2020 - A Decade Of Hope ( And Lessons From The Past 4 Years)

byKennyLee

1.7K followers

Updated 4 years ago

2020 marks the 4th year I'm at WA. At one point, I was thinking of throwing the towel at this thing called affiliate marketing. I thought, maybe WA is just 'another money-draining courses' on the internet.

It's hard not to have such thoughts when I've gone through two years without making money while some members have success in lesser time.

But looking back at this point of time, I've seen growth and thankful for the mistakes that I've done along the way.

Here's a quick recap for my years at WA:

2015 (December)- Signed up at the end of the year after looking for ways to 'make money online'. I didn't know a thing about building websites, domain, SEO and affiliate marketing. There's a whole lot of new information to take in. Nevertheless, I was excited to get started with the course.

2016 -The Year Of Learning

I started building my first website, which is in the personal development niche. I was horrible at writing at first, as the first 300 words blog post took 2 hours and left me utterly drained.

Someow, I managed to push out articles of 500 words, 700 words and eventually 1,000 words on the website. At the end of the year, I have 80+ articles without any noticeable earning. I was dispirited.

2017 - The Year Of Disillusionment

Little did I know that I was going in the wrong direction with my content strategies. I am going after 'how to' keywords that are monopolized by huge sites. I did not publish enough Review and Best Of articles, which are the key in ranking and earning.

Due to the lack of results, I was side tracked by scammy programs and other opportunities like arbitrage dropshipping. I wasted 6+ months hopping form one shiny object to another.

2018 - The Year Of Breakthrough And Denial

I was on the brink of throwing the towel as 2018 kicks in. But I decided to give WA one last try as I don't really like the model of arbitrage dropshipping. By chance, I stumbled across Dylan's training on Best Of articles and I started creating a dozens of them on my website.

To my surprise, sales start trickling in by March and at the end of the year, I was on the $500 mark.

The problem is, I was promoting products based on keywords, and does not stay true to my site's brand. Also, I have an admitedly weak strategy for my site's direction. But on the positive side, affiliate marketing works.

Towards the end of the year, I've created another site that's more targetted and based on the learnings from past mistakes.

2019 - The Year Of Crashing And Rebuild

I thought things will be smooth sailing as my site's earning hit $700 in March. But one fell swoop of Google's algo update wiped out 50% of traffic overnight. Blame the niche that I'm in, blame low priced items that I'm promoting.

But ultimately, I realized that the only way to move forward is to absorb the experience and rebuild.

I started to focus on my second site, which is less competitive and more focused. It's also less volatile in terms of Google's algo. As a prove that what I've learned is not a fluke, the 2nd site starts making money and closes in on a $200 month in December.

In a way, I survived 2019 by making up for the loss in earning with a new website. In total, I've increased my online income by more than 400% with both websites.

2020 - A Decade Of Hope

In a way, I'm glad that I've encoutered all the obstacles that I've had. If you're going to fail, you need to fail early.

Knowing the pitfalls in affiliate marketing and SEO only helps you to move faster. I've recently started my 3rd strategy, in a niche that can be huge. With solid and proven keyword strategies, I believe it's possible to complete in a niche dominated by the big boys.

When you're seeing flat zeros in earnings or lost half of your traffics, it can be very disheartenning. But how you react to the challenges will determine your path forward.

Here's a quick check list if feel you're stuck.

• Are you targeting keywords with low competition? (besides Jaaxy, google search your keyword and see if's fully dominated by authority sites)
• Are you publishing enough articles? (If other affiliate sites have 100+ articles, be prepared to do so. Remember that it takes months to gain authority and rank for a new site.)
• What's your ratio of review/best of articles to 'how-to's'? (It's good to be helpful to others, but the harsh truth is, you'll need lots of money pages to be profitable)

Perhaps the greatest challenge is admitting you've screwed up and starting all over agian. The question is, how many attempts are you willing to take create your own stream of consistent online income?

I'll do what ever it takes, even if it means building more websites and writing of 100,000s more words.. What about you?

2020 marks a decade full of hope for me and I wish you all the best with your online journey.

Cheers,
Kenny