You might be searching for some trustworthy membership sites to join or looking to start your own online business when you decide to ask “Is Wealthy Affiliate a scam?“, because Wealthy Affiliate might just be one of the many membership sites that you stumbled upon. Well, read on and I hope you will find the answer you’re looking for, based on my personal experience.
Does Wealthy Affiliate Work?
Firstly, let’s talk about the legitimacy of this membership site. Wealthy Affiliate was started by Kyle and Carson about a decade ago. Both were successfully making money online for years before they hashed the idea of Wealthy Affiliate. It started with their intent in providing keyword lists to customers and teaching them how to optimize those keywords. But as the membership grew, customers began to ask for more services like hosting, content writing and others related to making their online businesses a success. In short, the services provided today by Wealthy Affiliate were based on requests sent by its members over the years. So the services reflect the needs of members who come from various backgrounds, but with a common goal of generating steady income online.
If you want more details, read :
Kyle and Carson’s experience in setting this membership site
Kyle and Carson provide training and expertise based on their own experiences and successes online.On whether Wealthy Affiliate would work for anyone, I believe it really boils down to how one capitalizes on the various resources within the site – how much action you take upon listening to the training and learning the lessons.
The essence of the training provided is that an online business can grow if you build a niche website, preferably incorporating your very own domain. This site will then become a platform for you to showcase your products/services as potential customers discover your sites while looking up search engines for particular keywords.
My Beginnings …
When I first started, the whole process seemed daunting, not to mention tedious – having to research on niches (as you try to find products to promote), determining the relevant keywords to use and loading your websites with appropriate content.
It became de-motivating when I didn’t see any monetary returns after three months. But what kept me going were :
- The helpful Wealthy Affiliate community (at times, my questions in the live chat got answered so fast, it scared me. I thought somebody was watching me and could read my mind!). I think the real endorsement of this membership site being legit is you sometimes get Kyle, the founder, to answer your queries. I have not come across of any other programs that I joined where the founder(s) answer my queries without referring me to some outsourced helpdesk.
- The constant encouragement I receive, as not everything is a bed of roses as you try to build your online business.
- Provision of services under one roof – hosting, keyword research tool (option of free or paid), website creation tools, training on marketing online.
- At $47/month, it’s reasonable. This also means I can allocate the remainder of my budget towards paid advertising, if I so choose.
If, for some reason, you are still wondering whether Wealthy Affiliate is a scam, then consider this: Would an online scam still be around after 10 years? Would Wealthy Affiliate be able to draw thousands of members over the years with mostly positive feedback? If these members were scammed, wouldn’t there be multitude of complaints that would reach us?
What’s Scam Anyway?
A scam program is when you keep on putting in money and never received anything in return and probably run by some shoddy character you hardly get to communicate directly with. (If it sounds like I’m speaking from experience, I am!)
Want to know How I Got Scammed? Here goes …
Sure, I only saw positive ROI after three months but this is to be expected of any business, online OR offline (which can take even longer to rake in profits).
At a stage when you are probably contemplating if it’s worth joining Wealthy Affiliate as a member, you might be thinking that you could get websites up and running in other platforms like websitebuilder or weebly. Of course you can. There’s no denying about that. But wouldn’t it be great if you could have keyword research tool, support and training along with website creation tool/unlimited hosting all under one roof? This means you get to build multiple sites within the said monthly fee.
Why Joining Wealthy Affiliate Benefits You in the Long Run?
Let’s add the sums. If you were to host your site in websitebuilder.com, for instance, you pay about $10 per website hosting. That’s just hosting alone. What if you were to build more sites? Then the cost incurred of course increases, corresponding to the number of sites you have. You just get hosting and if you want other services, that’s an additional cost. So it adds up. Especially for those starting out, you might want to keep your budget low and steadily increase it as your business rakes in positive returns.
As for Wealthy Affiliate, having all in the same place and paying just $47 per month (if you go Premium) or $29 (if you choose the yearly payment of $359) would save you a lot of money in the long run, especially if you are really serious about this business.
But hey, if skepticism rules and you want to test the waters first, go for Starter account and try it free. This however, limits the websites you can create to two and your participation in the live chat (where you get to ask questions) to seven days. But the beauty of it all is even as Starter member, you still get to promote Wealthy Affiliate, if you believe it can benefit others. Your commission, however, is lower (as shown in the table above).
Bonus for REAL Action Takers
As explained, you can join the Starter membership. We respect where you’re coming from – this whole Wealthy Affiliate thing is new to you, you have other commitments and just want to have a feel of what you’re getting yourself into. Hey, no worries. Go ahead, try it out.
But here I just want to highlight a BONUS reserved for early action-takers because I’d feel guilty if I don’t.
If you take that step towards Premier membership within 7 days of joining Wealthy Affiliate, then you stand to get a discount for your first month of subscription. You pay just $19 instead of $47 for the first month.
The ball is really in your court now. Although you and I know that the decision to join is entirely yours, let me give my two-cents worth in that you would never really know how it is really like to learn about starting a successful online business until you immerse yourself in that community of people who have achieved success.
