Overview
I’ve been a member of the Wealthy Affiliate community for over two years now. My experience as a freelance writer for more than five years has necessitated that I learn how to manage a website, create content, and optimize that content for marketing purposes. But I didn’t really know how much I didn’t know until I gave Wealthy Affiliate a try.
If I were to explain everything I’ve learned since joining the community, I’d need to write a mini-novel. But there’s a lot that you should be excited to learn on your own. In creating The Wealthy Affiliate Review for 2020, I’ll give you a full breakdown of all the features, training options, resources, and other benefits of Wealthy Affiliate.
What is Wealthy Affiliate?
Wealthy Affiliate is the home of affiliate marketing. It’s a place where you can learn how to create better content. It’s a platform with regular live training seminars covering a variety of topics. It’s a “one-stop-shop” for finding and registering domains, managing websites, creating content, performing keyword research and so much more.
But the most valuable aspect of Wealthy Affiliate is the community. There are millions of people on the platform and many of them have more than a decade of experience with affiliate marketing, website creation, SEO, keyword research, and other niche subjects. What does this mean?
It means that you can get REAL people to answer your questions when they come up. If there isn’t already a thread that addresses your question, you can create a new one and the community will help you find the resources you’re looking for. It’s hard to overstate how important this is.
When I first began my journey into digital entrepreneurship, I often felt like I was on an island. It was hard to get responses from my hosting service and difficult to learn how to make changes to my website design and layout. Perhaps most importantly, I didn’t have a means of intaking new information about my industry on a regular basis.
I also had multiple websites hosted on different platforms and it was hard to keep track of login information, email communications, and other important resources that I knew I needed to succeed. Wealthy Affiliate has allowed me to consolidate, improve my systems, and be more efficient in my digital marketing efforts overall.
Wealthy Affiliate Training and Certifications
Let’s start by diving deeper into the various training options and certification courses available through Wealthy Affiliate. The screenshot above should give you an idea of all that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer in terms of training.
Online Entrepreneur Certification
When you’re just starting out in the affiliate marketing world, Wealthy Affiliate’s Online Entrepreneur Certification is designed to give you the tools you’ll need to succeed. It’ll teach you how to build a website, what kind of content to create, how to monetize your website, and how to leverage social media to grow your online presence.
The biggest thing that you’ll learn through the Online Entrepreneur Certification is the importance of creating good content. You’ll also learn what it means to create good content and how to optimize your content to attract more readers.
Affiliate Bootcamp
As you gain more experience and your time on Wealthy Affiliate continues, you’ll find more value in Wealthy Affiliate’s Affiliate Bootcamp. This certification course will teach you how to build a brand, learn your audience, and earn referrals through your content and strategic marketing initiatives. It’ll also teach you how to leverage pay-per-click campaigns to scale your earning potential through affiliate marketing.
Live Training
Wealthy Affiliate also offers regular live training so that you can continue your education. These are great tools to engage with the community while receiving strategies to make your marketing efforts bear more fruit. Each live training session includes a Q&A session so that you can have specific questions addressed by the presenter. And these training sessions remain on the platform for you after they’ve been recorded so that you can go back and watch them whenever you have the time!
Classrooms
Lastly on the training front, Wealthy Affiliate offers a classroom set up that nicely organizes lessons by subject matter. Some examples include Everything WordPress, Website Development & Programming, and Search Engine Optimization. This format allows you to quickly find and focus on updating your knowledge in specific areas that you need right now. It makes it easy to locate the exact training materials that you need to take the next step in your online marketing business.
Wealthy Affiliate Keyword Research Tools
When I first began freelance writing, I had no idea about keywords. Back in those days, clients would provide me with extensive lists of keywords they wanted to focus on and there was a major push to include the keyword X amount of times in every article (that X would depend on client preference most of the time). I relied on clients to provide me with lists of keywords and really had no idea about any of the metrics they were using to choose those keywords.
But the Wealthy Affiliate platform provides a powerful (free!) keyword research tool and the initial certification will teach you how to use the tool to target low-competition keywords. It’ll teach you about the metrics that the Jaaxy tool will provide. These metrics include the average number of searches a keyword receives per month, the number of competing websites also ranking for a given term, and the average number of visits you can expect to your site if you achieve a first page Google ranking for a term.
In addition to its easy-to-use keyword research tool, Jaaxy also allows you to see how your site is ranking for keywords you’ve used in the past. It also gives you the ability to save lists of keywords so that you don’t have to start over from scratch with your research every time you sit down to create new content.
When you join Wealthy Affiliate, you will also automatically join the Jaaxy affiliate program. This program gives you the ability to share Jaaxy with others in need of a keyword research tool and earn commissions when your referrals upgrade to a higher tier plan with Jaaxy.
Wealthy Affiliate Content Creation Tools
When you’re creating new content for your site, you can work directly in Wealthy Affiliate. Once your content is finished, you’ll be able to automatically transfer it to your WordPress website and hop over to perform the final editing touches in WordPress.
The Wealthy Affiliate content creation tool allows you to create templates for content so that you can use your time more efficiently as you rinse and repeat with new content created in a similar format. It also tracks word count, the number of headings, and the number of paragraphs you’ve created so that you can check on any specific writing metrics you’re trying to meet with your content.
One of the other features of the content creation tool is a tracker of your all-time words written. While this is somewhat of an ego-boosting metric, the amount of words you write does play a direct role in your overall ranking in Wealthy Affiliate. Plus, it’s nice to log in and see how productive you’ve been and be reminded of the work you’ve put into your website!
Managing Domains with Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate’s domain management tools give you one place to search for, register, and manage your domains. This includes site hosting, privacy protection, setting up auto domain renewals so that your website doesn’t go down if you forget to set a renewal reminder, and access to a number of other back-end settings.
SiteManager
Under the SiteManager tab, you’ll be able to see a brief overview of the health of your websites. This overview includes the number of pages, posts, and comments your website currently contains. It also shows you if you have any pending comments awaiting your review and keeps you up to date on the current WordPress version you’re running on your sites.
Additionally, you can log in to your websites directly from the SiteManager tab. Wealthy Affiliate will create unique, secure passwords for each of your sites and REMEMBER THEM! This means no more forgetting your login information and having to go through the password recovery or reset process multiple times per year.
SiteFeedback
Under the SiteFeedback tab, you’ll be able to receive specific feedback on the design and focus of your website. This doesn’t include comments on your posts or articles (that is available via the next feature we’ll discuss), but it does allow you to get constructive advice from other Wealthy Affiliate members.
You’ll have to provide some feedback on other users’ websites in order to receive feedback on your sites, but there is a hidden advantage in this as well. You’ll be able to see how others are structuring their sites, content, menus, and more and incorporate what you see on others’ websites into your site design and content layout.
SiteComments
This is where you’ll be able to request comments on the posts and/or pages you create on your website. The amount of engagement your website receives is a key metric in the search engine rankings you achieve for specific content. So instead of having to visit one site at a time and provide comments in hopes of receiving comments back, you’ll be able to do that right from the comfort of the Wealthy Affiliate platform.
The SiteComments tool allows you to input your specific areas of interest so that you can provide thoughtful comments on content that you’re actually passionate about. In turn, you’ll be able to request comments every time you offer two comments on other folks’ content.
Over time, Wealthy Affiliate also allows you to purchase credits for comment requests. As your website begins to earn a more consistent income, you’ll be able to save time and purchase credits to request comments rather than having to leave specific comments yourself!
SiteEmail
This feature allows you to create new email addresses for your websites and redirect those new addresses to one account so that you can manage all of your email communications with ease. As your site grows and you find more partnership opportunities, you’ll find this feature to be incredibly valuable.
If you’re like me and you eventually create multiple websites, you’ll want to keep your communications organized. And one of the best ways to do so is to create email addresses that are specific to your website. You can then have emails redirected to your preferred Gmail (or other) account so that you can manage all communications in one convenient place!
Wealthy Affiliate SiteSupport
This is one of the features I’ve been most impressed by since joining the Wealthy Affiliate community. I’ve spent many hours trying to find contact information for hosting services or researching answers to specific website questions. I’ve also had to wait for days at a time to receive a response about a website-specific question.
But I rarely have to go through this now with Wealthy Affiliate. As you can see from the screenshot above, their form for submitting SiteSupport tickets is very simple. I’ve also been very pleased with their response time. I can honestly say that I haven’t submitted a ticket that wasn’t responded to within 24 hours, and usually, the response time is closer to 2 or 3 hours.
That’s a significant time savings, especially when you’re waiting for an answer in order to move forward with a project. Wealthy Affiliate’s SiteSupport has also been extremely patient and helpful as I’ve gone through the process of transferring several websites from other hosts to be hosted on the WA platform. I can’t overstate the importance of a great support team, especially if you’re relatively new to the affiliate marketing world!
Finding Affiliate Programs on Wealthy Affiliate
Joining affiliate programs and promoting products is one of the major ways you’re going to monetize your website. But this can be a complicated process if you have to visit the website of every manufacturer and join their affiliate program individually.
Fortunately, there are a variety of affiliate networks out there that make it easier to manage affiliate partnerships. On Wealthy Affiliate, you can utilize their affiliate program tool to search for affiliates that fit your niche of choice. The tool allows you to search based on popular categories, keywords, and trending opportunities.
It also organizes affiliates by those that pay out the highest commissions. This gives you the ability to focus on promoting products that are going to give you the highest return on your investment. It also gives you the ability to tailor your affiliate search based on a number of useful criteria, including payout method, rating, region, commission percentage, overall commissions, and whether or not the affiliate offers automatic approval into their program.
Overall, this tool will save you a lot of time searching for new ways to monetize your site, and that’s always a benefit. At the end of the day, you’re probably interested in earning more money from the content you create and maximizing the efficiency of your affiliate marketing efforts.
My Wealthy Affiliate Experience
Wealthy Affiliate has significantly improved the efficiency of my website management processes. I am currently hosting eight websites there and I know from past experience that I would be losing track of important site information left and right if I didn’t have them all in one place.
Some of these sites are focused on affiliate marketing while others are focused on different initiatives. Still, I feel that the value of the platform in terms of site hosting, domain management, and site support alone is well worth the annual cost.
When you factor in the additional benefits of an easy place to create content, search for relevant keywords, see how my sites are performing for certain keywords, and continue my education, you can easily see how the platform provides significant value.
For me, the ongoing training and certification opportunities are a huge part of why I’ve remained a part of the Wealthy Affiliate community. Every time I have a down day, I log in and see which recorded training is pertinent to me right now. I can honestly say that I’ve never taken training that hasn’t given me actionable steps to improve my websites and drive more traffic to them. In the end, more traffic is going to result in higher earnings.
Additionally, I have very much enjoyed the whole “community” aspect of Wealthy Affiliate. I have made new connections and even scheduled conference calls with Wealthy Affiliate members to learn more about their niches and techniques for monetizing their sites. I’ve also reached out to members on multiple occasions to ask questions and have always received very thoughtful and useful answers.
With more than two million people currently part of the Wealthy Affiliate community, it’s almost a guarantee that someone has encountered the very problem you’re working on before you. Sometimes I struggle to ask for help (I can be thickheaded), but the community at WA continues to encourage me to reach out when I’m feeling lost or confused.
This has tremendous value and it’s also great to log in every day and read a new blog about success stories at Wealthy Affiliate. It’s great to be reminded of what is possible if we continue to put in the work, invest in our education, and have faith in our business acumen!
How To Sign Up For Wealthy Affiliate
Starter Membership
Signing up is as easy as entering your email address! Starters can join the community for $0/month and create your first two free websites. For the first seven days, you’ll have access to Live Help and 1-on-1 coaching from a member with significant experience in the affiliate marketing industry.
You’ll also have access to the entire Beginner Training Course, Phase 1 of the Affiliate Bootcamp training, and two training classrooms. You’ll also be able to view video walk-throughs within the courses and you’ll get your first 30 searches with the Jaaxy for free.
The Starter Membership is a great way to explore the Wealthy Affiliate platform and begin to engage with the community. There’s a lot to learn in the beginner training course alone and you’ll be able to explore that for free as you find out more about the platform.
Premium Membership
When you’re really ready to increase your earning potential, you’ll want to look into the Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership. The pricing for this membership starts at $49/month, but Wealthy Affiliate does offer discounts if you’re willing to pay for an annual membership instead of paying on a monthly basis. Additional promotions also tend to come up throughout the year, such as in the days surrounding Black Friday.
In 2019, Wealthy Affiliate offered a Black Friday deal of just $289 for an annual membership. That equates to 49% off the regular cost!
With the Premium Membership, you’ll be able to create up to 50 unique websites and you’ll be able to perform unlimited keyword searches on Jaaxy. You’ll also have access to premium features, including unlimited live help, private messaging, and an updated website security package (which is pretty much mandatory if you intend to run an eCommerce site, for example).
You’ll also receive access to all seven phases of the Affiliate Bootcamp and the weekly live training classes. Additional benefits of the Premium Membership include access to all twelve classrooms, unlimited 1-on-1 coaching, 2x higher payouts in the WA affiliate program, and 24/7/365 site support.
There are a few more benefits of the Premium Membership and you can see a full side-by-side comparison of the different membership plans below.
What Questions Do You Still Have About Wealthy Affiliate?
It is my hope that you’ve found all the information you need in The Wealthy Affiliate Review for 2020. But if you have any questions I am happy to answer them personally! You can leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you ASAP. Or, if you want to ask a question more privately, feel free to shoot an email to tucker@ballisterwriting.com!
If you’re looking for an exclusive inside look at how to move around the Wealthy Affiliate platform, check out the video review I put together for you!
About Ballister Writing
As a published writer who aspires to create more works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry in the years ahead, I’m constantly in search of new ideas that help me hone my writing skills and get thoughts on paper. But I also recognize the importance of writing like there’s no one watching (or like no one is ever going to read it). This process helps us get our sincerest thoughts out there and to remain passionate about writing as a hobby.
Please leave a comment below if you are inspired, perplexed, saddened, or angered by any of the stories presented above. I welcome any and all comments and will do my best to respond hastily. I’d also encourage you to share this with others if you found it particularly insightful or helpful. Be sure to tag @ballisterwriting on Facebook or Instagram if you do!
If you’re curious, I’ve got lots of other content you’ll enjoy as well! That includes Book Reviews, Writing Tips, and My Books! Just give your preferred link some love and it’ll take you where you want to go!
To be clear, I do receive affiliate commissions from any purchase made through the links on my site. These commissions help me purchase new books and free up more time to read and create better content. So if you decide to use one of the links on my site to purchase a new book, I’d like to say a huge thank you!
Become a Wealthy Affiliate Today!
Tucker Ballister
This is a very thorough and in depth review on WA and all true! I’ve only been on WA for about a month and the first thing that hit me was the tremendously welcoming and helpful people. I couldn’t be happier to have found this venue and the amount that you receive in value far outweighs the cost.
I’m really happy to hear that your experience at WA has been so positive. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions as you explore the platform further!
I have heard so much about Wealthy Affiliate already and what I mostly hear is how amazing the platform is and how helpful it can be to my quest to earning a living online.
You mentioned that you were already freelancing before you joined Wealthy Affiliate and that you learned more than you initially thought possible. I have to take this to mean then, that WA is not just for beginners.
I used to think the only group of people who benefited are beginners. This review has been informative, I now have a better understanding of what Wealthy Affiliate is. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Lyke!
I think you make a really good point that WA is NOT just for beginners. The entire online entrepreneur certification course is (in my opinion) more tailored to beginners, but there are consistently new live training sessions and the organization of training content by classroom allows more experienced affiliate marketers to boost their knowledge in any area that’s most pressing for their business right now!
Such a great review here. You have done a fabulous job. I joined WA about 10 mos ago and it has been just an amazing experience. Reading your review I love how you included the live training that is offered. That is one of my favourite parts of the program. Jay really teaches us so many wonderful things that can help.
Being able to create your own website is such an accomplishment. You almost don’t believe that it is yours and that all the hard work ends up looking so good.
Great job.
I couldn’t agree more Coralie! Jay and the rest of the WA team provide us with so much value and it’s simply up to us to put it into practice for our websites!
Hi Tucker.
Thanks for this excellent and very comprehensive review of Wealthy Affiliate. I have been involved in affiliate marketing for a few years now and although I have made a few sales I just feel that there must be something I’m doing wrong and cant figure it out.
I was thinking about joining Clickbank University but while researching that I came across your article on Wealthy Affiliate. Can you tell me if the training you referred to will actually show me how to build my affiliate marketing business? I sort of have some knowledge so is it just aimed at rookies or is there more there for slightly more experienced marketers?
Thanks
David
Hi David!
The Wealthy Affiliate platform provides something for all levels of affiliate marketers. The base-level training is tailored to beginners, but there are so many additional training sessions and classrooms that provide more experienced marketers with access to training that’s more pertinent to the immediate challenges you’re facing.
For me, the value in the content creation templates, keyword research tool, SiteSupport, and the community are well worth the annual investment.
I hope that answers your questions and please feel free to reach back out if any other questions come up!
This is a very thorough review of the Wealthy Affiliate platform. I also like your humor with the Cons of the platform – might make me smarter and lead to unexpected income! Tucker, I appreciate the fact that you have personally used the platform for two years and only after that you are recommending it to the rest of us. That shows your integrity which I do not come upon a whole lot nowadays with so many of the other scams out there. Thank you for your review, I will be trying out the Wealthy Affiliate Starter plan today and see how it goes!
I’m really happy to hear this Padma! I have certainly seen my fair share of scams out there too, but Wealthy Affiliate has been nothing but helpful, transparent, and educational so far. If you have any questions as you enjoy the Starter Plan, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Eric, Lynne, Marcus, well said. Wealthy Affiliate has really helped millions of people discover themselves, and not only that, but the platform had also assisted a lot of individuals and businesses to experience what we call a financial explosion.
I can categorically refer anybody to Wealthy Affiliate without any fear of being harassed for misinformation.
This review is so much of high necessity and it will also draw more people to the league going by the various testimonies on the ground for people to see.
Thanks for sharing your opinion about Wealthy Affiliate Carol!
If there is only one thing that I have come to love about Wealthy Affiliate, it is the fact that the platform is channeled towards building worthy affiliate members capable of making a difference in the world of affiliate marketing. The training, the boot camp, the support, the offer to always reach out to the owners and all. I just cannot say it all about Wealthy Affiliate. It is simply superb.
I can’t agree with you more Rodarrick!
Thank you Tucker for the in depth and updated review of Wealthy Affiliate (WA). I have been a member a little under a year and I have learned more about e commerce, website creation, seo, blogging, and affiliate marketing than I had learned the previous 20 years. Simplify because of a point you made that the community has people that have been doing this a long time and you can get almost any question answered. Coupled with the extensive training, anyone can be successful with WA.
Thanks Lee! I really appreciate you sharing your experience at Wealthy Affiliate. And I do agree with you that I have learned much more in two years at Wealthy Affiliate than I did in four previous years just researching on my own!
Hello Tucker. Nice to see you share your review of Wealthy Affiliate for 2020. I have been a member of Wealthy Affiliate for few months now and I must admit that my experience so far has been something unimaginable. The experience is pleasant, lovely and life transforming. The certification training is awesome, the weekly webinars are something else, the tools available to use are truly helpful and I am totally blown away by the awesome Community of like-minded individuals, both experts and beginners. It is a place to be hunger for and I am proud to be a member.
Regards!
Thanks for sharing your experience with WA! I definitely agree with you that the community has been nothing short of impressive throughout my time at Wealthy Affiliate!
Hi Tucker. This is not the first Wealthy Affiliate review I’ve read today but it’s the one that has really made me think I should join this platform. I have started to research about it and now I realize that in one place there are all these tools and training that can help us build an online stream of revenue. I had my doubts that if I joined then I would be asked to join other upsells.
I’ll give this platform a try.
Hi Ann! I have always found Wealthy Affiliate to be very upfront about the costs of the platform. Of course, there are other services that you might eventually wind up investing in to grow your business (email automation, social media management tools, etc.) but as far as Wealthy Affiliate goes, I have found that nothing is hidden or surprising (except in a good way!).
Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions about the platform as you join and begin to poke around!
Hello there. Thanks for this awesome article it would be of great help to the public as it has been of help to me. I must say that Wealthy Affiliate is the best among its kind and I pray people discover it this year so they can start making money. I have been here at Wealthy affiliate for some time and I must say it is the best.
Thanks for sharing your experience with WA Feji Ben!