Simple & Straight Forward
Hi! Welcome to my first blog. :)
Well, I won't really call this a blog. This is more of a question.
I have gone through the first phase of training over the last 3 days. I have chatted to some awesome people. Got some really good advise. But I do think my brain received an overload of info over the last couple of days! So this is all becoming quite overwhelming.
I am determined to do this and explore this way of making money.
But could I please ask someone if they could lay out the way you can make money with Wealthy Affiliate in a simple and straight forward way for someone who is not a Premium member yet?
I know being a premium member is most ideal and that is exactly what I am aiming for, but at this stage it doesn't fit into my budget. Hopefully soon!
Please help?
Thank you kindly,
Liezl
Recent Comments
16
Liezi, it is all explained in the training on level three! The starter membership allows you to get your feet wet and have a taste of what is offered here by communicating with everyone here and taking advantage of getting to know how the platform works!
When youtake the tour and have a look around, if you want to proceed further, you are even offered the first month of Premium to try it out further for a much lower price. Then, at a very low cost you get to experience it even more so that you can make amuch more informed decision!
Jeff🌞
Hey Liezl,
Firstly, I Love your name, and I'm now going to be saying it all day!! Hahaha
"Liezl Lotter, Liezl Lotter, Liezl Lotter".
I can't wait for my wife to punch me in my sleep tonight, "Who the hell is Liezl Lotter?" LOL.
OKay, here goes (plus, I have seen some of our other questions and replies over the past few days, so I'll try to answer as much as I can).
Firstly, I know many members will say that you can stay on a free membership and earn money, but I simply don't see this as true anymore, especially in 2022.
Basically, you'll have access to your site for 6 months, which is typically how long it takes to start gaining some traction in the search engines.
So realistically, in this day and age, you wouldn't expect much from a website in the first 6 months.
Plus, the free siterubix sites are limited to 1,000 visitors a month (I'm not sure if you have your own domain yet).
Trust me, 1,000 visitors a month is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I'm not saying that someone can't make a very decent income off 1,000 visitors a month, but that person will be extremely experienced and they will be completely on-point with their content, and will know exactly how to focus their copywriting.
What you're INITIALLY being taught at WA is Blogging and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
However, blogging can best be described as a consistent and continuous stream of writing articles, a bit like a diary (basically, your blog/website is NEVER finished).
SEO is about gaining traction in the search engines, especially Google, which is responsible for approximately 91% of all web searches.
In effect, the better your keyword research, the more likely you can "rank" these articles in the search engines
However, nothing is a given.
What you believe is your best work ever may never see the light of day.
Whereas, somehow your most terrible work, something that you put no effort into, ranks well and starts bringing you thousands of visitors a month.
You simply never know (although again with experience, you can certainly work out what WILL rank and what probably won't).
Therefore, it makes sense to constantly write articles around your niche.
The best way to do this is to find out the specific problems that people in your niche are having, selecting relevant keywords, and then writing articles around this subject matter.
Just to give you an idea, I have easily written over 10,000 articles in the last 14 years (you could get away with 300 words being cnsidered an article many years ago, not so much nowadays), and have paid for many more too on top of that.
So, that covers the work ethic that is required for success.
Now, what many people do when they first come online is to offer a service (based on a particular skill they have) in order to make their "seed money".
Please be aware, we do not do business with other Wealthy Affiliate members.
We do not offer sevices, we don't self-promote, etc. This can lead to "bad blood" and we want to keep this a happy, friendly community.
However, if you feel you have a specific skill, e.g. writing, design, setting up WordPress, creating images, keyword research, etc.
There are plenty of places where "freelancers" offer their services (and as I've mentioned I have hired and paid for many writers over the years).
Something else you could do (I saw you discussing with Phil about potentially being able to afford the first month upgrade @ $19) is to use that first month to learn as much as you possibly can, especially about the technical side, writing, keyword research.
In effect, you may (depending in intelligence and motivation) be able to learn a new skill in that time, which you can then offer on freelance sites to earn your seed money.
Just be aware that once you pay for a membership option you will AUTOMATICALLY be billed every single month, so it is your responsibility to cancel this within the subscriptions section of your account settings.
But, if you're willing, you can cetrain glean a great deal of knowledge from the platform in the space of a month.
I think that's enough for now (I did say in Live Chat that I do go on!!! LOL).
However, any questions, I and others will do our best to answer.
"Liezl Lotter, Liezl Lotter, Liezl Lotter" Yaaaaay!!!
Hope that helps
Partha
Hey! Thank you so much for your message.
I do appreciate the insight and honesty.
Does that mean that me asking people to go and have a look at my website and give me feedback is not allowed?
It does feel daunting at times, but I love that I get to learn something completely new. I know that I have a long journey ahead of me.
I take my hat off to people who do this successfully. I recon this is harder than running an actual physical business! Well, in my opinion anyway.
Luckily I am a stay at home mom and I do have the privilege to allocate 4 to 5 hours a day in learning and being part of the training.
Majority of the time I have no clue what you guys are talking about! Haha! I love following steps and doing things according to the book, but here I see there will have to be a lot of out of the box thinking. A little nervous about that! I've never considered myself as someone who is capable of writing articles, let alone good ones! But I am willing to learn how.
The support in this community is unreal! Just love it.
Thank you Partha, Partha, PARTHA!! :)
Hey Liezl,
Of course, requesting feedback is perfectly fine, in fact it's part of the learning process.
I'm actually glad you mentioned the comparison to an offline business, as I feel many people come online believing that things will be easier, and that they someone how will become a millionaire without any effort.
I wouldn't say it's harder, but you have to view this exactly the same as you would as starting an offline business you know nothing about.
As an example, if I decide to become a horse trainer there's a massive learning curve, as I have absolutely no experience with horses.
So, I wouldn't enter that business thinking that I'd be a success by brushing one horse's mane for 20 minutes (and yet, many people do view online marketing in this way).
The main difference with online marketing is that your potential reach is astronomical (approx. 4.5 BILLION people have an internet connection), plus realistically all you actually need is a domain name and hosting, which you can get for about $80 a year (although this involves no actual training, so you'll need to figure things out for yourself).
Btw, you'll be fine at writing articles, YOU'VE JUST DONE IT!!
I always think that people try to overcomplicate the process by thinking they have to be some type of literary genius.
Article writing is simply about getting your poiint across in a converstaional style, THAT'S IT!!!
You write an article in exactly the same way you would explain the same material to a friend or someone you know.
Yes, some readers may pick up on things spelling, pounctuation, sentence structure, etc. and in some niches this may matter (if your niche is teaching someone to write),
However, in the vast majority of cases people simply want an ANSWER TO THEIR QUESTION when they search for something on the internet.
We all do it every single day,
However, the way in which you have replied to me is in effect an "article", you simply need to do the same thing on your website.
Partha
Thank you so much for the heaps of advise and encouragement.
When you have no other way of making money and not many options around you, you do the best you can with what you've got! So I will most definitely give this my best try. :)
write it down....
what you want to achieve.....
what your niche is going to be ( the answer to 'i want to help______(group of people) with ______(problem))
for example i want to help beginners improve their putting ( golf niche)....
this is ideally something you know or want to know about...
s oyour site is all about helping people improve their putting ( in the example) nothing else...no little bits added on at the moment...
so write down what main topics would help them and these become your categories...
within those categories then think of topics to help them...
so you may have clubs, clothing, exercise, training for categories
and under clubs you could be talking about 'how ot choose your first set of putting clubs', 'do you go for custom clubs at the start'
this way you can see how your site will develop...
you now go to google and type in your article title and see what google returns in the autosuggestion ( the box that pops down before you hit enter), and see if there are any other topics that could make an article...
then hit enter and see what and mainly who comes back in the search results...
look in forums, quora, reddit and otherplaces where your niche hang out for things they want help with...
and write it all down...
article writing is helped with your seo plugin ( go have a look at their site for a bit of training on seo basics for posts)
and write your articles....
and don't stop writing until you have around 30 articles...
then look at your site and see if it could do with a bit of styling....and update...
keep looking for article opportunities...
you are going to be very limited on what you can achieve with the siterubix site as the visitor numbers are limited and you have 6 months with hte site...
but if you have a copy of everything then nothing is lost and you have gained a ton of experience....
for keywords try and see if there are any free ones out there, but using google autosuggestion and hte forum sites wil lgive you most of what you need...
check out partha's blogs when you are ready for this.....
but write it all down...then you can see what you are doing as there is a ton of information coming at you at the start....
but good luck
phil
Thank you so much Phil. I will write this down and go through it bit by bit and do some research, etc. thoroughly. I really appreciate your help and input with your message.
once you start writing content on your site
set up a google analytics acconut and a search console account (both free) and add your site there...
this will help google find your site and content...
google may index your content ( add it to its list) and then for relevant searches start returning your content on hte search pages...
this will get organic ( free search engine ) traffic....
you can also market yourself on socia lmedia and with signatures in various forums where your audiance are ( always abide by the group or forums rules)
you will eventally start to want to monetise your site and for this you need ot find procducts...
search google for niche+ affiliate or niche+ program to see what that brings up ...
if you visit websites in your niche also look at the bottom for an affilaite menu or partners menu...
physical product carry upto a 10% affiliate fees ( there are not many of those left)
digital product have a higher return...
but the main thing at the start is to build up content on your site that is relevant and helpful for your niche...
See more comments
So glad you are here.
1) Do not upgrade until you can pay the monthly fees because once you upgrade you cannot go back to being a free starter member. Usually WA has a Black Friday sale so watch. Last year the Paid Premium membership was $299 for one year. Not sure what it will be this year or if there will be one.
2) The free training is always available. It does not expire, The Free siterubix.com website can be used for 6 months.
3) Your goal is to choose a niche that you are passionate about and can help people with. The more you know about it and have experience with it the easier it is to help people. You will be writing content blogs with original content about your niche. It starts as informational and then into product reviews and product comparisons about products that relate to your niche.
3) When you publish your content posts on your website, search engines will crawl them, index them and rank them. Then when people search on your niche topic your post title and description can appear for them to click on at which time they are taken to your website to read the entire post.
4) After you grow your website traffic you can sign up for an affiliate program (free) and get a special link id for products. You will place those product links in your website for people to click on. when they click on the link they will be taken to the affiliate site when they buy and pay for it and affiliate ships the product.
5) The affiliate program tracks you sales by your affiliate ID and pays you according to their terms and agreement presented to you at signup.
6) Your basic expenses can be limited to Premium membership fee (first month $19) and thereafter $49 a month or $499 a year.
WA Memberships And Their Features and $14.99 a year for a domain name which can be renewed at same price You can use free themes and plugins and signing up and belonging to affiliate programs is free...
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/join/
7) As a free member you can use the menu search bar above to find helpful blogs on topic of interest.
8) If you know of people (family, friends) who would be intersected in doing this too you can use your affiliate link found in menu bar right and side $ icon. You could send them an email with your link included. That would be a way to pay for your membership fee..
9) To gain a better grasp of this do a google search and see if you can find a website that is not amazon or brand name. then yu can get an idea of who affiliate marketing works from a shoppers perspective. That will help you to see the end result of what you will do.
Hope this helps.
Thank you so much! This is indeed helpful! :)
Glad this is helpful.
Cheers!