Im Puzzled

2.5K followers

I cannot help but think that I am being 'dragged' along here at WA with all the training and hype. Do not get me wrong, WA has the best training in the world and online. If you want to learn anything about Affiliate Marketing, then WA has put together the best video training and most detailed step by step training there is.

But, and here comes the but,..I will speak honestly and candid here...After over 2 years of following the training and writing more than 300 quality articles for two of my websites...I do not have much to show for.

10 or 15 years ago when affiliate marketing first became an online business it was much much easier to get into it and make a lot of money. But, it was brand new. This is the time when WA launched itself.

Things are totally different today. Now, there are over 3 million other niche sites exactly like what yours is that are all competing for a spot in Googles search results pages. This is because this is the best way to get the most traffic to your site.

In order to make any decent money ($5K a month) doing affiliate marketing...I am sorry but you have to get ranked super high on google search results when a User types in a keyword related to your niche...you want your website to pop up in one of the first 3-4 pages of search results. THIS IS VERY, VERY HARD TO DO for most niches.

Now, if you do all your SEO right and stay on it, you can easily get ranked on the first page of google search results for a niche like "greasing the spoke on your bike", "or how to clean a pot in your kitchen.

What I mean is that for any niche that means NOTHING to no body, you can build a site and get ranked high on google. Problem is that no users are going to see it and come click on your website.

The niches that make the most money have the most online Users interested in it. This is what you need. You need A LOT of Users online doing searches and seeing YOUR website on search results and then having them come to your site and read your articles and click on your ads and Amazon referral links. This is how you make money doing affiliate marketing.

It is just very hard these days to get traffic. Period. Its nearly impossible despite what you hear at WA or what other over positive people tell you. This is the real world people. Be realistic because that is what I am being telling you this.

If you want to succeed, you need to plan to write a 5 year business plan. AND, yes YOU NEED MONEY TO SPEND. You will need capital if you want to make any money.

You will need to spend marketing dollars to get traffic. Treat it like a real new start up company and plan NOT to make any decent money for 5 years. Then, maybe and only then...after 5 years of working for FREE..you might start to get steady traffic and make a buck.

But, prior to that...you will not. I have spoken to enough people doing this same thing who have failed at this after year 1, year 2, year 3, year 4 and even year 5.

They put countless hours of time writing quality articles and following the training closely. But, they still could not get ranked high in search results for any real or good niche that people actually desire or pay attention to.

But, if you pay for your own website ad in google search pages, you will get way more traffic. It is not too expensive. I have done this and increased my traffic drastically, but still NOT enough to make any decent money. I had to stop spending marketing money because I ran out BEFORE I began making enough revenue to cover the cost of marketing.

It is just hard.

The pass rate is only 3%. Not even sure if it is this high today. WA will NOT give you any stats or specs on percentage of people who pass or fail at WA with WA training. Believe me, I have asked them several times. They wont tell.

All they do is point to the people who were sucessful. And if you look at these people, they ALL started 7-8-10-12 years ago. Of course they are successful....they started doing affiliate marketing when it was new and easy to be successful with online. Today, it is NOT.

WA makes is earnings off new members. New members...most of them quit before 12 months because they simply see no revenues. But, WA has to make a living as well, right? I dont blame them and I am not bashing them.

However, I wish WA was more realistic to its new members about how difficult this business is and what it is actually going to take. I wish they WOULD reveal stats and let people know what they are up against.

Instead, new people hear about affiliate marketing and WA, come and get super pumped up about it like I did and we all did.....we have hope, we become determined and motivated for several months. We do every bit of training and watch all the WA training videos. We follow every step by step. We set up and launch our website blog and get all the ads up and continue writing the best articles that we can. We even do the WA training 3-4 times like I did as to not is a single thing. I wanted to know why I wasnt getting more revenues because WA made it sound so easy at the beginning and in the training. The successful people make it sound easy to do and encourage you.

So, I went back to the training more than once and made some changes to my website. Still another year later...nothing. I make about $200 a month on my ads and Amazon links, but that is not $5,000 a month or nearly enough to work full time doing this like I planned. NOT ENOUGH TO PAY MY BILLS and SUPPORT MY FAMILY. Not sure what I will do. I am puzzled and frustrated.

This is a major let down because I thought I was doing everything right. I followed training. I wrote like hell and I still write and post. I havnt given up.

WA makes fees of new members who sign up for a year. Maybe they sign up 50 people or more a month who are siked up and excited to start their new online business.

But, 42 people quite before one year and they do not renew their WA membership.

4 people out of 50 are stubborn and pay for a 2nd year as to not give up despite not making a $1 of revenue.

Then, there is me and 3 others who bit the bullet and really do not want to give up so we pay for a 3rd year membership at WA to keep our websites up and running. This is despite not making much income from it. Now I am stuck.

The beginning of my 4th year approaches in 2019 and I am not sure what I will do. Will income start all of the sudden after 3 years or 4 years? I doubt it. Was I dooped??

Should I have quit after 9 months or 11 months like the rest of the newbies did??

I am sorry to bust your bubble if you are new and you read this. But I am being honest and I wish that someone would have been honest directly with me when I first started. I wish someone would have given me the cold hard facts and statistics about the failure rate.

Hey the failure rate is what it is. I didnt make it happen by being negative. Its the truth.

If only 3% succeed, then what does that tell you? WA wont tell you, so I am. Good luck and I hope you get lucky.

Some people do get lucky with a great niche in the right place at the right time. Some people do get decent income because of pure luck, but most do not.

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Recent Comments

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Matt,
It is very difficult to argue with you, since I have been here a year and worked myself to death with nothing to show for yet. I believe in this process and my site is awesome. I get traffic but conversions are few and far between.

I will keep trying and I will make it happen.

Best of luck to you.

If you would like me to check out your website and see if I may have some suggestions, PM me.

I have also left you a comment on your other post so won't double up here.

However I will point out that having been in business for more than 20 years I have certainly seen lots of bricks and mortar businesses fail.
Statistics show that something like 50%of businesses will fail within 12 months. Of the remaining businesses something like 20%will still be there after 5 years.
Businesses coaches have been sprouting this for as long as I have been in business.
I don't expect it to be any different in the online world.
Sometimes this is because of the business owner and often it is because of steps that they have taken or not taken.
However to suggest that people should not try to build any business, or that you should not be expected to outlay some costs occasionally is, in my opinion, a little unrealistic.
I hope members can help you with ideas for building traffic aside from Google as you have put in a lot of work.
The internet is a large place with plenty of competition, but unfortunately so is the offline business world.
Cheers Kerry Ann

Sorry, but I simply do not agree with you on this one. I have a site in the fitness industry and am ranking on Google. I think it is just a matter of picking the right keywords and pressing onward. Plus, as WA teaches, there are other ways of generating traffic, like Pinterest. Many, many, many niches work very, very, very well on Pinterest. Stay the course my friend!

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