If You Aren't Certain that the Advice You're Giving is Correct

84
30K followers
Updated

I apologize in advance if what I'm about to say ruffles some feathers. I love this community, what it represents, and what it means to all of us, so please understand that this criticism comes from a place of love and because I believe it's very important to protect the quality and integrity of this community. And none of this is meant as scolding, only meant to improve Wealthy Affiliate as a whole.

I just received a very disturbing email from one of my followers. She was given some absolutely atrocious advice (she was told to limit all content on her website to 400-500 words maximum, and trim some of her currently above-and-beyond high quality content to meet this arbitrary rule), which fired me up so much that I had to write this blog post.

If you don't know 100% without a doubt that the advice you're giving to another member is completely accurate and will help their business, please either:

  • Don't submit it, or at the very least...
  • Clearly disclose that you're not 100% certain whether or not it's correct

Thank you all so, so much for being a loving community that wants to help others succeed. Really, it's what makes Wealthy Affiliate one of the strongest communities on the internet.

But if you're spreading poor advice that you haven't tested by producing real results and income within your business, WITHOUT disclosing it as an unexperienced or untested opinion, someone could spend hours making corrections on their site that severely damages their chances of succeeding in internet marketing.

By all means, continue being a helpful, loving, and likeminded community, but please don't limit someone else's chances by spreading poor training that you've picked up from another program. And if you feel like someone has given you questionable advice, ask yourself three things before following it:

  1. How successful is this person with their own personal online business?
  2. Do I know without a doubt that this person knows what they're talking about?
  3. What is the potential impact or damage if this advice isn't 100% accurate?

Always err on the side of caution. If the answer to the above questions are any of the following:

  1. "It doesn't look like they're very successful in their own online business."
  2. "No."
  3. "It could really hurt my site."

Just post another question within the community or ask someone you trust and know is successful. Let them or the rest of the community give you a little direction before you spend hours making changes based on one, potentially, untested opinion.

Best of luck to all of you, and I hope you crush your 2016 goals.

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training

Recent Comments

95

I have received several advice about having content at a max of 500 to 600. I think it's almost a norm here at WA. I don't know if it's true or not but I don't follow it cos whenever I write something I want it to be over delivered so 500 word won't fit everything that I wanted to say. Thanks Ian for clearing this issue up.

How much you write depends on the audience you're targeting, what you're writing about, and what kind of composition it is (i.e. article, pillar article/evergreen article, blog, etc.) For example, it's not uncommon for a pillar article to have 1500 words in it. If you can make the necessary points in fewer words, that's always better, but sometimes you just can't.

To an audience that is simply probing around, shorter articles are in store, but for the buying audience, they will want more details.

Agreed. I've never seen anything from Kyle specifying that you limit to a certain amount of words, and in a lot of niches, it's near impossible to have one of the best 5 pieces of content online limiting yourself to 400-600 words. Write however much you have to write in order to truly help your reader. That's the most important thing!

Thanks for sharing what you've seen, Norz! Glad you found this post in the meantime :)

Thank you too Ian. That's the 1st question I ever asked here in WA. Can you still remember it? Some said limit my words but you said no matter how much word you put. So I followed your advise. Today I just finished a WA review containing 5350 words. :D

Sometimes you just need more words to be helpful!

Agree. :)

Just yesterday I found someone needing help transferring their website(s) from a faltering hosting company to WA. There was everything to do with transferring DNS in the responses, but only trace hints of moving the website files themselves.

Even though I've been here six years, I don't come close to some who have been here a fraction of that time and now making $10,000/ month, so I keep my mouth shut. I will do little more than point folks to the best training I can find on here, but even that - I may be doing destruction, so upon finding this blog and that of Salmon's, and of my own progress on here, it is getting time to let go of WA. Just sitting on the fence now for a year now, mostly due to trying to clean up mounds of unfinished projects that have been holding me back, in hopes of better focus.

However, at this point, and seeing posts like this, reminds me that I'm simply not where I belong, paying for something that will never help me, and taking up valuable space. I read another blog about having the right kind of personality for this kind of stuff. I can only honestly assess that I don't. This, by itself, has gotten me into lots of trouble on here. However, there are certain niches I think would work.

If others can see this of themselves, as I have in honesty, WA would become a better place. Blogs like this are needed to help clean some of the wanna-bees from here, or at least, silence them until they have learned enough to result in solid income.

If I have been one of those who put walls up in front of struggling folks on here, looking for answers, instead of being any help to them, then I should have been out of here three, four years ago and owe a fair amount of folks on here I attempted to help apologies because I've made errors. It took a couple times someone responding to me, "You don't know what you're talking about." that made me stop helping on here. If I do find an opportunity to help, it's rarely on Internet marketing because I feel there are just too many others that are qualified to do the job, even if I do know the answers to something, I don't these days.

If this were to be a better place in this regard, the helping should be relegated to a very few people on here - those who have made the grade and are making massive incomes - and I assure you that this qualification only applies to a handful of Ambassadors and some of those that are only heard on here very rarely.

Don't hesitate to speak up when you know your stuff, Daniel! It sounds like you have a lot to offer after three or four years here, and I'm sure there's a lot of insight in your head that could prove helpful to others. By no means am I trying to say that everyone that's not made a ton of money online should "shut up and know their place"!

Well, at 3:30 am, I'm up and replying. Thank a neighbour in the rear who was playing his television very loudly and got me out of bed knocking on his door to turn it down. Well, here goes...

I write about church history and this is a niche one must be VERY careful writing because it is very easy to misrepresent facts, even relying on sources written many hundreds of years ago. Even our American History textbooks, especially those written before the 1990s are jam-packed with errors and misinformation. Today, these textbooks are very different than the older ones now that the hearsay and spurious data in them are being purged.

I tend to take the same kind of care writing on here to help others. It is very easy to make mistakes and have others duplicate errors you've made. If your instruction contains errors, the person you're trying to help may never know it, but you can be sure someone is going to find it, and the critique isn't always presented without rudeness.

Yes, when I do know my material, I will present it. Even then, it's wise to support it with credible sources. On small things, I don't always, but on more weightier matters, that's a must for anyone who composes for the public.

You can be absolutely sure I will use credible sources to point people to. On backing up a website to one's PC, from a server using FTP is something I've done a number of times, but if I don't do it for awhile, I forget the details. Leaving a jot or tittle out of something like this can really cause problems for the person being helped e v e n . t h o u g h . I . k n o w . h o w . t o . d o . i t. If it backfires, you've damaged or destroyed someone's work you meant to help them with.

I've left simple stuff out of instructions that I assumed should have been known. That's called "reading between the lines." Invariably, that is going to cause, at least, confusion. Rather than risk stuff like this, I definitely use credible sources. It saves my butt and provides more complete information.

I should know a lot, lot more having been here for six years, but one thing that keeps me away from helping is fear, not that I will make a fool of myself, but that I say something that causes harm. One such incident caused a person to quit WA, I got flamed by other members and lost my write privileges when I got teamed up on - just because something I wrote was misconstrued.

Thank you, Ian. I've seen this a few times and it just doesn't make sense that someone would do this.
Barry

I agree completely! Why derail someone else's business along with your own if you aren't 100% certain what you're saying is accurate? I think a lot of people do it with the intention of helping, but some people are inadvertently causing a lot more damage than they might realize.

Ouch! I am not experienced enough to give out too much advice, I do try to find an article written by someone more experienced and share that. But I agree. Any time advice seems off to me, I check out what others have to say about it. Also, until I have a clear understanding about things, I continue doing what the training says. I figure I can always go back and change later on when I understand everything better.

I don't know where she could have gotten that advice, but that subject has been brought up from time time, and most people here write longer posts than 500 words, though some do not because it allows them to post more often. I don't believe it's a good idea to ignore WA members advice, because most advice here is sound and helpful. Folks around here aren't shy about saying they don't know and when they do answer, they usually let people know it's just what works for them. I think if your going to pay the money to be a premium member here, you might want to spend most of your learning time here. I don't know how one judge the success of an outsider so your best to just stay within the confines of WA. Of course, that's just my 2 cents worth.

I think for the most part, you're absolutely right, Broderick! Definitely helpful most of the time. But you can get 9 pieces of helpful advice here, and then have one thing like this come along and destroy it all if you're not careful. Unfortunately 1 piece of bad advice can be significantly more detrimental than a piece of good advice can be helpful!

Hi Ian, This is GOOD advice that all should follow....thanks for bringing this up, I fully understand where you are coming from on this one! Cheers and best for 2016 (Last time I guess I can say this, heck the year is already 6 days old!)! Dave : )

Haha - thanks for popping by, Dave! Same to you :)

I like your advice and "always err on the side of caution."
I go by the motto - write what I know and be accountable to it.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this matter.
Cheers Cheng

An EXCELLENT motto that applies to this topic perfectly! Thanks for sharing, Cheng!

Interesting Ian:)
On every question there are given different answers, and it is up to the asker to select the right answer.
Always remember that people are answering to their own capability and knowledge. So an answer can be totaly wrong and questions can be totally misunderstood.
So when an answer doesnot make any sense, put it aside.

Thanks for chiming in, Loes!

You're absolutely right, and I hope it's clear by my statements that I know nobody within this community is giving untested advice out of malice.

But if you're looking to build a house and asking around for advice, if someone gives you advice confidently without any indication to the fact that they've never built a house before, I think it only makes sense for that person to disclose that information before you go sticking lumber into concrete.

Otherwise, as Eddy so correctly stated in the post he linked to, it's just the blind leading the blind. Everyone marches off of the cliff together, rather than turning around and crossing the bridge that successful internet entrepreneurs have happily built for them to use.

I see I am here in good company, I will hop over to Eddy's post

Couldn't agree more. The emphasis is on having practical experience of something vs hearing about something.

And that's exactly why I wrote this article a few months ago: so I'm with you brother.

As always - da man.

Yeah Eddy, I just took a look at that post you linked to...Good stuff M8! Cheers! Dave : )

See more comments

Login
Create Your Free Wealthy Affiliate Account Today!
icon
4-Steps to Success Class
icon
One Profit Ready Website
icon
Market Research & Analysis Tools
icon
Millionaire Mentorship
icon
Core “Business Start Up” Training