My Wealthy Affiliate Challenge

Hello, and welcome to the first entry in what I hope will grow into a valuable resource for those of you interested in pursuing a career in affiliate marketing.

Ten days ago, on September 21, 2014, I signed up for a free account with Wealthy Affiliate. I imagine that most of you who will eventually discover this blog will have an idea as to what Wealthy Affiliate is about, but for those unaware, I’ll give you a quick description. Wealthy Affiliate is an online community that offers training, tutorials and hands-on support for those looking to get into the world of affiliate marketing. The community is comprised of thousand of individuals (many of which are quite successful in IM ) and is led by a very active duo of co-founders: Kyle and Carson.

WA touts itself as an online ‘university’ of sorts for affiliate marketing. The training is broken up into different curriculums and the information available is extensive. One could easily devote the same amount of time working through the ‘training’ at Wealthy Affiliate as they could pursuing a degree in a related major at a 4-year college. Although it’s not any sort of accredited learning institution, WA claims that the quality of the information and the value offered far exceeds anything you’d find available through a much more expensive and formal education system.

I’d heard about WA this past year through a video presentation I watched online. I honestly can’t remember who was touting the service but it was someone in the industry that I respected, so I made a note of it.

Months went by and I never bothered to take a harder look at Wealthy Affiliate. I felt I was ‘too busy’ to stop and investigate yet another online training system, not to mention, I wasn’t even sure Wealthy Affiliate would be of any sort of benefit to me. Being that I’ve been dabbling in affiliate marketing for over the past eight years, I wasn’t sure there’d be much information presented there that I didn’t already know.

Out of frustration with my lack of progress in affiliate marketing, and because I knew I needed to try a new approach, I decided to revisit that affiliate training site I noted on a piece of scrap paper earlier in the year. My first stop was of course Google, which as you may have discovered, turns up mostly positive reviews for WA by sites like these. You see, one of the premier training modules they offer is one that instructs you on how to make money promoting their website. Because of this, it can seemingly be a little tough to get some honest reviews of the service.

I next went to some online forums that I haunt on occasion, most notable of them being the Warrior Forum. In there I discovered a mixed bag of opinions, but most all of them were favorable. At this point I figured, what the heck…, might as well sign up for a free account and see what it’s all about, which is exactly what I did.

I was immediately impressed with all that it had to offer, and I quickly jumped into the introductory videos. Let me just say that the process of getting you started as a WA member is very organized, which is a breath of fresh air and one of their key selling points, in my opinion. I mean, all of the information anyone would need to succeed in affiliate marketing is available out there for free, but seriously . . . who has the time to pore through countless search results, blog posts, forum threads and what not – looking for the valuable info that’s going to help you on your way. Not to mention, you still have to spend even more time experimenting with things and also determining which among your resources do you truly consider trusted sources?

Regardless of the topic, I want to get right down to it. Give me the honest actionable info and let’s get going! And while there are a few bloggers out there whom I consider key go-to figures for advice on products, marketing tactics, etc…a lot of what they share is often times just a portion of what you need to know.

I’ve found that the only way to truly become educated and experienced within a certain area of study is to become a part of a collective. Learning from others, sharing experiences, and most importantly . . . teaching. Those are the things that truly make you an expert on a given topic.

This is what makes Wealthy Affiliate so special. The community dynamic is one of the best things about it. It’s practically a social network for online marketers, where users share there experiences and help one another. It’s really cool.

Anyway, I’ll be getting into much more detail about all that Wealthy Affiliate has to offer in future posts. For now, I want to wrap up this introduction and let you know why this site exists.

Okay, so 10 days after I signed up for WA, I went premium. The beauty of Wealthy Affiliate is that anyone can join and stay as long as they want for free, but they also offer an upgraded premium membership which gives you access to a whole bunch of goodness. The decision to go premium was a no-brainer for me and I intend to use the paid subscription to the fullest.

Which is why I’m writing this.

As you can see, my first impressions of Wealthy Affiliate are very good. I’ve been doing this for awhile and I have a nose for scams. WA is not one of them. I see it as a program that, if you’re serious about it and put in the work, you can see tremendous success with the lessons learned. I intend to do just that.

The purpose of this website is to offer a revealing and personal account of my journey with Wealthy Affiliate, to offer some inspiration and advice, and to have you share in the experience as I work towards my goals.

As far as the goals are concerned . . . I’m going to outline those within the next day or so. I’m still working out the details, but I can tell you they’re lofty, yet attainable. I’m going to challenge myself harder than I ever have before, but I am determined to see success.

Anyway . . . that’s it for the intro. I look forward to sharing this journey with all of you!