Wealthy Affiliate Review – Does Wealthy Affiliate Really Work?

I am member for almost 6 years and dying to tell you The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, no holding back.

A lot of changes took place since I joined Wealthy Affiliate and the writing of my original Wealthy Affiliate Review. Significant upgrades and improvements of the WA platform, especially during the past 14 months or so, require a most needed update.

But before I'll get to it, I must make one thing brutally clear:

Do yourself a favor and leave now...,

  • IF you are looking for a 'get rich quick scheme' because this is none, and WA will help you to build a solid and sustainable online business.
  • If you don't want, or can't follow a step-by-step course without skipping a step
  • If you are unable to take action as required
  • If you are a notorious quitter and never finished what you started
  • If you are an 'I know it all' and there is nothing anymore you need to learn.

Also, IF you are in desperate need for cash to pay your rent, buy diapers for your baby or put food on the table, WA is not for you because it will take some time before you see success.

Oh, one other thing... I am NOT going to throw a bunch of EARNING STATEMENTS at you.This is going to be a REVIEW and NOT a sales page for a scammy product!


You are still here? Good, lean back and enjoy my honest and true Wealthy Affiliate Review.

Wealthy Affiliate Review Summary


Name: Wealthy Affiliate (Niche Marketing Inc.)

Description: Affiliate Marketing Training & Website Services

Creator/Owner: Kyle Loudon & Carson Lim

Pricing Starter Member: FREE

Premium Member: $19 first month then $49 per month

Premium Yearly: $359

Upsells: None

Recommended: Yes

Summary: I've been a member of Wealthy Affiliate since September 2013 and never had any regret. WA is not only the best Affiliate Marketing online learning center in the world, they also provide a full spectrum of website related services and tools.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Wealthy Affiliate deserves 5-star ratings for Website Hosting, Website Tech-Support, General Support, Weekly Live Training Webinars and for providing necessary tools.

The two Affiliate Marketing Training courses also would be deserving 5 star ratings were it NOT for the fact that 2 important subjects are either insufficient taught, or not at all. For that reason, I deducted 1/2 star for each subject.

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What Is Wealthy Affiliate?

It all started in 2005 when Kyle & Carson, college buddies in Vancouver, Canada, were pretty successful running Pay Per Click campaigns with small niche websites. In fact, they were so successful that other affiliate marketers would offer them money for a list of the keywords they used to promote their offers.

This gave them the idea to create a membership site and publish a weekly keyword list for their members.

And with that, Wealthy Affiliate was born.

Their site became an instant hit among aspiring PPCers, and more members signed up every month. The keyword lists worked, the members loved the service, and requests for additional help started to come in. Members asked for…

  • Help with building their websites
  • A member forum where they can communicate
  • Training on building online businesses (besides PPC campaigns)
  • Support/Help in dealing with Hosting Companies
  • Keyword Tool(s)
  • and even personal coaching

...and Kyle & Carson listened.

From Keyword List To World's Largest Online Learning Center

It didn’t happen over night, but today Wealthy Affiliate is the largest and most successful Online Learning Center and membership community for Affiliate Marketers and Internet Entrepreneurs.

Over the past 13 years many updates and additions kept Wealthy Affiliate up-to-date in the fastest growing and changing industry. More than 1,3 million members walked through WA doors, while 25 Employees make sure that the site runs smoothly, and remains THE place for affiliate marketers to create and grow their online businesses.

How Much Does Wealthy Affiliate Cost?

Starter Membership: 100% FREE

There is absolutely NO limit to the duration of the free membership. You can stay as a free member for as long as you wish.

Starter members have access to the first 10 video lessons of the Certification Course as well as for the Wealthy Affiliate Bootcamp. In addition, they can participate in the Live Chat Room for the first 7 days of their membership.

Starter members do not have access to the library of over 400 recordings of live webinars or Private Messaging between members.

Starter members will get 2 FREE websites on WA sub domains, hosted by Wealthy Affiliate. SiterRubix sub domains are fully functional and can be SSL certified, just like sites on owned domains.

The image below shows you Page 1 of a google search for football snack helmets, and the top 2 sites are both from Wealthy Affiliate Members.

'Football Snack Helmets' was the subject of a 4-part live case study by Jay in which he demonstrated how to build a niche site from the ground up. Jay, by the way, conducts the weekly LIFE webinars at WA, and owns the 'footballsnackhelmets.com site, while a FREE WA member built the site on the siterubix.com free sub domain.

That just proves that the free sites can, and will work when done correctly

Premium Membership: $19 first month then $49 per month

  • Full access to 2 training courses - 120 lessons in total
  • Premium members get FREE hosting for 25 domains they own (.com, .net etc.) and 25 FREE siterubix sub domains.
  • Weekly Live Webinars that cover EVERY aspect of Affiliate Marketing and the related topics.
  • Wealthy Affiliate Premium members have access to a library of over 350 recordings of live Webinars.
  • 24/7/365 Live Chat with members and experts from all over the world
  • In addition, Premium members will have Private Messaging privileges, which gives them private, direct access to any member, including Kyle and Carson.

There are NO UPSELLS or any other hidden, additional expenses.

Yearly Membership: $359

This amounts to a monthly cost of $29.92, and a saving of $229 per year

What Training Does Wealthy Affiliate Provide?

The main purpose of Wealthy Affiliate is to teach its members about Online Marketing in general, and Affiliate Marketing in particular. The WA core training consists of 2 training courses:

Online Entrepreneur Certification

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The Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) training is a 5 phase (50 lesson) series of courses walking you through the process of creating and growing a business within absolutely ANY niche that you want.
  • Online Entrepreneur Certification – Getting Started
  • Building Your Own Traffic Producing Website
  • Online Entrepreneur Certification – Making Money!
  • Online Entrepreneur Certification – Mastering Social Engagement
  • The Business of Content – Achieving Maximum Success Through Content Creation

Click on image to enlarge

Affiliate Bootcamp

The Affiliate Bootcamp training is a 7 Phase (70 lesson) series of courses walking you through the process of creating and establishing a business in a niche related to the promotion of Wealthy Affiliate.
  • Getting Your Business Rolling
  • Content, Keywords and Conversions
  • Giving Your Site Social Value
  • Get Visual, Get Aesthetic, Get a Brand Through Media
  • Knowing Your Audience & Catapulting Your Referrals
  • Bing, Yahoo & The Power of PPC
  • How To Scale Successful PPC Campaigns

Live Training

To keep its members up-to-date, Wealthy Affiliate provides a weekly live webinar with different topics. Jay, the official training chief is an active and successful Affiliate Marketer and is broadcasting these classes inside Wealthy Affiliate for over 5 years now.

The webinars are recorded and added to an ever growing library which can be accessed by Premium Members.

Click on image to enlarge

Training Provided By The Community

The Wealthy Affiliate Community is unique in many ways, and it is exemplified by how members help each other by sharing their knowledge and expertise. Wealthy Affiliate allows its members to create their own training in different areas.

This vast library of material, written lectures or videos, can be accessed through a 'search bar', just like a 'google search'.

Take a look at the search bar on top of the image and you can see that my query 'call to action' delivered about 15 different training items submitted by Premium Members.

What Tools Does Wealthy Affiliate Provide?

No matter what kind of business you run, you need tools and an online business is no exception. Here is a listing of tools WA provides to its members

Jaaxy Keyword Tool

Wealthy Affiliate provides its Premium member a 'LITE Version of the acclaimed Keyword Tool Jaaxy' free of charge. Jaaxy is rated in the top 5 of KW tools and the lite version is more than sufficient for most of us. Jaaxy is accessible from the WA Dashboard, and a look at the image on the left shows you the variety of functions of this tool. Click on Images to enlarge!

The image on the right shows you the particulars of the keyword 'fishing kayaks'.

  • The numbers tell you that this keyword phrase is searched 3949 times a month
  • You can expect 672 visits to your site IF your post ranks on page 1 in google search results
  • There are 199 competing websites for this particular keyword phrase
  • Keyword quality is NORMAL

Website Builder

Building the framework of a WordPress website has been made easy because WA provides a site builder that creates a site in less than a minute. All you have to do is ...

  • Check the kind of website do you want to build (Free site or own domain)?
  • Enter the Name of your website
  • Choose a look for your website (pick a Theme)
  • Build Your Site

Website Hosting

Websites are the foundation for your online business, and it is of utmost importance that you have a platform that is stable AND able to handle the fast changing technology. I am not going to bore you with a lot of technical mambo jambo, but point out just a few important details you need to look for.

SiteSpeed

Better Rankings, Better Engagement, and a 100% better experience for your website visitors. Proprietary WA Technology to speed up your WordPress Website without plugins or clunky software.

FREE SSL (HTTPS) 256-bit Encryption***

Serve your website over 256-bit Encrypted Connections and do it at Wealthy Affiliate for FREE! Encryption is favored by search engines and keeps visitor data safe.

***Cost for SSL at GoDaddy is $55 per year/per website

FREE SiteProtect (Spam Blocker). WA SiteProtect happens at the server level and blocks ALL automated comment spam before it even hits your site.

I need to point out that Wealthy Affiliate hosting will automatically back-up your site every 24 hours. No matter what the reason, in case there is a problem with your site, or you suffer data loss, the back-up point will be no further back than 24 hrs.

Site Domains

Premium members are now able to purchase domain names inside Wealthy Affiliate. This eliminates the often times awkward and time consuming redirect from other sources to WA. The cost for domain names is regulated by ICann (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) but purchasing a domain at WA eliminates additional cost other vendors are charging.

There are no extra cost for domain renewal, privacy protection or email accounts

How Is The Support At Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate would not be what it is today IF a first class support system would not be of the highest priority for Kyle and Carson. Support when you need it, and not 24 or 48 hours later, is one of the outstanding features of WA.

Let me show you the different sources of support every Premium Member can rely on 24/7/365.

Support By The Community

No matter where in the world you are located, support is just a 'post in the forum' away. Every day there are 8 long time members and very experience internet marketers standing by to answer any questions you may have. And they are from all over the world. In the image, one is from Finland, one from Great Britain, and Jerry is in the Far East.

So, as you can see, no matter what time zone you are in, there will be at least ONE of these dedicated helpers around. Additionally, all members that follow you, or you follow, will receive an email notification that you are in need of help.

Website Support

Wealthy Affiliate Website support is the ONLY support entity I know of that responds to a ticket within 5 minutes. Not once in almost 6 years did I have to wait longer to get a response when my site was down, or if there was any other problem.

5 years ago, I used to host one of my sites at the place where I purchased the domain name and missed to transfer hosting to WA. My site went down on a Friday late afternoon. I opened a support ticket and received an automated response about 45 minutes later informing me that 'someone will be in touch with me on Monday'. This will never happen here at Wealthy Affiliate.

Private Messaging

There are issues you may not want to shout out to 500,000 people. If that is the case, you can contact any Wealthy Affiliate Premium member privately via Private Messaging, even Kyle or Carson.

Training Classrooms

Post your question in one of 12 or so Live Classrooms. While you wait for an answer, you can search within these classrooms whether there is already an answer available or not.

The Cons Of Wealthy Affiliate

I promised you an honest review, and everything I've told you so far is 100% positive. However, there are 2 issues I need to bring to your attention that belong in the CON column!

Picking A Niche

The basic concept of Affiliate Marketing being taught at Wealthy Affiliate is pretty simple:

wealthy-affiliate-program-4-steps

.Wealthy Affiliate helps you turn your passions and interests into income

However, the 50-lesson Certification Course is basically NICHE neutral, and a large number of new members seem to have a problem with picking a niche.

Some are failing because they don't understand the definition of a niche and are not drilling down enough, and others quit before they even start.

Then you have those that really want to succeed, refuse to give up and choose the 'make-money-online niche' and promote Wealthy Affiliate. This is by far the most competitive niche and it's darn hard to break through and make real money.

I would like to see Kyle to tackle this issue with additional training on HOW to pick a niche.

List Building and eMail Marketing

For whatever frigging reason, this important part of online marketing is NOT being taught in either course. Not too long ago Jay touched the issue in one of his webinars, but list building and email marketing cannot be taught in one hour.

Is Wealthy Affiliate A Scam?

Far from it. WA is 100% legit and beyond reproach. Yes, I have read the article by one famous ‘Launch Jacker‘ (by his own admission), who calls WA a scam because the FREE Starter Membership is limited to 2 free websites, to Level ONE of the 2 courses, and free members cannot use Private Messaging or attend the Wabinars.

He also thinks that $588 membership fees per year (if paid monthly) is too much, and therefor WA is a scam. All the while HE promotes every bullshit product that has a large sales funnel and as many UPSELLS and DOWNSELLS as possible.

Ready to Start Your Own Online Affiliate Business?

Enroll In Wealthy Affiliate Today - Join For FREE!

Does Wealthy Affiliate Really Work?

I will answer this question with a simple, but resounding, YES! How else could it be explained that Wealthy Affiliate will celebrate its 14th birthday this spring, and that there are literally thousands of success stories posted in the WA community.

I made it clear why I am not going to show earning statements within this review. However, I want you to hear directly from two Wealthy Affiliate how they would answer the question if WA really works!

Ralph

A Very Humbling Month - August Progress Report

I was really debating on if I should share my report for the month of August. Mainly because my goal is to provide you all with something of real value...

Jerry

Hard Work Paid Off Huge!

Last week, I pre-launched my Mandarin Affiliate Marketing Course and I made over ...

So, you see that it IS indeed working and this brings us to the next question...

How Long Does It Take To Make Money?

This is one of the most asked questions, and I only can answer in one way. It depends on several factors. One is you, and the work and effort you are able to put into it. You see, most members join while working a job and can only muster a few hours per week. Naturally it will take them longer than it takes a person that can spend 7 or 8 hours per day learning and building websites.

Another factor is how determined you are. Again, I have to tell you like it is. Some people think that this is a ‘get rich quick scheme‘ which it is definitely not. And when they don’t see success in a few short weeks, or a couple of months, they simply quit.

It takes determination, and not giving up is difficult, but believe me when I say this. If you follow what Wealthy Affiliate is teaching, you will succeed.

Will It Work For You?

I cannot guarantee that. It all depends on you and how serious you take your Free Starter Membership. But if you are willing to put in ‘some axle grease’, are willing to learn, take action on what you learn, and be persistent, it WILL work for you.

Wealthy Affiliate provides you with everything you need to not only start your online business, but build it into a successful and sustainable business that will make you are livable income.

Nobody Can Stop You Working From Home But You!

I gave you the lowdown on this truly fantastic program. Wealthy Affiliate not only ranks far and above all other online programs, it also gives you the opportunity to test drive it for free.

This is an offer you cannot, and should not miss. It's up to you now, and only you!

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Readers' Questions

  • Odovacar Button
    Does wealthy affiliate really work wealthy affiliate review 2016?
    12 months ago
  • Yes, Wealthy Affiliate does work. The 2016 Wealthy Affiliate reviews are largely positive and many people have achieved success with the program. Wealthy Affiliate provides access to a vibrant community of affiliate marketers, a step-by-step training program, detailed tutorials, hosting and other tools and resources to help you become successful in the online business world. If you are willing to put in the effort and dedication to the program, you can achieve success.