What is affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is essentially the monetization of word-of-mouth marketing. It’s a person or marketer getting a commission in exchange for referring a product or service to another customer. You earn commission when your referral link generates a sale. People can promote almost anything online from rental services to baby diapers. There is an affiliate offer for almost anything and everything on the internet.

The idea of how affiliate marketing works is very simple, everyone gets their own unique link and if they are able generate traffic or have people to buy the products or services they are promoting through their link, the person will earn a small commission from the purchase which might averagely range from 5% up to 30%. The amount of commission gained depends on how much the company are willing to pay and if you are lucky you might get commission above 50%.

Affiliate marketing has changed tremendously over the past decade as the internet has evolved and the number of channels have evolved, everything from social media to email etc. In the past we have seen people, very novice beginners giving affiliate marketing a go and starting out by sending emails out promoting and to today where people are building an entire audience around specific industries and becoming experts around those particular niche markets. Now we are seeing influencers evolve where they are recommending products and services that are not of their own but people still go to them to get information.

How to get started as an affiliate marketer

There are 3 basic steps you can take to start your journey as an affiliate marketer.

First, finding a niche that you are going to target. You need to know what and who are your target audience before you can start building your website. This is one of the most difficult and overwhelming step as there are so many different markets to pick from. Here is some guidance on how to decide on your niche. Try asking yourself, what topics are you passionate about? Is there money in this niche? Is there room in this niche for another affiliate marketer? These are just some factors to take in consideration when deciding a niche.

Second, build a site. Assuming that you don’t already have a website, this would be your next step. Thankfully creating a website these days is ridiculously simple with clicks of buttons here and there. You can always start out by creating a website for free with either WordPress or WIX. Once you are done building your website, it is time to fill the website with some quality content where you work hand in hand with affiliate programs of your choice. Producing content may be potentially one of the most time-consuming part of the affiliate business but it is important to consistently produce unique and quality content.

Third, build an audience. Producing quality content is essential to building your audience as a great amount of promoting your website will not work if you have lousy content. There are many ways to build your audience and one of the easiest ways these days is by promoting your website on social media. You can also build an email list where you can push your content to your audience via email and direct them to your affiliate offers. If all above methods is not enough and you have enough money in hand, you can invest in paid advertisement to generate additional traffic to drive more sales. 

If all the above sounds way too complicated and difficult to you as a beginner, joining and investing in an affiliate marketing academy may be the easiest way for you to getting started in the affiliate marketing industry. There are several affiliate marketing academies out there but one I would highly recommend getting started with is Wealthy Affiliate (WA).

Services provided by Wealthy Affiliate (WA)

There are more than just trainings available on Wealthy Affiliate as they cover every aspect of getting into the affiliate marketing industry. Furthermore, the company have evolved to be more than just focusing on the affiliate marketing business model but also includes other business models and marketing techniques such as freelancing, eCommerce, social media marketing, drop shipping and many more. Below lists the type of services ready included by Wealthy Affiliate.

• Online training
• Website builder
• Hosting Services
• Domains
• 24/7 technical support, daily backups
• Community with live chat and forum
• Site comments and feedbacks
• Marketing suite

How much does Wealthy Affiliate (WA) cost?

They are 2 types of membership options, free and premium. The free membership is obviously free and the premium membership cost $19 for the first month and $49 per month or $359 a year consequently.

The free membership includes basic training on how to build an affiliate website and how to generate traffic to the website. Besides, you get 2 free websites using WordPress themes and promoting their website can earn you up to 15% commission.

As for the premium membership, it gives you access to all features and services available and you can earn 50% commission from promoting their website. A premium membership also includes much advantage compared to a free membership such as free 50 websites as compared to 2 websites, unlimited keyword searches as compared to 30 searches and many more.

If you are just starting out and trying affiliate marketing I think you should stick to the free membership first as it will give you a general idea on how affiliate marketing works and some basic guidelines on starting out. However, if you are a serious in investing your time and money in this business, I highly suggest investing in the premium membership as it includes the full package of what you need to have a successful business with affiliate marketing.

Is Wealthy Affiliate a scam?

Probably not. For the price you are actually paying, you are getting a lot of helpful information from the course and the community offered within the program. Think about it, if you are to complete a course at a local university, the fees will be at least 100 times what WA is charging you for.

Pros of Wealthy Affiliate (WA)

Before talking about what I don’t like about Wealthy Affiliate, let us start off with what I like about Wealthy Affiliate.

In my opinion, one of the biggest take out from joining Wealthy Affiliate it’s the convenience of starting up an affiliate marketing business. This is because it is a one stop station where you can get everything done in one site. Instead of going through the hassle of buying a domain name from one place and then getting hosting in another place while finding for paying for training programs from another place, all of this can be done with Wealthy Affiliate alone.

Everything you need to be in this business is all in one spot and you do not have to pay membership fees for separate functions or tools from different companies. You just need to pay a monthly or yearly membership fee for Wealthy Affiliate to get all the tools needed to build and maintain your business. Besides, it also does not upsell its membership and joining does not put you into a sales funnel.

As for starters, this is a great way to get started as it does not require any credit card to create a free membership thus no immediate monetary commitment involved. This enables beginners to explore the world of affiliate marketing with all the needed information and lessons with Wealthy Affiliate before really diving into the business.

The next best thing about Wealthy Affiliate is the community that they have created in this industry. Members of the community can chat and interact with each other in the live chat or comment sections where they can exchange experiences and learn more from each other. It is also a very supportive community where people are constantly helping each other to grow and improve their business.

Furthermore, the wealthy affiliate program allows you to learn and progress in your own pace without pressure while giving sufficient support by providing 1-to-1 guidance, comments and feedbacks on how to further improve your business. Besides, their training courses range from beginner to intermediate level catering to all levels of users.

Cons of Wealthy Affiliate (WA)

After seeing the list of pros of Wealthy Affiliate above, you might think what may possibly go wrong with Wealthy Affiliate? It’s checking all the boxes needed to start or maintain an affiliate marketing business! However, not all is perfect and there are some parts where Wealthy Affiliate can try to improve on.

Firstly, beginners may be overwhelmed with the abundance of information available in the program as they may find it too much to handle. This may discourage some people to go on as they find it hard to adapt and comprehend everything at once.

Furthermore, the design of the website may be slightly confusing as there are so many buttons and options in the website. As starters, it may be complicated to use and navigate the website as there are so many things going on. It is not easy for one to pick up in a day and some time is needed to learn all the features available.

In a way, the community created in Wealthy Affiliate may be useful but in another way, it may be a time waster as people spend time browsing through comments and forums instead of studying the courses available. This all goes down to how focused you are in achieving your goals without being distracted by interesting forums and conversations going on in the community.

Lastly, I think one of the biggest drawback of Wealthy Affiliate is the amount of time given for free members to have LIVE support. Free members are only given 7 days of LIVE support and I believe that 1 week is not sufficient for someone to learn everything. LIVE support can be very helpful for beginners as they are more prone to encounter problems as they are still in their learning phase.

Who is suitable to join Wealthy Affiliate (WA)?

Wealthy affiliate is for everyone that is keen on learning and developing basic to advanced skills to achieve success in the affiliate marketing industry.

People with zero to intermediate knowledge on managing an affiliate marketing business can all join the Wealthy Affiliate academy as it contains courses and trainings that cover a wide range of skill set required to be successful in the affiliate marketing.

Additionally, people that are looking for an extra side income are suitable to join as learning can be done in their own phase and working hours are flexible. It is something people can build during their free time and as time passes by, the income from the website may be able to replace their full-time 9-5 jobs.

Furthermore, anyone that already owns a blog or website should take this opportunity to monetize their website generating a side income. This is a win-win situation as you get money from doing what you are already doing.

In conclusion, having an affiliate marketing business is not as easy as it seems as it requires a lot of patience and hard work to develop a website to generate a sustainable amount of income. Someone that wants quick success and someone that gives up easily may not be suitable for this program as they may not see results in the very beginning and it will be a waste of time for such people.