How do I start an affiliate marketing business? Affiliate marketing is one of the most powerful income levers you can employ to build and increase your residual income streams. One of the best platforms I have found online (and one I use every day) is Wealthy Affiliate. It is a fantastic way to start affiliate marketing quickly and efficiently. My Wealthy Affiliate review is based on my personal experiences using the platform.
Product Name
Website
Price
Tiered Pricing Structure – Free, $49.00 per month Premium Plan, $99.00 per month Premium Plus
Operator
Niche Marketing, Inc. Box 18 2354 Millstream Rd Victoria, BC, Canada V9B 6L2
Wealthy Affiliate is an online portal for digital entrepreneurs interested in building an affiliate marketing business. The Wealthy Affiliate platform is a complete A to Z solution for affiliate marketers and is designed to support beginner through advanced users. The platform offers extensive training, technical tools, and research tools targeted at the affiliate marketer.
If you ask yourself, “how do I start an affiliate marketing business?” and don’t know how to get started, join Wealthy Affiliate for free and get started today.
Wealthy Affiliate is the top affiliate marketing platform and provides courses, hosting, domains, and support all in one place. Join for free today!
Wealthy Affiliate Training
No Wealthy Affiliate review would be complete without a review of the training available on the platform.
Wealthy Affiliate offers all the training you need to start an affiliate marketing business. I am a big believer in leveraging the experience of others to get started with a new project quickly and efficiently. I wouldn’t try to do my own taxes or be my own lawyer – I don’t have the knowledge.
When prospective entrepreneurs ask themselves, “how do I start an affiliate marketing business?” Nine times out of 10, the complexity stops them right there. They don’t know what to do next. You might begin with internet searches, but most affiliate marketing training programs deliver only some of the knowledge you need to get started.
You need to understand various things with affiliate marketing, including websites, online marketing, SEO, design, and content creation (this is just an abbreviated list). Each item throws up a roadblock to stopping future affiliate marketers from getting started. This is where the affiliate marketing training from Wealthy Affiliate shines.
The Wealthy Affiliate Training program is robust and is delivered in bite-size pieces to get you started. There are over 120 lessons in the Online Entrepreneur Certification Course and the Affiliate Bootcamp Course. The courses walk you through the following:
-
acquiring a domain
-
setting up a website
-
the concepts behind affiliate marketing
-
how to create marketing materials
-
how to research keywords
-
how to build out your website
-
digital marketing
-
SEO
-
website design and everything else you need to run a successful online business.
Wealthy Affiliate Hosting
Wealthy Affiliate hosts your website on their platform, powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
In our other businesses, we use AWS to run our online SaaS (“Software as a Service”) applications, web applications, and larger websites. The Wealthy Affiliate technical team takes all of the complexity out of setting up AWS (it is complicated) and handles everything for you.
With a Premium Plan, Wealthy Affiliate will host ten websites for you on their AWS enterprise-level servers. The platform also includes the following:
-
1-click website setup and launch
-
1-click email setup
-
Free SSL for hosted websites
-
content manager
-
website backup
-
website health monitoring.
When comparing the price of the Wealthy Affiliate Premium Plan to all of our other hosting (dedicated servers at Namecheap, reseller hosting at Namecheap, and m4.xlarge and t3.small on AWS), the Wealthy Affiliate Premium Plan is worth it just for the hosting alone (by far!).
I will discontinue some of our non-AWS hosting options and move those websites to Wealthy Affiliate Servers.
Free Website Builder
Integrated into the Wealthy Affiliate all-in-one platform is a free website builder powered by SiteRubix. SiteRubix enables you to build and launch your website simply and easily. You can try it out yourself here:
Domain Registrations
Wealthy Affiliate also enables users to purchase and register domain names directly in the platform interface. There are cheaper options, but Wealthy Affiliate includes domain privacy protection with the domain purchase and renewal.
Keyword Research
The Wealthy Affiliate platform also includes an integrated keyword research tool called Jaaxy. You can use the tool to research and target keywords for articles, track the ranking of URLs on your website, research keyword-related domain names, and research other potential niches.
You can take Jaaxy for a spin here and research a keyword below:
The Wealthy Affiliate training program walks you through the importance of keywords and keyword research in online marketing and how it affects your search engine ranking. As this is a Wealthy Affiliate review and not a review of Jaaxy, I will just touch on this research tool and do a complete review in a later article.
Wealthy Affiliate Support
I have only had to contact support one time for a technical issue regarding email. I was answered immediately, and the issue was resolved quickly.
Most of my questions were answered in the extensive knowledge base in the community.
You enter your question in the search bar and see the results of all questions answered related to your query.
I found the community-based support extensive and knowledgeable. With such a large user base, the community probably has already asked and answered your issue.
Wealthy Affiliate Pricing
Wealthy Affiliate has three pricing tiers, Free, Premium ($49.00 per month), and Premium Plus (which I use – $99.00 per month).
The Free plan includes hosting for one website, access to Phase 1 affiliate marketing lessons (from the Affiliate Bootcamp Course), restricted access to the keyword research tool, video walk-throughs, access to 2 training classrooms, and live help and coaching for the first seven days.
Premium expands these features with increased hosting, keyword research features, and access to all training courses, workshops, and live video classes.
Premium Plus (which I use) gives full access to the platform and enterprise-level tools. Here is a complete comparison of features in the free and premium membership plans.
PROS AND CONS
Pros
Try Before You Buy
Being able to try out tools before committing to purchasing them is fantastic. In this case, you never need to upgrade to premium if you don’t need access to the extra tools. You can take lessons for free, and they will host your website for free! You get access to the website builder, free themes, 1-click email setup, and community support and never have to pay a dime!
This differs from many other options in the affiliate marketing industry, where there is a paywall before you see or try anything. Even if there is a “money-back guarantee,” with these other programs, it can be challenging to get a refund if you are dissatisfied with the service.
Excellent Training
This is a big “must” for me and the number one thing I was searching for when seeking affiliate marketing training. I was looking for a complete business-building instructional solution to get up to speed quickly and start building these affiliate marketing businesses.
Active Community
Calling the Wealthy Affiliate community “active” is an understatement. There is constant interaction via the platform with community members helping each other, answering questions, helping to motivate each other, and more.
Detailed Knowledge base
With so many members sharing their experiences, there is likely an answer waiting for your question. Type your question into the search bar, and solutions related to the question pop up in a drop-down list.
Incredible Hosting
Again, no Wealthy Affiliate review would be complete without discussing the website hosting. The hosting offered with the premium membership was a surprise. Fast, easy to use, free SSL certificates, and quick support made hosting a home run for me.
Easy to use Single Platform
Having everything in one place is a HUGE timesaver for me. It allows me to focus on the elements needed to operate this business in one place. I don’t need multiple logins for different service providers – everything is in one place! I can focus on my affiliate marketing business and not get distracted by the minutiae that technology businesses generate.
Cons
Limited Server Access for Advanced Users
With simplicity comes drawbacks. If you need access to server functions via cPanel or WHM, you will find your access to the Wealthy Affiliate hosting servers (SiteRubix) limiting. I have other servers for more advanced applications, but the simplicity of Wealthy Affiliate’s hosting is perfect for an affiliate marketing website. You need to ask yourself what type of website you are launching, and if it is that complex, you probably won’t be using WordPress anyway.
Overwhelming Amount of Information Can Cause Information Overload
When I first joined Wealthy Affiliate, I was overwhelmed by the depth of readily available information about getting started with affiliate marketing. Fortunately, training modules are broken down into bite-size pieces, and you can branch off into the other workshops, seminars, and other learning modules at your own pace. This is not a negative, but if you are not focused, the sheer amount of information can distract you from action.
Excessive email notifications
I am constantly battling with my inbox, trying to reduce email notifications. When I joined Wealthy Affiliate, I was bombarded with many emails, some informational, some motivational, some transactional, and some “upselling” the premium membership. Fortunately, over time these website notification emails have lessened to a sustainable amount.
LEVER RANK
The Levered Income “Lever Rank” rates a tool or business model on how much it levers your time and effort into generating you income. Working at a job is ranked at a “1” (1 hour of work generates 1 hour of pay), and someone that just gives you free money (I wish I knew someone like this) is ranked at a “100”.
Affiliate Marketing as a business model has a high Lever Ranking of 85 due to the potential of multiple years of residual income that can result from one work unit.
The Wealthy Affiliate “tool” that you leverage to get started quickly in affiliate marketing, bypassing years of mistakes and learning, is rated at an 80 Lever Rank due to the inexpensive cost, excellent training materials, all-in-one platform, and great support.
Final Thoughts about Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate is the quickest and easiest way to start an affiliate marketing business. If you ask yourself, “How do I start an affiliate marketing business?” Wealthy Affiliate is the right place to start. I hope you enjoyed my Wealthy Affiliate Review, and let me know if you have any questions or comments in the comments section below.
This is a tool I use every day, and I will continue to update this Wealthy Affiliate review as my experience with the platform continues. Get started today with affiliate marketing by signing up here for free.
Wealthy Affiliate is the top affiliate marketing platform and provides courses, hosting, domains, and support all in one place. Join for free today!
