I’m a skeptic. I’ve been burned before and I understand sales copy enough to know when I’m being played.
So let me say right up front – I hate the name “Wealthy Affiliate.” I avoided even giving the site a glance for a long time because of the name.
Is it a false promise of unattainable income? Is it a community of users who believe wealth leads to happiness? Will I see cheesy stock art of various forms of currency and gold?
Granted, a few of the banners provided to affiliates of the site do, indeed, contain cheesy stock art of dollars and gold. But I think that’s because of the kind of cruddy products they’re competing with in the marketplace.
I need to state, right up front, that I don’t sell stuff to my friends. This is a review, not a plea or a pitch, per se.
After diving into Wealthy Affiliate, I’m pleasantly surprised.
So, if I could rename the site, I’d probably call it something like A Practical, Nuts-and-Bolts Guide to Getting Started with Blogging and Online Marketing with a Helpful Community Attached.
But that seems a little long. So, Wealthy Affiliate it shall remain.
Most digital information products are rather mysterious. You can’t tell what’s inside until you make the purchase, sometimes after a couple of upsells.
Wealthy Affiliate is straightforward in two ways.
- You can join for free and look around, test out features, and network with other members. The only investment is your time.
- You can become a Premium member for $49 ($19 the first month) and see it all, use it all, and explore it all. No upsells.
Wealthy Affiliate Overview
Any accurate overview of Wealthy Affiliate has to include several points because the site is far more than a single product.
Wealthy Affiliate is a friendly community of enthusiastic, helpful marketers who are constantly answering one another’s questions, exchanging website comments, and passing along tips.
Wealthy Affiliate is an educational course in website and blog development with multiple, multi-level courses that offer easy walk-throughs and assignments of next steps.
Wealthy Affiliate is a ticket to being coached, via video, by Kyle and Carson, the site’s creators. They often pop onto an hour long live video chat offering advice and answering questions.
Wealthy Affiliate is a website and blog development platform offering hosting for up to 50 WordPress-powered websites using your own domains with redundancy built-in for constant up-time and daily backups. In other words, you can save the money you’d be spending on web hosting elsewhere – even WordPress-specific hosting – and let Wealthy Affiliate BE your hosting.
Wealthy Affiliate is a product you can re-sell as an affiliate. You can earn perpetually for your referrals who sign up as Premium members, but it’s NOT MLM (multi-level, pyramid scheme), thank heavens.
Having perused, used, and tested various products over the years, I’d say that the educational portion of the site would normally be valued in the ballpark of a $30 to $50 per month product. The community, itself, is very similar to a mastermind group, which often cost $30 to $50 per month to join. The premium coaching content from the site’s owners and the premium WordPress site hosting would be in the same ballpark.
In other words, for the $49 per month for Premium membership, you’re getting a $100 to $200 value each month.
The Good
- A robust and active community of Premium members who are cheering each other on and celebrating successes together.
- Various kinds of educational resources from site development to marketing to attaining expertise as an affiliate marketer.
- It’s affordable, as noted above, when you consider that it includes a hosting component that would cost you anyway.
- Extremely easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions with videos and screenshots of every aspect of developing an online business.
The Bad
- Again, I hate the name. But I think it probably sells better than my idea.
- I do wish the site were mobile-responsive in its design. It works on a phone, but requires zooming.
- It’s complex. There are a lot of layers. I found myself using the breadcrumb links to get around.
Who Is Wealthy Affiliate For?
The ideal candidate for a Wealthy Affiliate membership is someone right on the edge of diving into blogging and online marketing. Also a good candidate would be someone who has been blogging for a while without a lot of success and wants to figure out the basics again.
The Verdict
It’s legit. It’s not a scam. It’s a very well-designed community that has been around for a long time and helped a lot of people become successful in the arena of blogging and online marketing.
By the way, should you decide to join, or even if you’re still just investigating, you can follow me on the site by visiting my profile, found here.
