$636.30 USD From An Affiliate Program I Completely Forgot About!
Funny story...
I had originally planned this post about something different—a milestone I reached the other day.
If you’re wondering if this Wealthy Affiliate thing really works, I get it. I know what it’s like when you’re starting out and not getting much traffic (or any traffic for that matter). Every single one of us has been there.
You wonder if you’re wasting your time—your friends and family are certain that you’re wasting your time.
You ask yourself if this is BS, if Google hates you… or if SEO only works for people born during the second hour of the first full moon in the year of the Tiger.
I get it.
So, I had originally planned to share some traffic numbers as proof that what you’re learning here does work, and I will. Then I'll get to the subject promised in the Headline - $636.30 USD From An Affiliate Program I Completely Forgot About!
But first, to say it again, yes Wealthy Affiliate works. It just takes time, effort and most importantly… patience. I can’t emphasize that word enough.
Patience.
As long as you're consistent with keyword research and content creation, Google will get around to you. It won't happen fast enough, but eventually, if you keep your foot on the gas, they will show you some love.
Like everyone who follows Wealthy Affiliate's training, I started with one keyword and one post. Then another, and another, and so on…
Those early posts are cringe worthy and I didn't yet comprehend the full scope of what real keyword research entails, but very few people knock it out of the park from the word go... so, if you can relate, don't worry about it.
No one picks up the guitar their very first time and nails a perfect rendition of Stairway to Heaven.
Likewise... checking your Google Analytics after you've written 2 posts is probably not going to be inspiring.
I know, because for the longest time I was addicted to the pain of checking my traffic daily until I just couldn’t do it anymore.
Recently though, I’ve been waking up everyday and checking them again because I had been knocking on the door of a goal (an arbitrary goal of course), and then it happened on April 3rd…
Yes… I had come close before but on April 3rd my site finally reached 2K sessions for the day.
I was of course excited, and wanted to show anyone who has doubts about what they're doing here at WA that it works.
However… before I could write that post, I woke up to something even better!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still excited about my traffic milestone… but this is what I woke up to yesterday. An email from PayPal.
I thought it was a phishing scam! You know, the kind that provides a link for you to sign into your PayPal account, which takes you to a fake lookalike login page where they grab your login credentials.
Nope. I logged into my proper account and the money was there. Of course, at this point I remembered setting up my affiliate account with this particular company. But I didn't expect it to make money.
And it’s even better because I’m in Canada… so $636.30 USD is like $230K CAD!!!
Okay, maybe I'm off by a few bucks. It’s more like $851 (and ninety-seven cents), but who’s counting, right?
Did I mention this was an affiliate program I had forgotten about? 😀
Way back in January (I think) when I was… well, I can’t remember what I was doing, or why I was doing it. But for whatever reason I had checked a post I had written about a year ago and noticed it was ranked number one. It wasn't getting a ton of traffic, but being in the number one spot I figured I might as well join their affiliate program, right? Seemed like a good idea.
I do remember checking the stats a few times after signing up, but it wasn’t really doing much. A few clicks but no conversions, so it just slipped my mind and since then I had completely forgetton about it... that is until yesterday when they paid me $851 CAD...
.... (and ninety-seven cents) ;-)
So there it is…
Does Wealthy Affiliate work? Yes, it absolutely works... and despite all of your frustrations and disappointments, you may have some pleasant surprises along the way.
Recent Comments
29
Thanks for your inspiration and congrats on your sale.
Making money online is a process as anything else as well. If you want to grow a plant you need time. If you want to become a great sportsman, you need time. If you want to grow your business you need time.
Time resolves many things. Time is powerful and that is why many people "hate time!" On the other side, many people love time because they know the time can bring success.
Wealthy Affiliate is a system that is proven and is built on time as well.
Patience is a great companion if you know how to use it.
I wish you many more PayPal payments like that and a lot of success.
Best regards,
Igor
Nice! Would be nice to duplicate that a few times, eh? That's one good thing about Evergreens. They don't require a lot of maintenance. ;-)
I agree, evergreen content is important. It would be nice to have all evergreen content but it's not always practical from a keyword standpoint (depending on your niche).
Non-evergreen content has it's advantages as well though. It's typically easier to rank (and write) and is great for growing your list of email subscribers.
I've heard this kind of story several times here in the community. For what ever reason, a site gets put aside for other priorities. Months go by tending to these other priorities.
Something attracts attention to these old sites and surprise, surprise. The site has a nice traffic stream and has made some significant sales.
I wonder what would happen if you took the time to update some of the old content, maybe even add a new post or two. Now that the site has some 'Google love' would this produce an increased and growing traffic stream?
Maybe it depends on the type of site and what it's promoting. The old adage "if it works, don't fix it" might apply but we as creators are always looking to tweak and improve our creations.
If, on the other hand, I could create a few "fire and forget" sites like this one, I would be one happy camper. lol
Actually I think it all boils down to traffic. I'll bet that if Jay showed us the Traffic growth chart (like the one he describes above for another site) it would show a similar positive growth pattern.
But why it did this during a period of no attention, of course, is a Google mystery.
Hey Dennis, so this income was from an older post I had forgotten about but on my main site. I discovered it was ranking number one for the important keywords and figured I might as well set up an affiliate account and monetize that particular post. When nothing seemed to be happening with it the first couple weeks (some clicks but no conversions) I forgot all about it.
But as far as that post doing well on Google, that's because it's part of my main site.
Definitely cool :-) I remember reading posts from others with similar stories and thinking the same thing, lol. It's lucky in a way, yes... but I'm not sure it's lucky that I made money with that affiliate program or I'm just lucky that I had forgotten about it which is why it was a surprise, lol. Maybe a little of both.
Thanks so much for reading and commenting,
Jay
Absolutely brilliant. Multiple streams of income, that is the way. Great result and so true about the training here.
Keep up the great work
I agree... it's crucial to monetize your site(s) in multiple ways. I didn't do that for the longest time, only focusing on one... but you never know how much money you're leaving on the table. Just adding a few more monetization strategies in the last couple months with no other significant changes to my site has been worth thousands so far. And, I owe all of that to WA and to other members who have been kind enough to share their knowledge and time to help out.
Thanks for reading and sharing :-)
Jay
Yes... a happy surprise it was. We all need more of those in our lives I think.
Thanks for reading and commenting :-)
Jay
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So awesome! I'm in Canada too and those inbound US dollars are sweet!!
Right!? 😀
Always nice to hear from fellow Canadians. I see you're in Vancouver... I spent many years doing sales in Vancouver as well. My wife and I are from that area and the "plan" is to move back next summer.
That's wonderful! Such a great city... it's growing like crazy so I guess the secret is out ;)
Hope you've had a great weekend!