Wealthy Affiliate is a site that allegedly teaches you how to become a successful internet / affiliate marketer. Yeah, yeah we’ve all heard that before. But unlike most of the sites that claim to do this (i.e. Google Money Tree, Check Cashing, Typing, Data Entry, etc), Wealthy Affiliate fails to make ridiculous claims about all the money you’ll instantly make by purchasing their training. Too often many of the internet marketing products out there falsely claim that they have some magical lucky charm system that is going to make you hundreds of dollars seconds after buying their product. If you believe that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

In any event, when I first learned about Wealthy Affiliate 2 years ago, I expected to visit their website and see the typical boats, cars, half naked women and photo shopped checks of thousands of dollars. But to my pleasant surprise the website was very understated. I know from experience that internet / affiliate marketing isn’t easy. So the first thing I try to identify is the BS claims that this opportunity is easy. As soon as I see that, I’m out. However WA makes their distinction very clear within the first couple of paragraphs of their website when they state the following:

"Before you continue on reading we need to agree on something. Building a successful business on the Internet is not a get rich overnight scheme. If it were that easy to make money online, everyone would be doing it making millions of dollars a year from the comfort of their homes. If you are not willing to put in the time to learn the proper Internet Marketing techniques there is no point in even considering Internet marketing as a career or hobby….

We want to work with people at the Wealthy Affiliate University who have the desire to succeed, not those looking for a get rich overnight without working for it (there is no such thing)."

Based on my years of experience with internet marketing, I couldn’t agree more.  Anyone that claims that internet marketing is easy is a liar. That’s like saying brain surgery is easy. So I quickly appreciated Wealthy Affiliate’s candor regarding what to expect. But even after I visited their site a few times, I ignored it. I guess I was a bit jaded because the other so called internet marketing Gurus failed me one too many times that it left a bad taste in my wallet. Could you blame me? Seems like every day a new one is sending out an email about some secret system their peddling. (I bet you have a few of these emails in your mailbox right now.)

What finally sold me on WA was hearing from repeated folks on various sites singing Wealthy Affiliate’s praise. Bad news tends to travel fast so the fact that I kept hearing good things about WA couldn’t be ignored any longer.  Needless to say if you’ve been a long time subscriber, you already know I’m a member of WA & highly recommend this company.

But Let’s Keep It Really Real…

Even though I highly recommend WA, I can’t fake the funk. Wealthy Affiliate is far from perfect. So I decided to write this review to highlight the strengths and complaints about Wealthy Affiliate. Just keep in mind that all companies have flaws so this isn’t necessarily a knock on Wealthy Affiliate. However I want you to be aware of these short comings so you can make an informed decision. Sure, I might lose a few sales by doing this.  But at least no one can say, Eddy pulled a fast one over on me using his voodoo internet marketing mind tricks to dupe me into joining.  Sound fair? Cool, let’s get into it.

So What Is Affiliate / Internet Marketing Anyway?

In plain English, it’s basically getting paid to refer people to products, services or information they want from companies you have a relationship with. In other words you’re affiliated with this company. The company you’re affiliated with pays you to refer people to the free website they provide you. You’ll be bringing people to this website using various internet marketing techniques, most of which are free and some that are paid but are totally optional. All these techniques will be used on the internet. So this is where they get the whole label of internet / affiliate marketing. Make sense?

If not here’s a clearer example. My mother-in-law has some bad ass dogs that will bark at anything including a squirrel fart. So she headed over to Amazon.com and bought these collars that spray this smelly stuff at the dog’s face anytime the little buggers start barking. Settle down, PETA fans it’s totally harmless. Well a few days later she called me up and told me it worked great and that I should use it on my killer dog Neo. For those that don’t know, my dog Neo is a 9 pound Italian Greyhound that is all bones and skin. (Imagine a 6 ‘4, 200+ black man walking this little bugger. It’s embarrassing.) In any event, Neo has a Napoleonic complex and barks like a wild hound as well. She sent me the link of the product. Because I value her opinion and trust her, I went and purchased it. Needless to say it worked great!

Now in the example above, if my mother-in-law was an affiliate of amazon.com, she would have sent me her affiliate website address that has her unique id in it. This way when I bought the spray collar she would get a certain commission as she should. I expressed a similar issue and she provided me a solution. That’s how affiliate marketing works when done properly. She didn’t try to sell me cat nip. She knew I had a dog and recommended a product that I would find useful. Now obviously my mother-in-law can’t hope to make a living referring these dog collars to me alone. She needs a wider audience that may be having the same problem. Ideally what she wants is when people visit Google.com and types "How To Stop My Dog From Barking?" that her website with her affiliate links comes up. Well it’s not going to happen because she wishes it would.  This is where learning various affiliate marketing techniques comes in. Everyone still with me? Good.

Affiliate Marketing Payment Structure Explained

When someone visits your free affiliate website and they buy, click or request free information, you are paid a given fee. This will vary depending on the company you’re an affiliate of and you’ll know this before hand because all details of your relationship with the company is provided to you on the affiliate sign up page. Being an affiliate is always free! It literally makes "cents" for the company to provide you with a free website that they maintain, banners, ad copies, emails etc to make your job easier of promoting their company. All of this will hopefully makes them money if you’re a successful affiliate. What company wouldn’t want more money? So why charge people to do promotions for you? It would be stupid. So that’s why it’s always free to be an affiliate of a company.

The other great advantage of being an affiliate is that you’ll get paid for promoting someone else’s product, service or information. You don’t have to do the hard work of creating a product, stocking or delivering it. My mother-in-law didn’t create that collar or need to worry about collecting my payment or shipping it to me. She just led me to the site and her parent company Amazon took care of all that. As an affiliate all you’re responsible for is educating people and introducing them to solutions that will help their problems that you’re affiliated with. It’s more like being a customer service rep except without being yelled at and blamed all the time. ;)When done properly people will love you for giving them what they asked for. If you’re a loyal subscriber you might feel the same way about a certain blogger. ;)

Pssst, Here’s a secret…..

It should be noted that there is a common misconception that you can only make money when someone buys something. That’s B.S. ! Many affiliates make a great living just by referring people to CPA, CPL PPL offers (Cost Per Action, Cost Per Lead or Pay Per Lead).  In these type affiliate relationships, the company just wants the leads and they’ll handle trying to sell the customers on the product or service. This is a better situation for you because most of us aren’t sales people. However the trade off is that you usually make less. But i have found that producing leads is way easier and so you end up having enough volume that can equal or surpass what you would make if you had to get paid to make a sale.  The reason that CPA companies can pay you for a lead is that they have already figured out that for a given number of leads that you bring in, they’re bound to make x dollars on some of them. So there only going to pay you x amount of dollars based on the profit they know they’re going to make on your leads.  So keep this in mind when you become an affiliate, you don’t have to focus solely on pay per sale (PPS) companies. Mix it up. Or just start off with CPA companies if you can find them for your industry.  Any of the affiliate marketing techniques you’ll learn that is being discussed in terms of sales offers can be swapped out for CPA offers.  Nothing is set in stone when it comes to this stuff and don’t be afraid to adjust accordingly.

Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Of course it does. Why do you think companies like Google, Ebay, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. all have affiliate programs. If it were a scam or didn’t work why would these companies that earn billions of dollars invest in facilitating an affiliate program for you to join? I’ll tell you why, because all companies need to make money. Affiliates bring them new customers and leads and that makes them money. Have you ever heard a company say, "Hey, we don’t want to make any more money!"? Not Never!

So yeah affiliate marketing is the real deal. It’s definitely worked for me. With God’s favor and a lot of hard work, I’ve been "job free" for about two years now. I guess you can say it has worked out pretty well. After all I’ve been able to help my best friend fire his boss as well by investing the profits I’ve made from my internet marketing career into an offline business we have together. Furthermore My wife no longer needs to work.  We’re both home now and get to enjoy every moment with our year old baby girl Brianna. I’ve literally experienced every important moment of her life, crawling, walking, talking and now attitude. lol I thank God every day that my wife and I can experience these moments together. I know if it weren’t for my internet marketing career, I would still be treking into the city on a stinky train, sitting in meetings listening to people babbling about stuff we’ve already discussed at other meetings, justifing to an idiot boss why I need a .15 cent raise when the bastard just got a $5 raise for doing nothing more than taking credit for the stuff that the foot soliders like me did. Oh don’t get me started. lol

But just in case, you’re thinking I’m BS’ing about all this, Click Here to check out my video where I walk you through some of my earning stats. I can’t guarantee you’ll make this type of money right away but it should make you wonder the following: If Eddy’s Simple Simon self can do it, why can’t I?

Now that we’ve discussed what affiliate marketing is. Let’s talk about if Wealthy Affiliate can actually help you achieve some success in this industry.

The Pros About Wealthy Affiliate

1. Comprehensive & Informative Resource!

Over the last few years I’ve bought thousands of dollars of internet marketing courses and learning material. I’ve purchased so much of it I could have probably bought a car with the money I’ve spent. So I know a little something about internet marketing. The fact you’re on this page isn’t by chance.  In any event, the problem with a lot of the material out there is that it’s teaser material. Marketers will give you just enough to get you all hot and bothered. They’ll reveal a technique that in theory can make you a boat load of money. But like a shy school girl they pull back. You see to use the technique they taught you, you need another tool that isn’t included in the course you just bought. How convienent! Aww, but they’re kind enough to link to a tool that you need to buy. Guess what? They’re probably an affiliate of that tool or creator of it. So now they’ve just squeezed some more money out of you! I can’t tell you how frustrating that is. So when I joined WA, I was expecting this tactic. But I was pleasantly surprised. Because in addition to the usual techniques needed to succeed,  they also stepped up their game and included all the tools as well. Based on my own personal experience if you would have to purchase each of these tools separately , you could easily end up paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars. (And wouldn’t I know. lol)

So if you don’t know how to create a website, need a domain name or hosting, they have a tool for that (Site Rubix). If you don’t know what type of companies, niches or products you should promote, they have a tool for that (NicheQ). If it’s important and relevant to internet marketing, they have a tool for that (See All The Features!). If they don’t then they provide links to free resources that does have it. The best thing about all the tools mentioned above is that they’re already included in your WA membership. If you tried purchasing all this stuff separately it would cost you a small fortune.


2. Up to date Resources!

The problem with many internet marketing courses is that they’re based on gimmicks or loop holes that can often fail in the near future. Then there are other courses that are based on sound principles, but aren’t regularly updated to reflect changes or new mediums that an affiliate can use. Wealthy Affiliate is constantly evolving. I’ve been a member for about 2 years and every couple of months the owners (Kyle & Carson) add new features, tools and information to help you with your career. And even when they’re not doing this other members are via the WA Share Zone. This area is where other successful and experienced WA members upload documents, videos, tutorials, audios, etc on new information related to internet marketing that can help you make more money. Some of the stuff listed in that share zone can be a whole course sold on its on. But as a Wealthy Affiliate member you get it for Free. I’ve learned a boat load of other techniques in that section in addition to what Kyle & Carson have already included. So you’re always in the loop. This isn’t like buying some ebook where the information becomes irrelevant in a short period of time.

3. One on One Support.

Like I said, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on marketing education. But the problem with most of it is, that it’s just one sided. I put in a DVD & watch a Guru take 4 hours to explain a technique that my 8 year old niece could have explained in 5 minutes. I start read an ebook and literally have to tape my eyes open. This way I can stay up and read someone explain something that really should have been as quick as a nursery rhyme. Then to make matters worst, after I’ve digested the material there are usually some holes that need to be filled and guess what? I have no one to email about them. Oh, there is the customer service rep. But that’s usually an automated knowledge base filled with FAQs. If I’m lucky I may get a customer service rep from India that was trained to do nothing but copy and paste the crap from the FAQ. (No disrespect intended to my international supporters and excuse my French.) But it’s just very frustrating to learn this way. The industry is difficult enough but learning is a lot easier when you have real people you can email that are experienced marketers or have been through what you’re going through.

To my relief, I was extremely happy to discover that I could actually email/private message the owners Kyle & Carson directly or the other experienced members at WA via the forum. The great thing about Kyle and Carson is they encourage WA members to help each other by paying them via their member only, WA Gold program which brings me to another pro.

4. Earn While You Learn!

As I said earlier Kyle & Carson have implemented a WA Gold program. This is where they take thousands of dollars out of their own pockets every month and distributes a portion of it to each member. (This should go to show you how well affiliate marketing is treating these guys.) In any event, members can only use this money to share with other members that have helped them within the various areas of WA.

So let’s say Roscoe is in the forum or anywhere else on the site and asks Billy Bob for advice. Billy Bob provides Roscoe with some great feedback and advice. Roscoe in turn then gives Billy Bob some of their WA Gold. Billy Bob can then redeem that gold for cash. This sure gives Billy Bob incentive to participate on the site and earn more easy money.  This is definitely a reality because every month each member is given more Gold to share. Any left over are lost. So there is no advantage in not giving them away.  Any member can conceivable make money just participating in the forum, uploading useful content to the spaces area and helping others. So as you can see Kyle & Carson heavily invest in providing individual support through their own efforts and by providing members incentives to do so as well. Imagine if regular school was like that where you could get paid while learning and helping your fellow students learn their Arithmetic, English, etc. I don’t know about you, but school would have been a lot more rewarding, literally. lol

So that’s a huge strength of WA, you get live support from the owners and other experienced members. By the way if you’re wondering how much the gold is worth in terms of real dollars it breaks down as follows. Each Member receives 13 Gold pieces which are equivalent to about .10 each. Yeah it’s not a lot but the assumption is that you’ve joined the site to learn how to become a successful affiliate. Assuming you master the skills taught, then obviously you’ll be able to earn way more with your career. But earning some pocket change as you learn is just added bonus.

WA Jobs

But if the  WA Gold doesn’t really do it for you, here’s something that might. WA also offers another way to earn money while you learn at Wealthy Affiliate. Personally I think it’s one of the best member perk that is often ignored. What I’m referring to is the WA (Member only) Job Board!  This is a great free added bonus of being a member of WA.

Here’s how it works. Eventually when you have a successful career as an internet / affiliate marketer you discover the 80/20 rule. 20% of your efforts makes you 80% of your money. So you want to outsource the 80% of the tasks that don’t but are still necessary for your career. So WA allows members to post jobs which are only available to other WA members. I think this is huge because it means you’re NOT competing with every Tom, Dick & Harry out on the web.  The type of jobs you’ll find on the WA Job board include: data entry, typing, graphic design, website design, SEO,  article submissions, directory submissions, social bookmarking, forum posting, tweeting, faebooking, article writing, etc. So as you’re learning the ropes you can conceivably get some traditional work at home jobs there. You could use that money to pay for your WA membership fee or you can end up making a decent income if you step out your comfort zone.

Here’s how you can do that. The most requested  job on the WA job board is the article writing. I know what you’re thinking. "Eddy I don’t know how to write articles. I can barely type an email. " No worries my friend. One of the MANY skills WA is going to each you is writing articles! By the time you’re done with that lesson, you’ll be extremely competent in writing articles. Then all you need to do is head over to the Job Board and apply to many of those article marketing jobs as you like. With any luck you’ll land numerous jobs this way. The great thing about writing articles is that most affiliates will need you to do this over and over again because they need the content for their site and marketing efforts. So even if you never made a dime with your own affiliate marketing efforts, you could feasibly make money writing articles for other members! It’s a nice opportunity that most WA members fail to see. It’s like leaving money on the table that you can pick up when you become a member. But even if you didn’t want to explore that route, there are various type of work at home jobs posted from time to time that may be easier to land since this is a member only site and most of the members are focusing on making money via their affiliate careers. Good luck trying to find a site that will teach you about affiliate marketing and pay you to learn at the same time.

In my humble opinion and based on my experience as a member, the items listed above have been the biggest benefits of Wealthy Affiliate & Why You May Want To Join!

The Cons About Wealthy Affiliate

1. Information Overload!

Yes I know I listed the information as a strength above. But the problem is there is too much of it. It is easy to feel overwhelmed with such a great amount of information at your finger tips. Just recently WA was updated to WA Platinum and they have done a way better job of organizing the information so it’s easier to follow.  However there are still so many other areas on the site that you can explore such as the forum or spaces area which might confuse your. Both are great for people that are focused. But if you’re not, it can lead to a lot of headaches. For instance one of the recommended actions is to visit the forum, to introduce yourself and meet some of the other members. Ideally that’s a great idea. But the problem is that the forum has so many people that have signatures that lead you to so many other pages, information, products, etc. This may lead to more confusion and contradictory information. So if you limit your interaction there to asking questions and ignoring the signatures and random links, you should be in a better place.  That being said you should be aware that is the biggest complaint and it’s something you need to know.

2. Questions Being Ignored!

I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t Eddy just say to head to the forums and ask questions? Yea I did. But I’ve read about a few instances where members have asked questions on the forum or to Kyle and Carson that were ignored. This is a rare complaint. But It is a concern that should be considered if we’re trying to be objective here. What I suspect in these situations is that one of two things has occurred. The questions weren’t specific or they slipped off Kyle & Carson’s radar. Either way I’ll show you how to address this later on so it doesn’t happen to you.

3. No Phone Support.

I know some of you prefer to talk to a "live person" on the phone. This could be for a number of reasons; You feel a stronger sense of security if you can just call someone. You may find it easier to talk to someone rather than writing an email. You feel there is a greater sense of legitimacy when you can reach someone by phone. Whatever it is, I can understand all of these points of view. Personally I hate being on the phone so email works fine for me. But WA doesn’t offer a telephone option. Truth be told it makes sense. Because it would be a scheduling nightmare for Kyle & Carson. There is no way they could be at the beckon call of the thousands of members they have.  They could hire customer service reps but that’s better suited for administrative task. When it comes to internet marketing you want to talk to people that have actually done it. So as of now the only way to do that will be via private messages at the forums. Maybe if you get a good rapport with some of the members they’ll exchange numbers with you. But that being said I always make myself available to the people I refer via email. As many of you know I do actually answer emails.

4. Little MultiMedia

I’m an all senses type of learner. I learn better when I can see, hear and depending on the situation feel the material. My preference is sitting back and watching over someone’s shoulder as they explain techniques to me. If they can even include real world examples then it’s even better. WA does have a few videos on their website but I think they need way more. Ideally I would like to see videos for each type of technique and real world examples of it. Sometimes its hard to grasp a concept by reading about it. You need to see it in action. It’s like the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. So this is definitely a big weakness for Wealthy Affiliate. However this is sort of addressed with the WA spaces area where members upload there own videos. But I just wish it was something that Kyle & Carson would include in all the tutorials and lessons. So If you’re more of a visual learner then you’ll probably be disappointed with the little amount of multimedia content on the site. Can you still learn with the text material listed? Of course. But it’s just something you should be aware of, if it’s a deal breaker. In my opinion a lot of reading is a reasonable hurdle to jump. If enduring some reading means more time with my family and less time with "The Man’s" oppressive foot on my neck. So I think this is a complaint that most reasonable people can overlook and would still Join Wealthy Affiliate.


5. Too much focus on Sales Based Affiliate Programs.

As I alluded to in the start of this review, there are various affiliate programs. Like most training website WA tends to preach about promoting sales based offers only. But honestly sales based offers are harder to make money with, especially if you’re new. The exception is when you’re in an industry where people are actively looking to buy something. So I would like to see WA include CPA offers and networks in their training material. But this is an easy fix for you as a member. Just try applying the techniques that WA teaches you for CPA companies and offers you find on your own. Locating these offers is as easy using Google. Just head to Google.com and do a search for any one of the following terms: CPA affiliate programs, CPA Affiliate Networks or CPA Offers.  Furthermore you can just ask members on the forum for recommendations of CPA offers you can use for your promotions. Don’t let anyone make you believe that it’s a waste of time to promote these offers. I literally make thousands of dollars every month on them. So anyone claiming it’s a waste of your time has obviously never tried them.

6. Membership Fee

Most people understand that Wealthy Affiliate is an educational resource sort of like a college. The main purpose of which is to teach it’s members how to become successful affiliates. Like any college or learning institution, the folks that create your lessons, provide your learning material, classrooms and teach you must be paid be compensated for their effort. In college you can expect to pay up to $200,000 for tuition. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a job or career that may pay you a fraction of the tuition you invested.  With Wealthy Affiliate you pay $29.99 per month (assuming you pay for the full year lump sum in advance) or $39.00 per month (Opting not to pay the year lump sum in advance.) But if you apply what you’re taught effectively then your income is unlimited and ultimately decided by you. However like college I can’t say it’s guaranteed here either. So no one really complains about charging a fee for this education.

However some do take issue regarding when it needs to be paid! A few would be members would like the option of paying Wealthy Affiliate after they’re successful. I understand that times are rough and paying less than $2 per day for education no matter how good it may be, is hard to swallow for many. But if that’s the case you have bigger fish to fry. With all due respect, I think you should probably focus on getting an offline job or any job for that matter.

At the end of the day I would venture to say that most people understand WA’s payment policy & wouldn’t hold it against them. No one would ever go to a college and say, "hey let me pay you after I get a job or successful career". It’s just not a practice that would be accepted. There is a simple reason for this. A college nor Wealthy Affiliate can predict the future or be held responsible for how you apply the teachings they provide you. The college or WA have provided you with all the tools and teachings you need. It’s now up to you to apply them in the real world and make your money.  That being said, I just wanted to point this out since it may be an objection for you.

$1 Trial….

With that said the good folks at WA understand that you may still have fears. So they now offer a $1 dollar trial which gives you a 7 day access pass to everything in WA. It’s not a watered down version of the site either. Like I said, you get everything I have access to as a member for a whole week.  And unlike those shady Google Money Tree, Rebate processing scam nonsense, they’ll be no hidden fees tacked on as part of your week trial. You like it, then do nothing and you’ll be charged $39.99 for the first month and on until you cancel. You don’t like it, cancel it by clicking a link in your MY WA menu area before the 7 days is up and you’re only out $1. By the way, you can easily make that back with any of my non-traditional work at home opportunities I recommend so you really have nothing to lose.

So there you have it, the reasons why some people hate on Wealthy Affiliate.

How To Get The Most out of Wealthy Affiliate Platinum?

Some of the issues I mentioned above, in particular the information overload has already been addressed with the recent release of WA Platinum which is the latest upgrade to their site (that was totally free to members I might add). The information has been better organized and is easier to follow in my humble opinion. But just in case, you’re still a bit lost I’ve gone ahead and created a little guide that I provide my referrals to help them address some of the issues listed above. So far the feedback I’ve received from this free guide has been very good. So if you decide to Join Wealthy Affiliate under me or have done so in the past, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email privately and your boy will hook you up.

But here are some immediate tips that will help newbies to Wealthy Affiliate and existing members:

1. Stay focused.

When you visit the forums, do so to ask questions of other members and to introduce yourself. Avoid the temptation to click on every members signature or the links they may place driving you to other opportunities, training, etc. You’ll be running around like a chicken with out a head. Stick with the plan that Kyle & Carson give you to learn the basic concepts first. Then select the technique you feel most comfortable with and just ride with that one until you’ve had some success with it. Then try another one. I wouldn’t run around doing all of them at once. I would also avoid the more complicated and paid techniques until you master the easy and free ones first. This will help you avoid a lot of headaches and get your feet wet.

2. Ask Specific Questions.

One of Wealthy Affiliate’s strengths is the one on one coaching and member feedback.  However I’ve spent some time on the forums and I often read the "newbie" questions. Here’s what I’ve noticed. People that have generic questions are ignored. People that have very specific questions and have demonstrated that they have read the material get responses.  So for instance, an example of a question that won’t get answered is: "I’m totally lost! Can anyone help me?" A question that does receive many responses would be: "Hey,  I just read the tutorial about Article Marketing. I understand the basic concept of submitting articles to directories. But how do I create a link in the resource area of my article to drive people back to the affiliate program, I’m promoting? Should I even do that or link to a web page instead? Please advise. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!"

The first question will be ignored because there is no good starting point. It also implies that you probably haven’t even read some of the basic training material. The second question will get answered because you’ve demonstrated you actually read the material, you have a very specific question related to one of the techniques you learned and you were polite and thanked folks in advance for the assistance they may provide.  So if you want the owners or members to respond to your question, follow a similar format and be specific. Kyle & Carson may also be very busy running the site but most of the time they will respond. But if you see they are taking too long, you can always go to the forum and directly private message other members who you see have a lot of experience and knowledge. And if that fails, you can always email me.

3. Do you!

Basically what that means is don’t be afraid to deviate from the plan a bit. WA is great in that they give you a training center to make your life easier. But there are going to be parts of the plan that may not fit your needs or comfort level at the moment. That’s fine. They show you enough techniques that you should only focus with the ones that are easiest for you to implement. It’s okay to crawl before running. It should be also noted that some of the concepts are fluid. You don’t need to follow everything to the letter. This ain’t rocket science where if you deviate from a formula you blow something up! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve learned a technique and modified it a bit to fit my comfort level and style . And guess what? Sometimes it worked better than the original plan provided by the so-called guru. Don’t be afraid to experiment and take the path least traveled.

4. Slow & Easy Wins The Race…

Affiliate Marketing is Marathon Not A Sprint! This is probably the most important tip about affiliate marketing I can give anyone. Too often I see people getting into this industry trying to speed the learning process. There is this false misconception that by doing so you’ll get to the pot of gold faster. But that’s totally false and you’re actually doing yourself a dis-service. You won’t learn faster that way. Nor will it speed up the money making part. Chances are, you’ll miss important pieces of the puzzle and make costly mistakes. In my humble opinion, the worst thing you can do is put some time frame on your success. Some affiliates will be successful in a week others maybe successful in a year. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. Move at your pace. The goal is to get to the finish line not how fast you get there. Obviously people that have trained and the proper mindset will finish the race. Those that don’t, might get there but it will probably be a lot more painful and take longer than necessary.

5. Working 9-5 Mentality…

Affiliate Marketing is not a job. It’s a business or a career. Too often I get the following questions: "If I put in X hours per day or week, how soon will it take me to become profitable with this career?", "What is the average time frame it takes to see my first pay check from this career?" "Can I make money right away with this?" These questions are fine when it comes to a 9-5 job. But building an online business can’t be measured by how many hours you put into this. Any business owner will tell you when they first started their business they spent countless unpaid hours getting their business off the ground. So why would anyone do that? They all had a motivation. For me when I initially started in this business it was because I was disgusted with the idea of spending the rest of my life making other people rich. I knew I was just as smart as them. I also didn’t buy into this myth of job security. After all how can I sleep comfortably at night knowing that "THE MAN" controlled my family’s destiny and could change their outcome at a whim or any sign of trouble? Sadly many more people learned that lesson the hard way with the recent collapse of our economy and lost of jobs. So if you want to succeed at this business you better get over the 9-5 mentality because it’s not going to cut it. Think about the reason you’re getting into this career in the first place and focus on that. If I were to get started today, my focus would be having the freedom to raise my daughter and watching every moment of her life.

Most people that get into affiliate marketing are in the same boat. They’re looking to change their lives and those of their family. So how in the world can you put some type of time frame on that? Think about it, you were already planning to spend the rest of your life making someone else rich without question. Aren’t you worth the same effort? I don’t know about you but I’ll chip away at a cement wall with a toothpick for as long as it takes if there is a chance I can tell the man to go to Hell and can support my family comfortably for the rest of their lives. Now you need to figure out why you’re doing this and focus on that only.

I strongly believe if you follow these tips and keep them in mind, you’ll be in a better place than most folks that Join Wealthy Affiliate or any affiliate training course.

Conclusion

So do I think Wealthy Affiliate is a scam? Obviously, no it’s not. It has its flaws but nothing that I would identify as a deal breaker for folks like you and I that are willing to do what it takes to give our families the life they deserve. Can I sit here and guarantee that everyone that will Join Wealthy Affiliate will succeed? Hell no, what am I Ms. Cleo? Anyone making such boastful claims is focused on nothing but getting your hard earned money. Nothing more or less. If you want to be fed pipe dreams, then you should definitely avoid Wealthy Affiliate and seek out sites like Google Money, Typing, Data entry or rebate processing something or whatever else is hot on the streets right now.

At the end of the day Wealthy Affiliate is a solid educational resource that will teach you all you need to know about affiliate / internet marketing. However please don’t go into it thinking they’ll do the work for you and by osmosis you’ll become rich. (Yeah I felt like using my SAT word today.) In any event I hope this article was helpful. I know I’ve been preaching about Wealthy Affiliate for a while. But I realized I wasn’t doing my part if I failed to provide an honest review that highlighted the cons of the company. Now you have an idea of what to expect. It’s a great time to give Wealthy Affiliate a test run when you can Join Wealthy Affiliate for only a $1 . There isn’t much to lose at that amount and much more to gain if you like what you see.

However I know this opportunity isn’t for everyone. In fact I encourage you to read the following article: Top 10 Reasons To Avoid Affiliate Marketing to confirm this. But if you think you have the right stuff then go and Visit Wealthy Affiliate and sign up. If this all seems as appealing as having a root canal without anesthesia, then feel free to check out my work at home companies page for traditional jobs. It’s cool either way. Different strokes for different folks. I get it.

I’ll repeat this again! Whatever you do, don’t waste money on any products related to: Google Money Making, Typing, Data Entry, Rebate Processing, etc. I promise you they’re all about affiliate marketing and taught by people who tried to deceive you into it.  They won’t be like Wealthy Affiliate and flat out tell you, "Hey we’re all about affiliate marketing and that’s what we’re offering!". Instead they’ll promise you a Lamborghini but give you a pair of beat up Nikes instead.  Both items can help you move, but one will take a lot more time and energy to do it than you were promised.  Hope this review helps many of you who were considering WA. I really just want to avoid  anyone going into Wealthy Affiliate with pipe dreams. The commissions aren’t that important to me. But what is important to me is that the right people get in because they’ll have a better chance of succeeding. So Good luck!