I wish I would have found this post sooner. I had a dog site that I was working on that I really enjoyed and it was ranking high on Google consistently 1st page, but I thought it was a bad niche with little opportunity. I think I was wrong because I started another site in the "passive income" niche and it's not even ranking:(

I am glad for the experience though because it helps me to see the value in my first site. Thanks for your post!

This post is old, but still feels relevant.

Despite going through the course a little, I held off the bootcamp so I can experience WA more for what it really is. How can you give an honest review if you don't try anything else? You can't.

My method for promotion is going to be a bit unusual. My site will be part MMO, and part psychology (mainly about fighting addiction/procrastination and money occasionally). I feel like it could intercross well with making money well so I went with that. At some point, a WA review will then pop up. Just not immediately.

But I'm inexperienced, so there's no saying what I will be doing is ideal. I definitely have other niche site ideas in mind, which would have a more targeted audience.

Couldn't agree more! these sites are everywhere!

However, I followed the Bootcamp in it's entirety. Not because I am planning a niche on these premises, but simply to increase my zero-knowlegde and to see what's on the market.

I am completely new in this segment. Websites - they were to me just a handy device and I never gave them another thought - till I stumbled across WA -)!!

The PPC procedures at the end of the ABC are informative to this very newbie -)! another chapter for my general development!!

Thank you for your honesty, Todd!

I started with the Entrepreneur Course and then switched to the Affiliate Bootcamp.

Just because I had a difficult time picking a niche! I can now rethink my strategy, go back to the Entrepreneur Course and keep working on promoting the WA site I already created.

I have a goal and I am going for it! Thanks again for this valuable info!

I'm a bit late to the party on this post, but I find this and the comments below very interesting. For my own part, I have gone the Bootcamp route, as I have not made a website since 1999 when I was promoting a breeding stallion I owned :) (yes, really).
The MMO is a completely saturated market, full of big players with far more experience than the newbies here. I have seen that the websites coming out of Bootcamp tend to look all the same (mine included) and in fact probably very few of these (at least in their early incarnation) will be successful.
The reason I started with the bootcamp was to get the skills necessary to actually build the website, research keywords, write content that I'm *not* passionate about and see how far I can take a website (in my own eyes, design, content etc) and see if I can possibly get rankings. I EXPECT to fail (depends on personal definition of failure...) because in these failures I will learn valuable lessons for when I launch my own niche (which I am passionate and knowledgeable about).
The fact that some rather generic websites come out of the bootcamp, is, actually the point. The bootcamp teaches you the A-B-C of the website build, it's up to the individual to add their creative flair to it. But before adding creativity, you need to know the alphabet. So I have no problem with looking at people's generic sites, which look mostly much better than mine.
To enter the MMO market, you need to really drill down your audience. Make it small, specific, get your content in front of them. There is a guy on here targeting the population in his home country, which I hope can be very lucrative for him, as he's using posts that are specific to his fellow countrymen.
I certainly can't claim to have come up with an audience that I'd like to talk to and place WA in front of, but I'm trying :)
Thinking, thinking, learning, learning...

Hi Todd,
I'm with you.
I thought about Bootcamp in the beginning but was very uncomfortable with the idea of trying to sell, not just a product but a lifestyle, that I hadn't experienced and come to fully understand myself. So as the starter member that I was at the time I drifted away altogether and came back a month later and went premium right away when an idea for a niche hit me.
Now, when I'm on the comments platform and I read some of these Bootcamp sites they DO pretty much all sound the same. They review the same products, with the same format.
Then come the SEO articles on the importance of keywords and the explanations of niches....you do wonder if this is all just a lot of paraphrasing, to me I feel like I can hear the difference when someone has actually worked with the tools and ideas they are discussing.
I also get suspicious when I see someone on WA with a making money website and a lot of training blogs going on and on about how successful they are online but with no niche website url for me to look at. So have they just made a heap of money (or are they hoping to) selling something they have not applied themselves? If I can't find a niche website that they created I don't want to follow their advice on niche marketing. I might take their advice on image resizing or fonts or something but that's it.
On days (like today) when I get frustrated I think about going to bootcamp but I don't think I have anything to offer anyone who is beyond the signup and level 1 stage as I still need to learn how to make it all work myself. If I ever do a WA website it's going to be a couple of years down the line.
I love Wealthy Affiliate and I am really happy to be here and each to their own BUT I think people are definitely doing themselves a disservice jumping right into Bootcamp in the long run (UNLESS as you say the whole online marketing/making money is really their thing) Maybe they can make a few quick referrals in the beginning recruiting form their own circle, but I didn't sign up for this to sell to my friends and family. That is not a sustainable business and no way to keep my friends or credibility (which is why when I first signed up I didn't stay for even the whole free period, as soon as I was asked to share links with friends I was out!)
In some ways it feels tougher to go for a niche and the commissions are a lot lower and there's no Vegas Trip, but I think I made the right choice.
Thanks for this post because I've stumbled across it at a weak moment and now I will go back to dealing with my niche website and actually work through the issues I'm having (instead of thinking a "shiny new" website will solve my problems or that Bootcamp might be the "easy way")
Cheers,
Alison

I had similar thoughts about it the same as you. Although I still never ventured into the bootcamp portion of this site I thought to myself it would be a lot more worth my while to go after something I'm passionate about and sort of just hit the ground running.

Hey Folks,

Thanks to Todd for opening up this discussion!
I would now like to chime in here…

Let me ask you this:
If the WA bootcamp is causing saturation within the internet marketing community AND within the search engines, Wouldn’t that mean the WA Bootcamp training works?

Think about it.. if there are a ton of WA review sites out there and YOU ARE SEEING them, it means that people are following along the training and it is working because folks are seeing the results in search.

What I DO THINK is SATURATED is the WAY people are promoting WA. Find a bad ‘make money online’ product and funnel them into your WA review. Admittedly there are a plethora of low quality make money online products out there that this angle works fine and will never go away.

** But this can easily be fixed by diversifying your marketing angle **

There are a ton of possibilities out there that you can implement into a WA bootcamp site that doesn’t deal with product reviews.

Here are some suggestions:

* profiting from hobbies
* hosting a website explained
* learn what SEO is
* watch me build a niche website
* make money while traveling
* make money during medical school
* supplement income during maternity leave
* learn local seo
* working from home ideas
* how to get a website in the search engines

There are 10 examples that you can start using right away.

My point here that a WA bootcamp site doesn’t always need to be “learn how to make money on the internet by doing affiliate marketing” - as there are a TON of other angles to go about.

I think it’s OK for people to start with a WA bootcamp niche because regardless if it works or not, IT IS going to load you with a some amazing knowledge on how to take a site and get it ranked AND how to write high converting content.

- Jay

Hi Todd, I do agree with some of the things you say. If you are going down the organic route with WA then yes you will struggle. There is competition with review sites for WA but then there's competition for every niche.

There's more than one way to skin a cat as they say, I'm going down the path of WA however it will be paid traffic not organic. Facebook ads pointing the customer to a free training webinar for instance. All the blogs, training etc are available through your affiliate link. I intend to make use of these and create a webinar free to attend with a bonus for people who want to join on the day.

If you know your audience, then facebook is great because you can drill down to a custom audience who are hungry for this product.

To add to that Todd and along with what Boomer said, I think it will take some major patience and really digging deep into your keyword research and find those "nuggets" that gets you 1st page rankings easily so that you find the success that can be found in the Making Money Online Niche.

Josh

I agree with you in principle but With a few Reservations. First of all consider the type of person who would join wa. Many of them just want to make money s fast as they can. a few are older people like me who just want a stable income while working much less. some R high school level people who have no clue about life and are just learning. my viewpoint is if you have desire and passion go the entrepreneurial route and build your own thing. If you have no clue then join in Kyles business as an affiate and he will split revenue with you. I am doing both... but my affiliate side is not just WA.