In my About Me page I said that “I will give my honest thoughts and feelings based on my experiences” and that’s what I intend to do.
I could say that I have created this blog just to share my thoughts and experiences with you just because I want to help or educate people, and yes, that is the truth, but in todays world, with work and family responsibilities its not feasible to take time out to do something like this, without having it work for you too.
If I can do this AND make money, it can be a great outlet for the experience and knowledge I have gained over the years and I can work it in around everything else in life because the reward outweighs the cost, and thats what it’s all about. Don’t you agree?
There’s no such thing as easy money
Over the years, I have tried many ways to find a way to earn an income from the internet, (preferably without doing too much work!) but, unfortunately, I’ve found there is no such thing as “easy” money. If there were, everyone would be on the gravy train, living it up.
I’ve tried many things to make money online from surveys, web site testing, social media marketing, Forex trading and various other tasks to try and earn a quid but at the end of the day, you need to put a lot of time into something to succeed and because I’ve always been working a full-time job, it never really allowed me to spend enough time or energy at the end of the day on these types of activities to succeed.
Every time I would go searching for these money-making ventures, though, I always seemed to end up with the conclusion that the best way to make money is to have your own website and making money from it from various means.
Who knows anything about building a website??
I looked at many different options with building websites and coding and the such, and at some point, I stumbled on a site that was free to sign up with but would not only teach you how to build your website, but help you find your own niche and ways to get organic traffic to your site.
As with anything, I always like to research as much as I can about anything that I’m going to sign up for, especially when they are offering so much for free, (including 2 free websites with hosting) but I could not find any bad reviews about them, so I was very curious.
No Credit Card necessary!
One thing that many of the reviews did mention though, was that whilst the best features and training are offered with a Premium membership, there is still ALOT of information in the 10 lesson Starter course, that will get your site up and running and signing up does NOT include using a credit card number, as there is no trial period.
This is great, because there is nothing worse than signing up for a trial period only to forget about it and be charged for it a month later!
I signed up and proceeded through about most of the 10 lessons offered under the Starter membership before I decided that it wasn’t for me… so, I walked away and forgot about it…
Bit of an anti-climax, hey? Sorry…
There were a couple of reasons that I didn’t continue with the training and then go onto the Premium membership and continue building a website through this particular site. It’s not that I didn’t think that the product wasn’t any good, because I really thought that the initial training that I undertook was very informative and made sense.
One of the reasons that I didn’t join was that, at the time, I already had some preconceived website ideas in my head and I thought that going through this site may be restrictive of what I wanted to do.
With hindsight and knowing what I know now, I feel that I probably could have still achieved what I originally wanted to do, but that’s another story..
The second reason was that most of the training revolved around picking a niche, having a blog and writing articles around that niche and to be honest, I didn’t think that I had anything interesting to write about. Also, as I mentioned above, time was a factor and I couldn’t see myself maintaining a blog and writing articles.
That was 4 years ago….
Today, is not the day that I will explain what I did in those 4 years, but flash forward to 2019 and I find myself going through the process of trying to make money online again. This time though, I have a bit of time to spend on what I decide to pursue.
Funnily enough, going through the same process of searching for “ways to make money online” ends up with me using a site very similar to what I have been talking about above, however, being 4 years later, I’d completely forgotten about this site and proceeded to do research on it again, to see if it’s worthwhile.
And just like before, I decided that I should sign up and see what it is all about only to have the shock of a message telling me that there is an account already attached to my email.
Have I been hacked??
I was a bit confused by this. Surely the last 4 years of hard drinking hadn’t erased that much of my memory?? Had it??
So, I reset the password and login to find that I have been a member for 4 years and obviously my account has stayed active. I also see that some of the first modules of the training course were complete.
At this point I’m still drawing blanks but I click on the training modules to have a look anyway and recognise some familiarity about it. I re-watch some of the videos and navigate the site for a bit.
By now, my memory is starting to catch up with me and watching the videos, I really start to see the value of what the site can bring. I also realise that I don’t really need to be an expert on any particular subject to be able to write about it, I just need a passion for it.
If I just follow the steps involved with the training to include the relevant “keywords” into my writing and follow the various other methods explained to help get your page indexed and ranked on Google, this should help to gain organic traffic to my site and hopefully convert to sales.
Sounds too easy…
Now, before I go any further with this, you’re probably already thinking that I’m leading up to sell you something and you are also wondering why I haven’t mentioned the sites name?
There’s a good reason for that.
As I told you at the start. I’m an honest person and the truth is I think the name of this site is not the greatest and comes across as scammy. And honestly, if someone said to me, “Would you like to join Wealthy Affiliate?” I would immediately think that this is a scam.
I mean, when a business has “Wealthy” in the title, to me, it brings to mind a “get rich quick” scheme and the word “Affiliate” reminds me of some kind of MLM or pyramid scheme and we all know how they work out!
That’s just how the business name makes me feel…
Sorry to Kyle and Carson from Wealthy Affiliate if you’re reading this!
That being said, there is nothing about the site that gives me that impression (Aside from the name). There is a massive online community on the WA platform ready to help and immense resources for training.
WA does not give any empty promises that you will make massive amounts of cash quickly and easily. It doesn’t even guarantee you will make money at all, unless you are prepared to put some work into it.
What WA offers you is continuous support, great tools and an all-in-one platform where you can build an online blog and business and make money from it over time.
WA teaches you everything you need to know about building a successful online business step-by-step and ANYONE can do it!
All you need is a positive attitude and the will to succeed.
I’m starting to sound like a salesman now
Now to the nitty gritty….
How do you make money from this?
Well, there are many ways that you can make money through your blog or website and it’s really up to you how you manage it. Some of these ways include….
- Use one of the many Affiliate Program links on the WA platform to scatter your blogs with links to various products associated with your chosen niche topic, such as Amazon where you will earn a commission from each sale.
- Use the traffic generated to your site to sell your own products.
- Include ads on your website
- Direct traffic from your website to any other sites that your may have that are monetised, such as YouTube or any other site that you may have content or products on.
- Promote the Wealthy Affiliate product, (such as I am now) and make almost 50% of sales from every member who signs up, for the life of their membership.
Now, I will say that, whilst it is encouraged to promote the Wealthy Affiliate product, it is completely voluntary whether you do or not. With the generous commissions that they offer, it is certainly worth considering.
If you just want to build your own niche business and work on that, it is certainly achievable and what WA is really about. There is so much to learn from the training on WA and the many people on the platform that are willing to help with any issues you may have.
There are no shortage of Affiliate products to promote, depending on your chosen niche, and they all vary in the amount of commission they pay out.
How To Get Traffic
All of this affiliate stuff is great IF you can get traffic to your site. But the question is HOW do you get that traffic??
WA teaches you how to use Google to generate the traffic to you, so you don’t have to go and chase it.
The main way that you can get organic traffic to your site is to find keyword phrases that people are searching for that are low-competition, meaning there are not a lot of other sites using that phrase. Using Jaaxy, which is free with WA, you can identify these keyword phrases and build your articles around them.
What this does, once your site is established, is help you rank highly in the Google searches for that phrase. The goal is to get your article into the first page of a search where you should get the majority of the traffic.
Below is a video and training module on how to find your keywords and use Jaaxy from the WA website.
Does it work?
If you have read this far down in the post, then it is a true testament to the WA training where they show you how to generate traffic to your site. I have followed their instructions and the traffic is here. YOU are the traffic!
What happens from here is in your hands…
As I mentioned earlier, to sign up as a Starter, you will not need to give any payment details, so you are not locked into any ongoing payments. You can have a look around the site, check out the available training courses and if it’s not for you, then walk away, just like I did in 2015!!
You have nothing to lose from just signing up and having a good look at what is on offer.
Some of the features of the Starter membership
Beginner Training Course
2 Free Websites with hosting
Website backup
Keyword Research Tool (Jaaxy) – 30 Searches
Personal Affiliate Blog
Affiliate Program
Affiliate BootCamp Training – 1st Phase Only
2 Training Classrooms
Live Help – (First 7 days)
1-on-1 Coaching – (First 7 days)
It’s pretty clear that the Starter membership is very much a taste test of what the site entails, as it allows for some of the Premium features in the first 7 days, before disabling those features. That being said, the free features alone can allow you to have a functioning website in minutes. What you get is definitely enough to garner your interest but not quite enough to allow you to gain major success from the free features.
Whilst, yes, you can have a site up and running in minutes, you will have many restrictions on the content, speed and security of your site.
This is gonna cost money, I can see it..
If you’ve been around for a while, you must know that to make money, you usually need either invest time and/or more money to the cause or do something illegal. Nothing is free. And if it seems to be free, then take a look over your shoulder, because there is usually something else coming from behind you…
Wealthy Affiliate is an investment. But it’s only an investment if you want to put some time into it, just like any other business that you may want to invest in, otherwise it’s a waste of money.
A website is an online business that takes thought, care, presentation and work and if done right, it can have long lasting profits.
This site is a product of my work with Wealthy Affiliate and I have only been building it since mid-August.
Soooo….. what’s it gonna sting??
Well, you can do it two ways. You can pay a monthly price of $49 USD or an annual price of $359 USD, which works out at just under $30 USD per month. The latter is clearly the best value for money, however, if you are still unsure of things, you can enjoy the first paid month for $19 USD and have a good month at testing the premium features, before you commit any further.
And then if you’re still not convinced, then you can opt out with no problem. There are no on-going contracts. You can leave at any without any strings attached.
The cost may seem expensive, but when you look at the features that are included compared with what you would pay for the same features elsewhere, you can see that it is well worth the price.
Just the training alone is worth the money, however, when you take into account that the WordPress hosting ($20-$50 p/m) and the keyword search tools, which are essential for your success ($37-$99 p/m) and the on-going support on the platform, $30 a month is a steal.
WA offers the best support from any other platform that I have ever come across. The dedicated Support team are extremely quick to respond and the pay-it-forward culture within the community allows you to get a quick response about any query that you are after.
Here are some of the Premium features
Full access to ALL training courses
Up to 50 websites with hosting
Website Security Package and Website backup
Unlimited Live Help
Unlimited 1-on-1 coaching
24/7 website support
Access to weekly webinars
Personal Affiliate Blog
Unlimited keyword searches on Jaaxy
Website feedback and comment platform
2x Higher commissions from the Affiliate Program
There is so much to offer on this platform, it’s ridiculous. I haven’t even covered everything here. The training is excellent and the support is amazing and there is no limit to the amount of income that you can make.
There are some WA members who are making 6 or 7 figures. It really depends on how much you want to put into it.
You Have Nothing To Lose!!
There is no harm in signing up for the free membership and checking it out, that’s for sure. There is nothing that will catch you out here.
If you sign up with any of the links included on this page, I will be assigned as your personal coach and will be there to help you through any step of the process that you may need help with.
If you have any questions or comments before you commence sign up, please leave them below or contact me personally here. I will reply promptly to any messages.
