I finally did it – I left Wealthy Affiliate (WA) in May 2017, after being a member for more than a year.

I had joined it because it offers training/tools under one roof for those interested to start an online business, particularly in affiliate marketing.

Years back, I had created money-making websites, promoting affiliate products. However, after changes in Google algorithms, my websites (and earnings) took a nose-dive. And in adddition to other family commitments, I just completely stopped doing Internet marketing.

But two years ago, I got motivated to give Internet marketing a go again and came across WA.

The Appeal

WA appealed to me because it provided a platform to create your own websites without knowing the techie stuff, free keyword tool to create content (that will help to optimize your posts for the search engines) and a community of like-minded people.

I had stopped creating websites for years so I wanted to start from the basics. I thought WA provided a conducive platform to do this and therefore went ahead with the free 7-day trial before I embarked on the Premium membership.

I thought it cool that I could start a website within minutes without dealing with issues such as cpanel (for WordPress) or hosting. But the fact of the matter is WA has an install wizard that allows you to set up your website without you knowing the technical side of things.

Despite the ease of being able to create your website within WA, this has its problems …

 

Affiliate Marketing as a Business

Starting an online business with affiliate marketing is appealing (especially to those who are new to Internet marketing) because you don’t have to spend time and money creating your own products/services to sell.

Basically what’s taught in WA is that you choose a niche, select product(s) from that niche to promote and create website(s) on the products you’re promoting.

You fill your website with content incorporating keywords which people are looking up for in the search engines. In fact, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) forms a means to getting traffic to your website as you learn to research relevant keywords and incorporate them into your posts. The goal is to get your website ranked in the first pages of the search engines and subsequently attract visitors to your site.

This sounds reasonable enough but in reality, it’s not as simple as it seems.

The whole point about creating a website that ‘showcases’ the products/services in your chosen niche is to provide valuable information to your audience.

To do this, lots of research, creating content, promotion are involved. And to be able to achieve instant success is impossible.

You would have to learn the strategies and work for months (or years) before you see the fruits of your labour.

 

Reasons Why I Left Wealthy Affiliate

Forever Hosting

Easy website set up means you can have your website up and running in minutes but …to be able to make money through it involves a whole lot more work than meets the eye. 

If you are Premium member like I was, your websites are hosted within WA as long as you pay the $49 per month subscription.

However, if you leave WA, you no longer have access to your websites. So if WA appeals to you and you are prepared to be a Premium member, then you should also be prepared to have your websites hosted in WA as long as you want to keep your sites.

If you don’t have intention to stick around forever in WA, it’s advisable that you create your websites elsewhere. If however, you are a Premium member who decides to leave WA, do take the necessary steps to ensure your websites are transferred successfully.

 

Not So Useful Feedback 

You can request for feedback on your website. I thought it cool at first and eager to know on what others have to say about my creation.

Then I started receiving comments about my website logo, lack of images, my website not loading properly. One even suggested that I changed the Avatar I”ve been using in my website. Oh well…

Initially I was drawn to make changes based on those feedback but then it dawned on me that I should be checking out these fellow WA members’ websites as well lest I could learn something from them.

Oh my … what can I say? Hmm … these commentors’ websites certainly have much to be desired. What’s more, some of the websites I saw are far from user-friendly and certainly not easy to navigate. That made me think that these people are not exactly in the position to provide comments?

Due to that experience, I began to select which members are worth listening to or take advice from.

 

The REAL Success Stories? 

Those who do succeed wth promoting WA are not forthcoming about the issue of getting traffic – the lifeblood of an Internet business.

I don’t believe that these success stories rely solely on organic search traffic but am certain that they engage in paid traffic as well.

Unfortunately, we don’t see these people revealing their exact strategies in earning success. I am inclined to think that their success does not only stem from promoting WA alone. That would be naive. There are other products they promote and strategies employed which are never divulged.

 

Just To Be Clear

So those are my reasons for leaving WA.

I’m not saying Wealthy Affiliate is all that bad. If you are getting your feet wet into Internet marketing and affiliate marketing in particular, WA is a good place to start. If you are planning to build multiple websites (you get maximum 25 websites that can be hosted in WA as Premium member), then perhaps this is the place for you.

As for me, having to pay the monthly $49 although I only have 2 websites and not really engaged on the training did not work for me. To me, it made sense to leave and migrate my websites elsewhere and spend that money that I don’t use on WA anymore on other traffic-driving resources.

The fact is, in running a website, creating content is one thing, driving traffic to that content is another BIG thing that you should channel your energy and resources on.

Lastly, I don’t know how you end up in this post, but I’m guessing you are researching on Wealthy Affiliate?

If you have any thoughts on this issue, I’m all ears. Leave your comments below … I’d love to know what you think!