So here we go! I’ve joined the Wealthy Affiliate program and this is the MakeTimeOnline 2018 Wealthy Affiliate review. I’m now officially on the road to trying to find the way to make money online. I already know this won’t be easy but after blogging for a year and “e-meeting” some amazing people who seem to do this for a living I think it’s definitely worth a shot.
I’ve read a lot (self-development books and blogs) over the last few years so I already feel like I know how the process works. What I have found is that almost all “successful” people that you and I would have heard of in the 21st Century use the internet to leverage and grow their wealth and time (think Gary V, Tim Ferris, and MJ Marco- if you haven’t heard of these then PLEASE look them up they are amazing and to the point- I do not like fluff!)
Wealthy Affiliate- The Overview and Rankings
- Name: Wealthy Affiliate
- Owners: Kyle and Carson
- Website URL: wealthyaffiliate.com
- Training: 4.3 out of 5
- Support: 4.5 out of 5
- Website Builder: 5 out of 5
- Research Tools: 4.5 out of 5
- Success Stories: 4 out of 5
- Price: Starter Member (Free) Paid Membership ($49 per month/ $359 year *$19 for your first month)
- Maketimeonline.com Rating: 4.4 out of 5
My Story
So over the last year my wife, Sarah, and I have started a blog. We kind of started to keep track of what we were doing as we now live in Qatar and we could see this being a distant memory at some point in the future.
However, it became a place where we started writing about what we had learnt or what we did that was new, all to do with health, success and happiness.
After a year of reading others blogs and speaking to many, many bloggers (I had no idea blogging was still a thing!) I realised some of them seem to be doing this full time. So it has become a puzzle of mine to put the pieces together and figure out how they do this!
Well, Wealthy Affiliate has definitely helped me to put a lot of pieces together, but I am not going to blow the websites trumpet to convince you to give it a go. I will be completely honest about my experience so far (which is only about a week) and will continue to be completely honest with you on this journey.
Wealthy Affiliate Training, Many Formats to Suit your Taste
So far the training I have been through has been great. I read others reviews saying that there is loads of text and only a few videos, but from what I’ve found the videos covers pretty much all the text. So if you don’t like reading then the videos are more than adequate to gain the information.
There are 2 routes you can take with the training:
- The Online Entrepreneur Training
- The Affiliate Bootcamp
Now for me, the indecisive ninny here, I found this very hard to decide! Basically, route 1 is for those who have a specific niche and know exactly what they want to do. Route 2 is for those who don’t really know and so they hold your hand down the make money online route. I already have a blog up and running and I literally would love to have a niche in anything to do with health, success or happiness. However, after starting route 1 I realised I would 100% need to sub-niche this down as it’s too vague.
So route 2 it was!
If you are reading this blog there’s a very big chance you may have done something similar to me in life… You lived (or are living) the script of going to school, getting a job and working hard to pay for your house and lifestyle. Then you read Rich Dad Poor Dad and had your whole world shifted!
That was me in 2012. Since then I haven’t stopped reading books to increase my financial IQ and continue to take action with our UK property business. So the financial route has always been an option for me.
So far the Bootcamp has been very informative and literally shows you step by step how to create your online business.
The reason that I haven’t rated the training higher is that it misses some things out that really helps affiliate marketing (or so I believe by reading). Namely, email marketing.
I read Anik Singal’s book the circle of profit recently. Since reading this I followed (almost) everything that he said. I had my opt-in page, I created a free resource to collect peoples email addresses, I found ways of getting some traffic to my page (mainly by paying for clicks). What I hadn’t done is find my specific niche. It was still too vague, so basically nobody even wanted a free e-book.
However, I have spoken to people who make their living off email marketing. But from the reviews I’ve read about Wealthy Affiliate and by skimming through the training, they miss this strategy out in any real depth (luckily Anik’s Book is quite thorough on this!)
Wealthy Affiliate Support, A Community of “Caring” Experts
So far I’ve had more messages from Kyle, the founder, than anyone else. The thing is, they have all been automated and he has yet to give a genuine reply to my questions. I’m guessing there are 1000’s of people messaging him so I’m not surprised, but some reviews claim that the founders will message you with personal messages. Time will tell on that one.
I did decide to join Wealthy Affiliate after reading Riaz Shah’s website as I found his reviews to be very honest and informative. He has been very helpful and I’ve had some supportive messages from others in the community.
To be fair I haven’t spent a huge amount of time asking questions and interacting yet as I’ve been following the training. There is also a Live chat and Forum so you can get quick responses to basic questions if you need them.
The SiteRubrix Suite, Create, Manage & Grow Your Websites – SEO
This was actually pretty amazing! I remember creating our website for our blog on WordPress and I was so confused. WordPress is actually very user-friendly but it took me ages to make the website look how I wanted it.
With Wealthy Affiliate, it took 30 seconds. No joke! Just a few clicks of a button and the theme you’d like pressed and you’ll have a website built for you.
The training program shows you step by step how to make the website better for SEO using plugins (Search Engine Optimisation- in English this means it makes your website easier to find on Google)
The Jaaxy Tool is so useful to find keywords that receive a lot of searches each month but doesn’t have too much competition, meaning your website can rank higher on Google.
Even if you have never created a website before it is super easy to use.
Managed WordPress Hosting
The hosting is top quality. Apparently, it has very quick loading speeds (again making this better for SEO with 1.5 seconds- compared with up to 8 seconds if hosting with other hosting platforms)
If you are on the free membership you get 2 .siterubrix free websites so you can get started and try out the training without having to pay anything.
If you use the paid version you can get 25 free .siterubrix websites and 25 domains. This means if you have another online business or website you can transfer it onto Wealthy Affiliate and get all the added benefits of faster speed, SiteSSL (notice my website is https instead of http, you usually find this on websites that you make payments on as it makes the site more secure)
Being Great in ANY Niche- But Can You?
Now, I’m no expert but unfortunately not every niche can be profitable. Wealthy Affiliate does claim that you can be profitable in whatever your passion is online. It talks about how you can be an affiliate on Amazon to advertise products on there but unfortunately if your passion is underwear unless you are creating your own brand you won’t be profitable online.
Anik Singal has 5 MUSTS for a profitable online niche:
- Digital Information Friendly- You cannot download underwear- you can download a weight loss book
- Competition- there MUST be competition- check Clickbank, Udemy or google to see if someone else is doing it
- Size of Audience- Use Facebook Ads to make sure there are over 1 million people interested in the idea (ideally less than 7 million though or it becomes too competitive)
- Popularity in search- SEMrush.com can tell you if there are at least 10,000 searches for your niche per month
- Long-Term Potential- Infant’s teething would be a problem for a parent for a short time. A golfer will want information today and in 3 years time.
Meet in Vegas, Lucrative Affiliate Program – No Chance As A Newbie
If you join up right now you will be getting a free trip to Vegas every year for the rest of your life!! Only joking!! Of course, they don’t actually sell this to you like that (that would be cool though eh?!) and of course, it’s great to set big goals but to get the all paid for Vegas-trip you need to get 300 people to join up. Obviously, this is unlikely if you are like me and new to it. Chances are people will be signing up from someone that has been on Wealthy Affiliates much longer, but they do set more realistic timeframes to achieve something like this.
The bit that is interesting though is that you can get paid to refer others to join Wealthy Affiliate. Now, there are a lot of reviews that sell Wealthy Affiliate as the best thing since sliced bread (I’m sure you’ll understand why in a second). The thing I have found surprising is that a lot seem to fail to mention this part. I’m not entirely sure why… maybe there’s some training later that tells you not to, but I’m going to tell you!
If you’re on the free membership (which by the way you can stay on for as long you like) you receive $11.75 per monthly subscriber or $87.50 for a yearly membership recurring.
If you are on the paid membership it doubles to $23.50 per month or $175 for a yearly membership recurring. Is it starting to make sense how some people make money online?
Wealthy Affiliate: The “MakeTimeOnline” Review Final Word
I really do think it’s great for beginners. If you are serious about getting started at making money (which eventually leads to time… hence the URL name) online I think the training is brilliant. Even if you don’t join the paid membership you can stay on the free membership for as long as you like and access a load of the training. Some of the more in-depth training will require you to become a paid member but that’s something you can decide when you get there.
As I said at the start I’ve read a lot about this over the last year. From what I can tell this seems like one of the best ways to get hosting, domains and training in one place. Plus, if you’re looking at building a community of like minded people there is a strong active one on Wealthy Affiliate. I am going to go through this process so you’ve already got someone here that can help you in any way that I can.
That’s why I’d recommend giving Wealthy Affiliates a try, you can sign up for free or you can get your first month for $19 (a 59% discount!) if you sign up in the first 7 days. I’d recommend to try it and see what you think… what’s the worst that can happen?
If you have any questions and I mean ANY questions about Wealthy Affiliate, please leave them below. If you have used or currently have a membership please feel to add your review below.
