An Honest Review of Wealthy Affiliate

WA Logo

 

If you are searching for an honest review of Wealthy Affiliate that is not biased, then you will want to read what I have discovered.  I am giving my testimony on Wealthy Affiliate and my experience of their program.

 

I have been a member of the Wealthy Affiliate University since 2014. This gives me the knowledge and authority to tell what I have found to be true and what makes my opinion worth reading.

 

Not everything you read on the Internet is true. Yes, I know, this may be hard to believe.

 

But facts will always survive long after the gossip has died. My reasons for not only writing this review but also continuing my membership with the wealthy affiliate will be given in the summary of this review.

 

wealthy affiliate review snapshot
Program Name: Wealthy Affiliate
Overall Ranking: 97 out of 100
Price: Free and paid membership package
from $0 to $49/month

Owners: Carson Lim (President)
Kyle Loudoun (Vice president)

Website: https://wealthyaffiliate.com

 

Introduction:
Wealthy Affiliate is located in Victoria British Columbia Canada and has been in business since 2005 under the corporation name Niche Marketing, Inc.

 

Carson

Carson

Carson and Kyle

Carson and Kyle

Kyle

Kyle

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sole purpose of their business is providing guidance to entrepreneurs with services that will help launch their careers online. Their brand has become four words that describe what they do very well:

  • Choose an interest
  • Build a website
  • Attract visitors
  • Earn revenue

 

Their services include providing all the right tools and learning environment to become properly trained to be successful online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wealthy Affiliate is synonymous with online marketing. Their commitment to training is unmatched anywhere online with full training videos, one on one coaching, and online tools. They provide the platform and support that can transform anyone into a successful online business owner.

 

Wealthy Affiliate isn’t the only affiliate program online, but they do offer more services than any other program available today. They provide a total package platform, from domain registration, hosting to website creation, marketing to free SSL certification,  and several more services.

 

Their focus is on teaching regardless of any prior experience. Their commitment to providing continuous training, from classroom to website implementation is their foundation for success.

 

One of the several reasons that make the wealthy affiliate platform so successful is the access to several levels of training videos. These videos teach not only the absolute beginner but even the seasoned professional.

 

10 free lessons

10 free lessons

 

Each video lesson teaches you to step by step while you follow along. This allows you to build, socialize, and implement what you are learning without ever leaving their site!

 

To give you just a peek at the differences between their two membership packages view the infographic below

 

 

To give you a real example of a member’s blog post please read this, Looking for Ways to Promote Your Website.

 

This unparalleled approach to teaching gives you the knowledge, the experience, and the skills to start from scratch and build a successful online business that will last a lifetime.

 

If you already have another online business then not to worry. You will learn new techniques in marketing that will help grow your existing business to new heights. You can opt to move your existing website to Wealthy Affiliate to take advantage of the free SSL certification and Sitespeed Acceleration program. (This is what I did. I already had two websites at another hosting service. I moved them to Wealthy Affiliate when I joined. I took advantage of the free SSL certification, just one hosting fee for all my websites, the free keyword research tool, and the continued education program designed to keep my business up to date with all the latest technology).

 

 

The WA community – This is known as the “X” factor, or what I call the secret sauce to WA. The members here all contribute with their help, training lessons, their support, their suggestions, in making everyone have a successful online experience.

 

 

This community numbers almost 1,000,000 members which should be an indication of the legitimacy of their organization.

 

Each new member is given their own Profile Page, alias “blog page”, that they use to write a blog post and provide their own training.

 

 

Each member is actually an independent business owner, each operating their own business. If a member ever has a question they just post their question to the community. Within minutes they will have multiple answers to solve their dilemma.

 

 

Every member is encouraged to contribute to the community. From their blog page, they can navigate to all parts of the WA website. My member page is shown below:

 

Wealthy Affiliate Profile Page

 

 

 

This is just a small part of what makes the wealthy affiliate community better than any other affiliate program. Each member has their own private ID or affiliate code.

 

 

By using their own affiliate code, they can link to their own blog posts or any other member’s blog post, or training posts that can be shared on their websites. They can use these links as a referral and receive WA revenue!

 

 

The wealthy affiliate caters to affiliate marketing through niche marketing. Much of their training is geared toward teaching you in becoming proficient in writing skills, adding content and doing it correctly for SEO.

 

To be a successful online marketer, you need the right training to get your website to rank high in the search engines. Without traffic, your website will die. You must learn proper SEO techniques to enable your website to excel.

 

To see more about what niche marketing is, go see my post, What Is Niche Marketing.

Wealthy affiliate recently added free SSL certification for websites with their own domain and new training on how to utilize AMP for WordPress.

 

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Pro’s and Con’s
Pro’s

This is the only affiliate program with the fewest complaints filed through the BBB on the Internet. This is usually enough proof that the business is legit and means no harm. Of the seven complaints filed with the BBB, five of them have been terminated satisfactorily and two of them cannot be confirmed.

(See my post What is the wealthy affiliate scam for more information about the BBB).

 

Comparing the WA with other affiliate programs, The following benefits come standard:

  • They offer two membership levels, Free and Premium. Everyone starts for Free, so no credit card needed. The Free membership is considered a starter package, however, you can remain a free member forever, no questions asked.
  • Video training, tutorial training, classroom training, and certificate training.
  • Almost one million members in the WA community for help and support.
  • Over 13 full interactive classrooms of various training techniques.
  • Live and interactive help and support 24/7 via “live chat”.
  • Two Free Websites for free members with over 1700 themes to choose from.
  • State of the art Secured hosting that offers premium members 50 websites!
  • Free SSL certification to premium members.
  • Domain registration which conveniently avoids domain transfer issues.
  • Access to the industry experts and other members through Private Messaging.
  • Access to the owners, 24/7, get real advice and get it promptly.
  • A spam-free environment that keeps the community abuse-free.
  • Free email addresses, anti-spam security on all websites
  • Site-speed to increase websites loading time.
  • A share the wealth referral program for all free and premium members.
  • Oh, did I mention, it is FREE to get started!

 

One of the best benefits of membership is that the free membership is open to all and you can participate in the free program for as long as you wish! There is no time limit.

 

Who is this program for:

The wealthy affiliate university is actually for anyone and everyone that is looking to be successful in earning online income. This program is for the complete newbie (beginner) to the seasoned pro.

 

If you are wanting to learn how to earn money online, network with fellow entrepreneurs, get help when you need it, PLUS learn how the experts stay successful at WA, then this program is for you.

 

Con’s:

This program is NOT for everyone. If you fall into this category, then the wealthy affiliate is not a good fit for you and you would not be welcomed here:

  • People who are negative in attitude and can’t get along with others
  • People who spam you with their agenda that only benefits them
  • Abusive people using foul language or insulting remarks
  • People who are secretive and don’t share information easily
  • People who are looking for shortcuts to earning online income without investing time and hard work to achieve success
  • People who are looking for a handout, not willing to earn from their own merit
  • The premium level is expensive but the benefits far out weight the costs.

 

The premium package that includes all the benefits that are offered I will admit is expensive. $49 dollars a month is more than just lunch from McDonald’s restaurant.

However, if you were to add up each service that comes with the premium package, the cost would actually be far more than the $49 per month fee.

So what this means is that the wealthy affiliate is open to anyone who desires to have online success using the many online tools, training, and support platform that come standard with membership.

Don’t just take my word for it. Read some of these testimonials from other people, just like you, who decided to take a chance and join the Wealthy Affiliate:

wealthy affiliate testimonial

wealthy affiliate testimonial #2

wealthy affiliate testimonial #3

 

If you are still on the fence about achieving success with affiliate marketing or if the Wealthy Affiliate is right for you,  the How Some Affiliate Marketers Are Finding success With This Secret will be very helpful to you.

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Tools and Training:

  • The training provided by the wealthy affiliate is quite extensive. There are five levels of certification courses.
  • Then there is the WA BootCamp section where there are seven levels of these courses.
  • There are thirteen classrooms that cover everything from teaching newbies how to use a mouse to how to produce their own videos.
  • Live weekly training webinars
  • Video learning sessions with live question and answer training
  • Interactive discussions
  • Video training, tutorial training
  • Tasked based training, social media marketing, email marketing, PPC marketing, and much more!

Wait! I’m not finished yet. There’s more!

  • Free access to Jaaxy, the number 1 Keyword research tool
  • WordPress Express: a three-click website building program
  • Low competition, cherry-picked keyword list
  • State of the art, unlimited cloud hosting (for premium members only)
  • Websites automatically backed-up every 24 hours by support, just in case
  • Access to over 2400 website templates and themes
  • An exclusive “Site Content” creation for the copywriter enthusiast
  • Site Comments section to get other members commenting on your post
  • Live, 24/7/365 chat with the whole community (it never sleeps)
  • Interactive discussions
  • 24/7 access to WA support and 24/7 uptime for your websites
  • Private one-on-one support with owners
  • The list goes on…

Everything is included, the truly all-inclusive online business platform available.

  • Domain registration
  • Niche selection
  • Website creation
  • Free mailboxes
  • Anti-spam mail and website program
  • Training
  • Keyword research tool
  • All-In-One SEO plugin
  • SSL certification
  • AMP program plugin
  • Accelerated site speed
  • Social media marketing
  • Search engine indexing
  • Revenue sharing from referrals

 

The Wealthy Affiliate offers more services than any other program! On top of all these benefits, there is the WA Bootcamp, which is a program that teaches you how to market WA to the world to gain unprecedented recurring referral income!

 

The best thing about the WA, there are never any upsells!

Conclusion:

With all the advances in technology, the world is becoming more digital. The longer a person waits to get involved and start earning money online the longer it will take to become debt-free and wealthy.

 

The price to start is Free so in my opinion, this price can’t be beaten by anyone! Another benefit is there are no up-sells like so many other affiliate programs. This program is really true to their word.

 

The only other level that is available is the “premium” level, which cost $49 per month. This level includes everything that WA has to offer, such as:

  • unlimited hosting for 50 websites
  • unlimited contact with the community, the owners, and support
  • Share the revenue with every referral to WA that joins premium. You get $23.50 every month as long as your referral remains a premium member
  • free SSL certification for your websites
  • unlimited private messaging
  • access to all training video’s
  • gets the first month of premium membership reduced to only $19

 

This program is: Legit

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Summary:

Wealthy affiliate is a legitimate program that can boast about having more members with ranking websites than any other affiliate program on the ‘net’. I endorse this program and highly recommend it to anyone looking to earn a steady online income.

My Story

I started out with online marketing in 2006 as a way to earn extra money from the Internet. Yes, I chased a few ‘get rich quick’ schemes and bought many programs that turned out to be bogus. I have learned the hard way on what works and what doesn’t work.

 

I am a self-taught online marketer that built my first two websites without any help. Long before any social media was around to offer any marketing capabilities.

 

I learned about wealthy affiliate in 2014. I thought hmmm, maybe it would be to my advantage to join and get a little training. After all, my websites weren’t getting any traffic.

 

I figured I would learn more about online marketing to get my websites receiving traffic which would eventually lead to earning income because I really needed the income.

 

The more I learned the more knowledge I wanted to learn. This is why I am still a member of the wealthy affiliate. I have four websites now. Two of them are producing income.

What I highly recommend is for anyone that wants to earn online revenue, of any kind, to do this:

  • Join wealthy affiliate (everyone joins for free)
  • The first week every new member is given the full website access to everything – use it!
  • After one week you are given an opportunity to upgrade the membership to Premium for a discount of only $19. If you have already used some of the benefits the first week, you will now know whether you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
  • If you have the desire and compassion to succeed like many of the successful members you have met, then you will know what it takes to become an entrepreneur.
  • The next step is to complete the first ten free lessons that will teach you how to select a niche, build a niche website, and learn keyword research.
  • You can either stay a free member and keep your free website (two of them) or make the commitment to control your own destiny and join premium.

 

FYI: Besides the invaluable training, the one tool that maybe has helped me the most was the WA keyword tool. Before WA, my websites never ranked. But since WA, several of my posts have made page one, position one, of Google.

 

Knowledge, without application, is meaningless. As technology advances so do the Internet. Once I retire, I’ll still be earning an income because of the online expertise I have received from the wealthy affiliate.

 

To better understand just how miraculous Wealthy Affiliate is and what their training can do for you, Click the Get Started Now button below to start your free account today!

Get Started Now Button

 

Sincerely,
Kenneth
If you have found this review helpful, please share it with someone that needs this information. If you wish to comment on this post I would like to know what you have to say.

 

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12 thoughts on “An Honest Review of Wealthy Affiliate

  1. Doug Arthur

    This Wealthy Affiliate really looks awesome! Free is definitely the way I need to start. It looks like they’ve got everything I could need. I really want to start my own business and be my own boss. I’m going to check these guys out. So is there a trial period before you have to join the premium level?

    Reply
    1. Kenneth Merrick Post author

      You asked a very good question, Doug. The answer to your question is NO. There is no time limit. You can remain a free member forever. Of course, you will miss out on the weekly “live” webinars, the advanced marketing and SEO techniques, and the 50 websites with free hosting and SSL certification.

      Reply
  2. Kirk Hayden

    Hi, I must say your review covers all the key points of the wealthy affiliate program and has further solidified what I have previously found. I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate and when I first stumbled upon this website I was a sceptic so I did my checks to find out how it was rated and there was nothing even suggesting it was a scam or ripoff. I can say that the information that is given through the lessons are absolutely useful and has helped me to gain more knowledge about online marketing in a short space of time, I have always wanted to build my own website but never got around to do it because it seemed so daunting however after trying the free membership at wealthy affiliate I was already on my way with a website.

    Reply
    1. Kenneth Merrick Post author

      Kirk, since it is free to join everyone starts at this same level. Many people want to find out if they can succeed in online marketing before spending any money. That is what the free membership is all about! You get two free websites to learn the skills and experience you need to be a successful marketer. Once you reach a certain level of expertise, you can now either join premium to get the 50 websites and advanced training or, you can quit and become an independent entrepreneur.

      Reply
  3. Jim

    Wow, What a thorough review. I must admit you do seem a bit biased. Or maybe you are just convinced. I bet the competition would say you’re brainwashed. I am new with WA and I really enjoyed this and learned a lot. Thanks for all the information that you listed. This isn’t just a blog “post” it’s practically novelist. The only thing I didn’t see was the comparison between the two levels, free and premium. Thank you, Kenneth and God Bless You.

    Reply
    1. Kenneth Merrick Post author

      Thank you, Jim and I am glad you found it informative. I didn’t show the difference between the two levels because I that was already mentioned in another post I did. Perhaps I will add the comparison chart for everyone to see.

      Reply
  4. Helder

    Very thorough review – well done. You did a great job here breaking down the benefits of WA. Being a member myself, I love that you focused heavily on the x-factor: the community. I completely agree that is the hidden gem of WA. Definitely keeps everyone motivated and sharing success with the community is really inspirational. Because of WA I am starting to see a higher ranking of my site. So glad I joined. Good stuff!

    Reply
    1. Kenneth Merrick Post author

      Helder, one of the smartest things I did was to join WA. Had I joined them earlier in my life, there is no telling where I could be at today. I like knowing what to do every time Google decides to change their algorithm.

      Reply
  5. Andres Santos

    The step by step training you get at Wealthy Affiliate is the best I’ve seen yet. They teach you how to build your website the right way and how to monetize it the right way. The community is like non other. You have thousands of members, regular people like me, that are there to help you at a moment’s notice. If you have a question or need help, all you have to do is post it and you’ll see the answers start rolling in right away. It’s definitely worth looking at.

    Reply
    1. Kenneth Merrick Post author

      Everything you said Andres about wealthy affiliate is correct. If you are having difficulty with the training just ask the community. They not only help you but usually show you another way to do what the training was designed to teach. Whenever I think I have learned it all WA creates a new lesson for me to learn. I have never had so much fun with gaining knowledge as I have since joining wealthy affiliate.

      Reply
  6. Brandon

    I’m glad you were so honest in this review. I have signed up already with Wealthy Affiliate and can confirm how great this system is. There is really nothing else like it on the internet, and I’m so happy I found it. I know you’ll help hundreds, and possibly even thousands of people with this article, so great job there.

    Reply
    1. Kenneth Merrick Post author

      Thank you, Brandon, for your kind words. If not for wealthy affiliate I would not be where I am at today. When I joined in 2014, I was just going to stay just long enough to make sure I knew what to do and how to do it. My websites went from the basement on Google to having posts at position one, page one of Google. This is proof enough that wealthy affiliate is for real. Anyone thinking that they don’t need proper training is like me before I joined WA.

      Reply

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