Newbies - Don't Join Bootcamp!

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Hi fellow WA'ers, there something I've wanted to blog about for a while that is a bit anti - WA. And it's a bit controversy to many big wigs here as well. But the online make money niche/internet marketing niche is sooooooooo saturated.

If your new to WA, start with the online Entrepreneur Course and go for something that you are truly passionate about, if your not sure of how successful it will be, measure it with Google Trends and keyword research using Jaaxy

But don't just blindly think, OK, I have no niche, let's go into the Make Money Online niche. Unless that's your true passion and you can work at if for about a year before you will see any regular income - Start first with the Entrepreneur Course and create a site based on your real passions.

I've very happy with the training I received in Bootcamp and proud of the work that I put in over the last year working on my Bootcamp site, but it's so clear that there are so many WA'ers who are taking bootcamp and are basically creating the same sites.

Sites that aren't original and are all review sites of other online products and then comparing those products against WA. It's a good business model, but it's so over-killed now that it's not even funny. Even well know in the internet marketing community.

Did you see how many people made it to Las Vegas last year, those that had 300 sales in one year? It was about 7 people, 7 people that have been doing this for easily over 5 years.

I'm not knocking on WA, because it's easily the best internet marketing/website development training program online, but 7 lessons dedicated to Bootcamp, 5 dedicated to Niche Sites. Seems a little off to me.

If WA is going to continue being the best online training program, I believe more emphasis should be placed on helping people explore unique niche sites based on their passions or interest. Then go into Bootcamp later if you want.

Cheers,

Todd

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Recent Comments

79

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...

Thank you! Through reading Todd's post and your comments (and the others), I just got clear on my MMO niche. I thought I was just here reading and procrastinating about writing my WA Review in Bootcamp! I did stay with Bootcamp as I feel with some social media promotion, WA is well worth promoting and I do have degrees in marketing, albeit pre-internet days, so I can grasp this pretty fast.

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 actually think the boot camp program is a little more difficult.

Any niche is going to be a challenge to really get rolling when you first start learning Internet marketing. But it's one of those things that picks up like a snowball and you can find a lot of success with it.

And in hindsight I'm happy that I did do Boot Camp I did the whole program and then an additional five months and now I have a great online business that works for me and makes good money.

I outsource all my writing and do the editing And the Seo and so it works nicely. Either program is going to be a process of learning and developing your skills with SEO, keyword research and writing content. So I don't think it really matters that much as long as you have enough time and effort to put into one website

You just need to keep working hard and consistently to make it work for you. One time I heard it suggested here that before you start a second website you should make the first website profitable to some degree.

For me personally I will start another niche website and actually have but just don't have time to keep building it at the moment and it will be easy for me to make it successful because of what I learned with my boot camp website.

I also had a real interest in learning how to make money online and about affiliate marketing, etc. So it worked out fine for me.

One thing I will mention about your comment is that not everybody puts their websites or list their websites on their profile because they don't want people copying their style. I have actually taken my site down because I've seen that happen.

Thanks for your feedback on my post and I'm glad it helped out and it's good to know you Allison, maybe we could work together in the future as commenting buddies.

If you're interested send me a private message with the title commenting buddies and I'll explain the process

Have a great weekend
Todd

Ooh, that's not good.
Maybe I will take my sites down to

The only site i have up is for my Colombian guest homes. It shouldn't be that way, but can be. Cheers

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.

My friend, you got the point to my blog. I did the opposite, but am quite happy that I did. I learned soooo much about SEO, PPC's, Writing, Reviews, etc so I can't complain. And I have a great business from my WA site. But I do wish I had the will to do as you have done earlier.

But in hind site, I'm now better prepared to do other new niche sites (as I'm currently doing), and I'm very proud of my WA niche site.

Thanks for your feedback and good to know you Elijah, take care
Todd

Hi Todd, I read your blog post with great interest. I guess for a newbie (such as myself) either route will come with a huge learning curve since there is so much to grasp and apply if one wants it done correctly.
The main factor to keep in mind is that both routes will take hard work and persistence.

I'm a bit confused however.
In your blog you recommend newbies not following the bootcamp, but in the post above you stated that you did it first and are happy you did. Also that you have a great business with your WA site, and are now better prepared for launching niche sites.

Do you think you would've been more successful, and earlier with your own niche site?

Thanks for your thoughts!
Gloria

Hi Gloria, I do think I would have had more success early on with my own niche site based on my skills and passion as an Occupational Therapist.

But in hindsight, I did gain a ton of valuable skills that I may not have gleaned if I hadn't done Bootcamp, so it's tough to say

Regardless, I now know how to rank content very quickly, write quality content, and manage websites. As a matter of fact, I put my foundation to my new niche site (5 pages) and then did my first post the other day.

Within 1 day it was on page 7 of Google, today it's in position 44 and I haven't had any comments or social shares on it. So that's awesome.

And now I know how to hit the next 5 posts that will be reviews about my niche products.

So it will be an interesting experiment to see if I can get 5-6 related posts to rank quickly and make affiliate commissions right away.

Best of luck to you whichever way you decide.
Todd

Thanks for elaborating, Todd.
When one is starting out, it's extremely hard to know which direction to take. Especially if you have many interests but don't consider yourself to be an expert in any of them.
The last thing I want to do is throw out a site just to say I did it, but doing so prematurely.
I believe that would kill my business before it even started.

In any case, thanks for taking the time to reply.

Congrats on the success with your new niche site!

Thanks Gloria and best of luck to you too.

I wrote three posts I think you might benefit from. Here there are if you'd like to read them before making this big decisions.

This is important and I so I encourage people to go through it thoroughly.

Check them out and feel free to socially share and/or comment on the posts if they help you out or find them informative/interesting.

Cheers,
Todd

I'd also read them in this order.

http://learntogrowwealthonline.com/how-to-find-a-niche

http://learntogrowwealthonline.com/how-to-create-a-free-business-website-part-one

http://learntogrowwealthonline.com/how-to-get-traffic-for-your-website


Thank you, Todd. I will check them out.

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

That's a great way to look at it.

Excellent points Jay, thanks for your input

Jay, I appreciate you pointing out these suggestions! Thank you!

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

Exactly, so if your passion is reviewing online internet marketing programs and pointing out scams, than Bootcamp may be for you. Or if you're into educating people on building websites, social marketing like Robert is, than bootcamp may be right for you. I'm only pointing out to those that opt in to bootcamp because they think that, "well, I'm not sure about my niche, making money online sounds good since Kyle recommends it as a big industry in Course 1, lesson 4, so I'll go with that".

And I'm really trying to encourage those folks to be patient at this stage and find something you're really interested in or passionate about before you just throw themselves into the Make Money Online Niche.

WA is getting a reputation as a company that teaches people how to make internet marketing review sites just to promote WA. When I feel they should nurture making niche sites more so.

Todd

I agree with you on that my friend.

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.

The problem is for people who are new without life experience is that they try their tails off and after 3-4 months of no income, they give up. Then there are all these similar review sites out there and they lose effect. I just think that more training by Kyle, or should I say more emphasis should be given to exploring ones passion and how to figure out if your niche is a good one to get started with. All the training is here, I just think that there should be a change with WA's approach.

For those of you reading this thread, I wrote a post about how to check out niches and you're welcome to read it here. I use Jaaxy and Google Trends to check out two health related niches.

http://learntogrowwealthonline.com/how-to-create-a-free-business-website-part-one

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