What Do You Love To Do So Much You'd Do It For Free?
Please read the title again and think about it seriously. In my book this is THE most important question students of Affiliate Marketing need to answer.
Do you agree? If you do can you share your reasons why you agree.
Do you disagree? If you do, can you share your reasons why you disagree.
If it is OK with you I want to share my reasons why I agree.
My Reasons
It takes about a year to start seeing any traction in your business. Such as getting meaningful traffic. Hence, it makes sense to select a niche that is in alignment with what you enjoy doing.
When the topic you are engaged in is of great interest to you, the whole process can evolve to a very fun experience.
This can result in producing more engaging content for your website. And at a rate that will ensure growing traffic.
Think about it. One of the tenets that is driven home in Wealthy Affiliate is in order to have a shot at growing traffic is to publish content consistently. And lots of it.
Of course, there are other factors such as SEO and using Social Media to promote your content. To promote, you first have to produce.
The Alternative
If you select a niche that you think is going to interest others, but not necessarily interests you, do you think you will have the discipline to create a boat load of content consistently? It could be done, but the process may not be enjoyable,
Eventually your interest will wane and you will create less and less content with time. Can you relate to this scenario?
I know. Because I fell into this category. It takes more effort to overcome inertia. A different mondselt is necessary.
How I Ended Up With A MMO Niche
TAKE 1
When I decided to get involved with Affiliate Marketing my first thought was to find a niche within the music sphere. My mentor thought that was a worthwhile niche and the best approach would be to create videos. My aim should be to help people learn to play the piano or keyboard, which happens to be my specialty.
I balked. Was it too much to start out with video right from the get go? Although I love music and would do it even if I didn't get paid, I shelved that idea until I gained more experience through the training of Wealthy Affiliate.
TAKE 2
Why not use the concept of Affiliate Marketing to sell a form of Legal Insurance? I am a member of an MLM company that offers unlimited access to lawyers for legal advice. This also included limited services such as representation in court. There were other services but I am not going to discuss them.
Like any MLM business, the premise to build your business is to start of with a small group of customers, then associates, and through ones team, build an army of active associates. This is how it is possible to create residual income, the promise of MLM.
Sadly, the challenge is to not only sign up associates but also to motivate them to duplicate what you are doing. If they do not, you will not earn residual income. And if you do, it will be a paltry amount. The chances are they will drop out and you will see nothing for your effort.
However, what if I could use Affiliate Marketing to just market the product? The monthly cost was about the same as a WA Premium monthly subscription. If I succeeded in attracting scores of subscribers, that would earn me a healthy residual income.
I used this concept for my first website niche. But I shelved it. Why you may ask?
TAKE 3
As I was going through the Wealthy Training I was very impressed with this platform. When Kyle invited me to join the Super Affiliate Challenge, I thought why not? I could create a website devoted to the Make Money Online (MMO) niche.
Initially I thought I could do both niches. However, when I figured out I needed to write a lot of content I decided to put my legal website on hold and go all out with my MMO website.
Since then I have written over 120 posts. And learned a whole lot. It has also helped me to start earning an income.
Here's the problem. I should have three times the posts following my own advice. Why don't I?
I thoroughly enjoy promoting Wealthy Affiliate. I don't enjoy so much writing about other MMO's. It became clear that writing reviews on other MLM companies got the most clicks for others in this field. Researching other MLM companies is not something I enjoy doing.
Of course, the conclusion always is, select Affiliate Marketing instead of MLM. And come to WA to get trained.
What Now?
Wealthy Affiliate has a wealth of specialized training in all facets of building an online business. And this can range from Affiliate Marketing to Drop Shipping as well as providing website and SEO services to Local Businesses.
Quite by accident I discovered Wealthy Affiliate now offers any member to offer prospects two weeks of total access to the Wealthy Affiliate Platform with no charge.
Any affiliate link from the Classes from the pull down menu can be used for this relatively new program. I understand this is in a trial phase.
Just think, we can offer others training in at least the following topics:
- Website Creation
- How To Select A NIche
- SEO Training
- Video Creation
- Secrets To Effective Content Creation
- The Use Of Social Media To Promote ones business
- How to Use the Free Google Tools to Structure Ones Business
These are not free memberships. In order to have access to Premium Plus offerings, the prospect needs to enter their credit card information. If they cancel within two weeks, they will not be charged.
If they decide to continue as Wealthy Affiliate members, they will have the option of signing up as either Premium or Premium Plus members.
Free Member Option
This still exists. When you use the banners and your Wealthy Affiliate personal affiliate link, anyone can sign up using these with no need for a credit card. The existing free membership program exists as it always has.
You can offer affiliate links to the OEC and Bootcamp training modules as part of the free program. But not from the Classes pull down menu.
Why Two Avenues For Wealthy Membership?
At first, I asked myself this question. As I examined the crucial differences. I had a light bulb moment.
For those who want to market the Wealthy Affiliate Program to serious prospects, going the free two weeks exposure to Premium Plus is the way to go. It may take a different marketing approach to find prospects in this group. However, when you get these prospects to sign up, the chances are there will be a higher conversion rate to paid members compared to the free member route.
Having both options to become Wealthy Affiliate Super Affiliates is a huge plus.
My New Path
My main focus is to promote the programs in the Classes section to attract referrals. I will pepper my posts with MMO's other than Wealthy Affiliate. Since I believe so strongly in the value of Wealthy Affiliate I will continue to be an advocate of this company.
With all that material available at my fingertips, it has become more easy to churn out posts. I am building a template that I can use for this purpose to speed up my content writing.
Eventually I will build out my Legal niche. And start a new music niche. But only after I build and use the skill set necessary to succeed in this pursuit. Success means meeting the income goals I set up when I joined Wealthy Affiliate.
You may notice that I am still just a Premium member. Since I was able to grandfather the lowest annual Premium membership WA offered, and which will never be offered again, I feel I can get the most value to wait until this membership comes up for renewal in March 2022 before upgrading to Premium Plus.
Even so, I can still earn higher commissions if any of my referrals join or upgrade to the Premium Plus level. However, I will be very happy if most of my referrals end up being just Premium members like me. I can see the value of Premium Plus, and may indeed upgrade sooner.
My Original Question
What do you enjoy doing so much you would do it for free?
Think about this question seriously. Then please share is you would or would not and why in the comments section below.
Recent Comments
19
Hi Edwin
This is a very thought-inspiring post. I think you have already received some excellent responses. When I started with WA I also thought I would do a site in the music niche. In my case, I toyed with hoarding musical instruments - a bit of a weakness of mine and I registered a domain name based around that, so if I wanted I could add specific sites relevant to that whole area. But I only published a few posts and then got side-tracked. I came back a year later to WA and started another site in a whole other niche, keeping the music site for later. That was about a year ago and my current site is now starting to build organic traffic more meaningfully.
I do think it is important that the WA community has successful people who are not only in the MMO niche. I don't think I would do well in the MMO niche as I would not have the patience to review all those scammy products. To be honest I hardly have the patience to write comments on other people's posts about them.
One thing is very clear though because I thoroughly enjoy creating content in my niche and building out my site I keep going and producing. It is interesting to see traffic grow and who knows, maybe there will be sales one day somewhere down the line.
Best regards
Andy
Hi Andy,
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. How uncanny that you also had a musical niche in your sights and also shelved it for later.
May I ask what niche you are developing now that is beginning to see growth in traffic? Good for you. Are you publishing about three posts a week?
There is another reason why I decided to stick with my Affiliate Marketing site. It takes time for Google to recognize your site as an authority site. I read somewhere that Google uses an algorithm where they send traffic to your site and tracks the click throughs you are able to attract. If you do well they send even more traffic. And if you don't, well they slow down the traffic too. The way they achieve that is to place your URL high up the search engine pages.
When I wrote three articles a week I noticed that a good percentage of my posts landed on Page 1. Now that I've dropped to one a week, my Page 1 stats has also dropped. Hence it is in our control to get better results. Just required work lol.
Let's keep in touch. All the best to you.
Cheers.
Edwin
Hi Edwin
I have to be realistic and accept there is no way I can create 3 posts a week. My posts tend to be long and require much research. I can spend a whole day just creating visuals for a post. I manage one post every 4 or 5 days on average. I work full time as well and have family responsibilities so I have to be realistic.
My niche is personal finance.
One day I hope we will get the time to tackle our musical passions as well
All the best
Andy
I feel I am doing the niche I love for free most of the time now anyway. And, I feel I am being realist in my assumption that developing an income strem in this niche is a long term process. Even building a rose garden is a long term operation. I blogged about the bamboo forest taking years of root development before the shoots came out of the ground and I look at online marketing in the same way.
Speed kills on the highway and knowing how to pace oneself for growth will get one home safe and sound.
Thanks for sharing your ideas on this subject. I truly enjoyed your post.
Best wishes for continued success.
Dan
Hi Edwin, such a brilliant, thought-provoking post. I've been in hot inner debate about this topic for months because I'm considering creating a new website.
I can't decide whether to go with...
Option 1: A website on Affiliate Marketing or Passive income Strategies (MMO Niche)
Or
Option 2: A website on a Wholeood Plant-based Lifestyle (Health & Wellness Niche)
Here's why I'm torn...
Option 1:
I'm nervous of the MMO Niche for exactly the reason you mentioned - I don't enjoy writing those review posts comparing other affiliate networks, opportunities or courses.
Also, when I research other affiliate marketing options I tend to get sucked in by the hype and I land up going down rabbit holes that waste my time and money. I know by experience that I'm way too susceptible to shiny object syndrome. Aaaargh.
I had kind of settled on writing about passive income strategies because that's a topic that fascinates me and I seem to be very good at saying no to opportunities that don't appeal to me (like investing in bitcoin for assistance), so I'm hoping I can keep my laser focus there.
The biggest pro in choosing this niche is that Wealthy Affiliate is so amazing that I know it's something I can happily promote. I have upgraded to Premium Plus and the training is amazing. Yay!
Option 2: I've been into Health & Wellness for years and recently went plant-based.
Because it's a new lifestyle choice for me, I spend a lot of my free time researching the topic, whether I'm writing a post or not. I might as well be turning all that new knowledge into posts, and lately I have been writing some mammoth posts on the topic and there's so much more to say.
I feel incredibly inspired by the topic because if I advocate for this diet I could potentially save people's lives and protect animals and help the environment. So it's a really feel-good topic for me.
The only snag, I don't know what program or course I would be promoting.
I'm guessing the decision will be made for me when the right program presents itself. Or perhaps I will create my own.
Thanks again for your post. Really helped me work through my own thought process.
Hey Lauren,
Glad you liked this post. Answer the question of my post if you are able to. That will tell you what direction to take. \\
If your nutrition program is MLM based, you can do both, Share the benefits of the products. Then also bring up the importance today to get a better understanding how to use the Internet to promote your nutrition program. And suggest to those who are interested in the MLM niche.to join you in WA to become great at using the Internet. Much like what I had in mind for my Legal MLM program.
What do you think?
I wish you much success whatever you do.
Edwin
You're right, Edwin, it's a grrreat question. I'll keep firing that question and listen for the answer.
Regarding your MLM suggestion, also a great idea...I am involved in network marketing but I discovered the company I'm with isn't considered vegan due to technicalities - they don't double blind studies on their supplements and some supplements contain ingredients derived from animals.
Such a pity because it would have been perfect to promote them as they have launched an affiliate marketing program.
Hey Edwin I like this post. In response, What gets my brain cells jumping is the creative process of being able to understand a business problem and come up with a novel digital solution that would transform that original business idea/ model.
Hugh
See more comments
It’s good to see you here, Edwin.
That’s a thought provoking post.
I’ll comment in due course!
:-)
Richard
Thanks Richard. I like sharing my personal Affiliate Marketing evolution with others if it can be of help. We are all working towards a similar goal that truly enhances the journey.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Cheers.
Edwin
Hi again Edwin
Thinking back, I'd say that what I would do without being paid has evolved over the years.
I've been down a few paths.
For example... there was a time when I had a music fellowship at a UK University and happily spent many hours teaching music and in particular the violin. I loved it at the start and over time however realised that most students didn't have my passion for learning the subject. For most, it simply wasn't their thing. Over time I got it out of my system.
A little later through teaching windsurfing part-time, I began to develop an interest in coaching. I got a kick out of helping competitors improve their performance, Some of it was physical skills but realised that most gains were made through what I called "mind games" at the time.
Not many years later, in the corporate world, I realised I loved helping other people make the changes they needed to achieve something... actually more or less anything. Most of those changes are internal (to do with the mind and mindset).
I happily coach people for free. It's a bit of a habit that I need to be careful to not overdo. But to be clear I do mean coach not teach. There are many teachers on the internet (some excellent at what they do) who call themselves coaches. That is not what I mean by coaching.
To me a coach is someone who helps people to figure out, largely for themselves, what they want and how to get it, then to take appropriate action and through periodic review, learn to tweak what they do. I get people to take responsibility for their own progress and results.
Some people (commendably) talk about teaching people to fish so that they can feed themselves. I tend to talk about creating the habits to be able to figure out for themselves how to fish or anything else they want (sometimes that includes finding a good teacher).
When I coach I want people to learn the nuances of (my) coaching process. I take them through a process of "self-discovery" (that's not a spiritual thing, I just can't think of a better way to put it in just a few words).
:-)
Richard
Hello Richard,
You didn't disappoint me with your response. Definitely worth reading and pondering over.
I love the way you describe the art of coaching. Spot on in my book. Another point you made was teaching people to develop the right habits to succeed at what they want to do. Sounds like that Noom weight loss program uses this approach too.
Did you read my multi week Chapter by Chapter review I did here in 2020 about Think and Grow Rich? That book not only presents the habits necessary necessary to change ones life to attract wealth, but also the drills necessary to help one change our habits. Not easy to do. But it can work. It got a great deal of responses and spawned an energetic discussion in the comments section.
Just in case you didn't see it and are interested, here is the link: Think & Grow Rich - Could Be Worth A Million Dollars To You! Glad to hear that you are a musician. Although my first profession was in Engineering, I continued my music training I started in early childhood and earned the Licentiate of The Royal Academy Of Music in 1974. I have done occasional teaching, but like you, it is no fun when the teacher is more interested in the success of their students than the students themselves. My sister who lives in Basingstoke plays the violin, piano and the guitar. She has made a living teaching music.
Many years ago I had bought a 6' Steinway Grand. Sadly I had to sell it after the Great Recession for financial reasons. I wasn't playing it at the time and felt someone else could benefit more from owning that instrument. I sold it to a friend of Elton John in LA.
Today, all I can afford is a digital piano. Lately I have been practicing my old pieces to get them to a minimum standard to post online. This week I posted the 1st Movement of The Moonlight Sonata on my Facebook Site. I hope to add the 2nd and 3rd in due course.
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my post. Let's stay connected Richard.
Cheers.
Edwin