Wealthy Affiliate Review in 2017, An Open Discussion
I know there are plenty of folks that want to hear my insights into WA and get an overview of not just what we offer here, but also get some insights into our ideologies and motives that drive the Wealthy Affiliate platform forward.
Because of this, I have spent some time breaking down all of this stuff down in a very through, forward thinking Wealthy Affiliate review. Not just today, but tomorrow...and the future of WA.
To be honest, the future has never been brighter and there has never been a better time to be part of WA.
First though, I want to give you my elevator pitch and how I perceive Wealthy Affiliate and how if someone asked me on the street what Wealthy Affiliate is, what I would tell them.
What is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is an affiliate marketing community boasting close to 850,000 active members. It provides folks with an all-inclusive experience providing it’s members with state of the art hosting, websites, expert help, training resources, live video classes, and even access to the founders, Kyle & Carson.
There is big emphasis on the “all inclusive” component of WA. We not only want to offer a service within the online business space, our goals have and always will be to remove the “extra” costs and to centralize all the services, tools, training, and support within ONE environment so you don’t need to be managing 10 different services and spending WAY more than you need to operate your business.
Wealthy Affiliate has become, far and away, the most cost efficient platform in the industry. The most technologically advanced platform. The most helpful and altruistic community. The plan is to keep things this way.
That is our goal. That is what we are striving for, but we know that as with any platform we can always get better. No system or platform is perfect and we definitely would never say anything we do at Wealthy Affiliate is perfect. If you live in that mind frame, you simply won’t get better.
Our egos are checked at the door every day when we come to work, and we go to work hard with our team of over 25 people that are working diligently building and improving upon WA behind the scenes. We come up with ideas, we shut down ideas, we design things that never get rolled out, we roll things out that we don’t love and pull them back, and sometimes we simply nail it with certain projects (which we intend to do with all, but it just doesn’t happen this way).
Some things that we have already improved at Wealthy Affiliate in 2017.
SiteSSL, Free SSL.
Every website hosted here at Wealthy Affiliate now has the ability to get FREE SSL. This is something that has conventionally cost $50+ per domain, completely included with your Premium membership here at WA.
It is as easy as a "toggle" to turn SSL (which makes your site https:// vs. http://) in Google and other search engines.
Updating Training, by Design
A well trained affiliate marketer is a successful one. That is something that we will never lose sight of and as we move forward (as we have in the past), our training will continue to evolve and stay ahead of the industry.
But training is not just the “words” or the “videos”. A proper training facilty offers an environment that is designed in a very clear and concise manner, that makes the process of learning efficient, and that leads to getting quick and expert help. These are things that we have focused on in two significant updates recently.
Update 1: Courses, Tasks in SideBar
As you are going through the training now, you can see from an Eagle’s eye point of view where you are at within any given Course. The main training modules of Certification have 5 courses and 50 lessons, while Bootcamp has 7 courses and 70 lessons. It is important to understand where you are at within the training.
We have also improved the design through the ease in which you can get help within the main training. There is a help button that is clearly visible within every lesson that you can simply click to get access to community support. .
Update 2: Smart Training Menu Design
When you are starting out, it is nice to have an understanding not just where you are at within the training, but where you are headed. With so many “distractions” out there, we wanted to bring clarity-of-process to the forefront within the menu structuring at Wealthy Affiliate.
When you click either the “Get Started Here” (Online Entrepreneur Certification) or the Affiliate Bootcamp buttons within the main menu, you now get a full overview of all the courses offered within each, with a high level progress bar as to what you have accomplished within each.
This has been well received and it has offered incredible clarity to everyone, not just Starter members.
Live Classes. Months of Stuff.
We have already done a Facebook Ads month this year, and coming in the month of April, after the success of the last “niche project” that was done, Jay is going to be doing a micro-niche website from start to finish.
There are millions and millions of pockets of opportunity just about everywhere and Jay is going to dig into a few year, start to finish, case study on how to leverage another one of these pocket niches. It is going to be a brilliant series that you are not going to want to miss.
And if you wanted to check out the 5 Class Series on Facebook Ads, you can find all the training here.
- Facebook Ads: Building a Quality Fan Page (Week 1)
- Facebook Ads: Boosting Posts (Week 2)
- Facebook Ads: Creating Awesome Ads (Week 3)
- Facebook Ads: Working with Local Businesses (Week 4)
- Facebook Ads: Retargeting to Site Visitors (Week 5)
As with every year, we have no less than 52 Live Classes with Full Q&A sessions coming your way. It is going to be another year of amazing training.
New & Improved Training.
This is something that is constantly taking place within Wealthy Affiliate. Every year there are 100’s of new training modules released to the community at Wealthy Affiliate. 2017 is going to be no different.
As the Internet and technology evolves, so do we and all fronts of the training are going to be updated this year. Affiliate Bootcamp is going to get updated. Online Entrepreneur is going to get updated. New training coming on brand new, current topics relating to SEO, Niches, Keyword Research, PPC, Social marketing, E-com and Drop Shipping.
2016 was the most proactive year yet on the training side of things, and 2017 is going to truly be next level. Lots to look forward to for all members within the community.
SiteBuilder 2.0. Coming VERY Soon.
What Else is Coming in 2017. LOTS.
The engine behind the scenes at Wealthy Affiliate is always churning, a lot can be accomplished in few months (as you can see) let alone an entire year if you have a the ideas and the team that is able to implement these ideas.
Here is a sneak look into just some of the projects that we have going on behind the scenes. I am not going to elaborate into too much detail as we will be announcing MORE as we near the roll out dates or when we actually launch these new platforms, but 2017 is going to be the busiest yet here for Wealthy Affiliate members.
Project 1: Mobile, Mobile Design and Mobile Features.
Project 2: Activity Dashboard 2.0, Dynamic and Enhanced
Project 3: Ambassador Platform, Rankings and New Goodies
Project 4: Events. The Platform.
Project 5: Jaaxy 3.0. New Design, Improvements, Technology and Integration.
Project 6: Bootcamp 2.0, Enough Said.
These are just "some" of the new platforms and features coming in 2017, there are many others that I have left out (intentionally, lol), but are going to be next level, game changing platforms.
Of course you will notice these new platforms and they will be acknowledged as we roll them out with launch posts and new system/platform training. Lots to look forward to in 2017 and I wanted to offer you my personal review and insights into Wealthy Affiliate.
What Do You Want From Wealthy Affiliate?
I want to open the discussion here to you, the member and the most valued aspect of WA. Over the years we have grown and evolved because of you, the community. I want to ask you a few questions here and I would love your feedback on both of them.
What are you favourite aspects of Wealthy Affiliate currently, what do you love about the platform?
What are some things that you would like to see in the future added to or improved upon with Wealthy Affiliate? As I mentioned, we have lots of projects on the go and some of these may be in line with your "wants", but no idea here is too crazy and we really want your feedback.
Please leave your feedback, comments, and questions below.
Recent Comments
305
Kyle, One thing I would like to point out. It's regarding the mobile friendliness of WA platform.
When I'm outside using smartphone to browse WA platform and do some work, there are things that are not easy to use.
For example, when writing a blog post in WA and uploading an image, it's really hard to drag the crop size on mobile phone and the crop box will keep on jumping around.
Also, the top right icons that has drop downs are not really mobile friendly. See the screenshots below. You need to zoom out to see everything but it will be very small. If you zoom in, the right side is cut off and cannot be accessed.
These happen both in chrome and safari.
So my feedback is more on the mobile side. I can see that you have put that into your project. Hope to see some improvement in the mobile friendliness of WA platform.
Although I do not access WA normally via a mobile device, these days many do...I have done comments once or twice using my phone, but found it cumbersome and not a good experience...
An upgrade to have a fully responsive site or portions of the site available to members would be helpful. It would be a boon for those like yourself that do use the site while underway or otherwise...
I can only imagine what a chore that such an upgrade entails...Surely it will be a headache, maybe a migraine-sized headache...
This is the direction the market is heading, however, so having an app and a version that works well on all devices is pretty much a standard these days...
Good suggestion!
Dave : )
Mobile is top of our priority list with all future rollouts and we are deep into the development of many mobile elements that are going to be coming to WA.
Trust me, it is in our immediate focus and with a complex platform such as WA, it isn't as simple as just "making it responsive". There are design issues that need to be accounted for as there are many platforms here that are not just your standard text/comment layouts. There is SiteRubix and the 7 platforms within that, there are 3 columns within most aspects of WA, there is a consideration for a proper menu structuring, etc.
Lots to consider, but we are doing a thorough job and there is absolutely going to be an iterative and progressive rollout of a mobile side of WA through 2017.
It will just work on mobile and work great!
Hey Kyle!
Thanks for the response.
I have trust in you and WA. I'm sure WA will always be the best place to be for online entrepreneurs!
Drag and drop feature for site builder, in depth analytic tool and mail follow up system would be good to implement
Can't wait for the mobile version to up and running too- been dying to see that happening as I only have time using WA when I am at work.
More funnel trainings would be good
Yeah, definitely high on our priority and it is definitely deep into development (many aspects). We are going to be iteratively improving on the mobile side through 2017!
Kyle - happy to be a tester for you if need me as a user to test any development Yiu are prototyping. I just need a test scripts.
To be honest, WA is catching up the online marketing trend. I am to be blame too as I didn't even make full of the platform.
But I like this community as it actually a good and honest community.. And I trully enjoy this even though I have not fully used the system except for replying and responding to comments which builds up my writing skills.
I find the hover-over pop-ups get in the way. They're too fast for me and I have trouble with them. Just a few minutes ago, I was writing a comment and wound up in one of the classrooms when I went to reset the cursor and got too close to the left sidebar.
Could there be a setting in each account that would toggle this feature On=Hover/Off=Click?
For example, hovering the mouse over the SiteRubix box, Classrooms, Certification Courses, Bootcamp in the left sidebar, and hovering over someone's avatar produces pop-ups.
I might be calling these by the wrong terminology but they are the pop-ups of sorts.
SiteComment is my favorite feature so far, but trading 2 for 1 can be very time consuming and a lot members are still writing feedback instead of engaging comments so that's a bit of a bummer.
Also, it would be great to have a 'feature' to remind/encourage members to share other people's post (after commenting on it) on social media platforms.
Just my two cents. Thanks Kyle.
The system wouldn't work if it was based on a 1 to 1 ratio. There would never be enough folks adequate offering comments for the system to operate. That side of things has been well thought through.
In saying this, you can purchase credits or use credits you earn through other areas (affiliate program, domain sales, creating training) and use those towards your SiteComments as well if you don't fell like manually offering 2 to make 1.
That seem like a good compromise, trading your efforts to make the community stronger through adding training in return for comments or etc.
Hi Kyle,
Great outlines and so far I am looking forward to all the new improved training and courses. A redo of these courses/training is certainly on my list. lol
I use the "Activity Dashboard" the most there I can navigate wherever i want to be, classrooms, top 10 etc. I also use all the features from the left side panel. It is easy and I can choose a specific feature every time I need to.
The "Live Chat", I am using very rare since I am not fond of its "Live Ticker" version. It is too fast for my eyes and in the past, I have even missed things.
Do I have questions? Well, just recently due to a blog post here at WA the idea came up to have two sections when it comes to blog posts.
One section purely addressed to business terms like technology, social media platforms, other internet marketing platforms, scams/fraud, SEO etc.
The other section could be a) for more personal posts like announcements, fun stuff, inspiration etc and b) for motivational posts.
When it comes to motivation I also do believe this is a crucial part of any business out there, online as offline alike.
You can implement everything to the tee if you don't believe in yourself or the passion is missing you probably won't succeed.
But, many people (unfortunately) still don't or can't see its importance to be and stay successful in anything you do is done with being motivated.
Well, for now, this is my input if I will have more I will add to it. :)
Thanks for asking, appreciated.
Sylvia
Excellent feedback here Sylvia and I agree with you on all fronts.
One concern about live chat, and we actually have programmed for it for quite some time, is when you move to a personal style chat it really does encourage an environment that is conducive to spammers and scammers. So we want to be careful about that.
We do have some ideas in this respect (think threaded chats versus one on one) where people could break out into different types of chats, but this will be done on a much more grandiose scale.
Would this be like the Reddit setup, where you have subreddits by subject or interest? That makes sense...Will we have to work on our karma? : )
Thanks, Kyle, and I do understand the chat concern it is riskier to have a one-on-one chat than the way we have it now.
I like the idea of yours to change it somehow in the future. :)
I love the fact that WA is the 'one stop shop' for all things such as Domain Hosting, Site Rubix Website Builder. Everything we as Premium Members is under one roof. We don't need to look elsewhere.
What new feature would i like to see added?
Well, I think an improved email platform for email addresses we create alongside our hosted domains. Also better integration for adding our email accounts to our mobile devices - we live in a mobile world let's embrace that, we are always on the move, we are not tied to our PC at our desk 100% of the time.
I think also a better chat system, when we exchange correspondence with someone in the live chat area, it's very hard to keep track sometimes , and i often find myself 'lost' in the chat as other members join and start their conversation. WA is a great platform and Kyle this is a brilliant post and i know that as members we are all excited of what is yet to come in 2017!
Regarding adding your website email accounts to your mobile phone....
There is a free app that will do that for you. It is called myMail and you can find it doing a search on 'Google's Play Store' (I am not sure but I would guess that Apple has the same app)...
I use it for all my accounts that I must follow regularly just for the reason that I can access the mail accounts as I need to from wherever I happen to be...
It works seamlessly, and I can quickly switch between accounts to track what is going on in all of them. Right now I do not get notifications when new mail comes in, which would be a handy feature, but it works...
Cheers!
Dave : )
While I am a premium member, I remain in basic training. I just completed my About Me page and will present it for feedback soon. I am finding it difficult to join in the community chats, etc. because the time I am taking to train and research my plan "as I go" doesn't allow the time to participate. What is the best way to diversify my time. I tried to send a private message to get a review of my content to make certain I have a proper grasp of where I'm going with this - but I have to pay it forward. I certainly don't mind doing that.
I guess I answered my own question. If the training will not allow me to move forward - then just do what I'm told. Tomorrow is another day.
I would suggest having a look at some recent training I posted (tutorial) on time management for home based businesses.
From my personal experience, I know it can be difficult to get everything done for this online marketing effort, especially when starting and you have so much to digest...
Here is the link to that training: Seize The Day - Time Management For Working At Home It may give you some idea on how to better organize your time and help slow things down for you...Good luck!
Cheers!
Dave : )
Adding the SSL feature here really kicked it up a notch in terms of providing a service that no other site like this provides. I like the fact that WA always seems to stay ahead of the curve in that regard. As for improvements, I'll have a think about it and get back to you! :D Alanna
Yeah, in particular with Google and other search engines aiming to force an encrypted web, SSL and having it set up on your websites is going to be an incredibly important aspect to ranking as time goes on.
Lots of awesome stuff coming on the SiteRubix platform side of things that I haven't mentioned here. Stay tuned Alanna!
Hi Kyle,
My two year Premium membership has been amazing. The skills I have developed and knowledge gained, has made a huge difference in how I market my re-launched window washing business.
I can't afford to renew in April, due to an avalanche of necessary expenses associated with setting up again in Australia after living in Asia. But I will keep my eye out for the Black Friday specials later in 2017.
The new tools that you and Carson are going to release in the near future sound exciting and will, no doubt, be of great help to the budding entrepreneurs associated with Wealthy Affiliate.
I exit on April 5. But I will be back in the future.
Cheers,
Duncan
You are definitely going to be missed Duncan, but I do appreciate all of your feedback and kind words about your experience here at Wealthy Affiliate.
We definitely do have a lot of awesome stuff in store here for members, much of which I have kept my lips sealed about, so when you come back this November (if you take us up on the Black Friday offer), you are going to notice the landscape here at WA has changed quite a bit.
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Hello Kyle and thanks you for the update . I like how I do not have to fesr asking a question because in todays world prople do not like to ask and do not like to answer , let us all keep WA community strong and leave the egos off the computer. God Bless both yourself and Carson's family.