone. I think though that there is a segment of WA people who will use the skills which they learn here for avenues which are not the affiliate marketing route. An example might be someone who has learnt SEO here and goes on to advise local business persons how to maximise their usage of the web based business opportunities. So whilst I absolutely agree with your post I think there are additional avenues which we might point out to would be Internet marketers that they might consider.
Hudson.
Yes, Hudson, I think you are correct. And all that information is here in order to learn the intricacies of SEO in whatever capacity people want to use it.
Have very true. If people want to succeed you have to put the time into learning and grab it with both hands. Success is not something that is guaranteed it is earned.
It may take me a little time but I do plan on having success, like many other here at WA.
That's good. As long as you know coming into it that it is going to take hard work and a fair amount of time, you can make that decision as to whether you are up for it. It sounds like you are!
absolutely I agree! I realize that it will most likely take a couple of years to get to my dream, but I'm a takin' One Step At a Time! Well written.
Thanks for sharing. It's true, that it will take time, quality writing article, a good website, and trust in people to purchase products on your website.
This is the only direction in my life, that I honestly believe full heartedly that I will be successful, and achieve my dreams. God help me where I'm wrong, so that I will succeed.
Eric
Excellent! It sounds like you've got the "stuff" to make it happen! I wish you only the best in your journey.
Great Overview of the Big Picture, Regina! I think I will send people to see this as another viewpoint to mine when I invite them to check us out. Well Done!
Thank you! I am hopeful it will inform people of the reality of this business so they aren't disillusioned when they come in and don't make $10,000 in their first month.
This is SO excellent...Regina. I was actually thinking of writing a review similar to the one above, once I get to know WA. Somehow deep inside, I know that you have given a 100% clear picture of what WA really is. It puts things in perspective. I'll have to refer back to this blog often to remind myself when I get discouraged.
100% perfect description of what WA is all about. Excellent post, the best i have read in some time and I have read a lot of truly wonderful threads in the month or so I have been here.
I can totally relate to this having been looking for this site for some time. I have always had the ambition but never the knowledge, help and support that are so crucial to success.
The world's greatest footballer (soccer player) cannot do very much without the ball. WA is that ball.
Thank you so much. The tools are all here but not everyone will know what to do with them, right?
Yes I agree, that's very much the case.
I found the post to be particularly interesting though because I had been pondering whether it would be possible to use some of the comments posted on WA on my website (promoting WA), on a 'testimonials' page perhaps, and this particular blog is a perfect example of what I had in mind.
Unfortunately I'm not sure it's feasable as Google would probably view it as copied content. The logistics of agreeing it with the relevant authors might also present an issue as those of us who are producing websites promoting WA are of course effectively competing with each other.
I wouldn't copy the text and put it on a testimonials page on your website but you could certainly put a link on your website that would lead your readers to this post. I think that the link can have your affiliate ID on it so that you would get the credit for any sign-ups that would come from reading it.
Yes linking is an option I made a note of, I am a little concerned about driving potential customers to WA too early though. My concern is that they will click links to testimonial-type threads then start to look around the site and get confused.
They will also be presented with the "You are viewing the site as a guest" sign-up page so may view such a link as a "trick" to get them to sign up. I feel it may be better to direct them directly to the sign-up process.
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Bravo! Encore!
Thank you!