Wealthy Affiliate Review 2022 – Is WA The Real Deal?

“Is Wealthy Affiliate the real deal?” is something that I was pondering about for quite some time, because in my online marketing journey I went through a long season where I was suffering from shiny object syndrome and in the process I have wasted a lot of money and time. I have bought software and paid for so called useless quick rich schemes (that does not exist so by the way) and a lot of the things I spent money on simply ended up collecting dust. It was my past painful experiences that would lead me to write this “Wealthy Affiliate Review 2022” post, in order to provide you with the information that you need of what it really takes and what it really is you need to become successful online.

If you read about my online marketing journey you will see that I gave up on online marketing for a full 4 years due to buying WordPress plugins from third party organisations that did not continue to support their plugins over the years. As a result these plugins started to break all over my vast amount of websites and as I was unable to update these plugins it caused vulnerabilities which hackers could easily exploit. Yes, you guessed it, I got hacked and all my hard work that I have built up over so many years was now simply gone and I did not have the strength to start over, until 4 years later.

So you can imagine that I am very careful to now buy anything, unless I buy from a reputable company which I know will continue to support their software/plugins etc. for many years to come and provides me with the essential online marketing tools that I need to become successful online.  And in general, now that I have once again started to get back in the saddle, I realised how much money I wasted unnecessarily and that it is not advisable to chase shiny objects with the objective to create wealth online. In fact, Wealthy Affiliate provides you with all the essential online marketing tools like hosting, website security, a top notch keyword research tool, a blogging platform, online marketing community interaction/support, education and so much more to ensure your online success.

So What Is Wealthy Affiliate?

Wealthy Affiliate (WA) has more than 2.5 million members and on this platform you will find the expertise of some of the most successful online marketers in the world. Wealthy Affiliate is an absolute dream for those that are just starting out with online marketing as WA provides you with all the essentials you need to be successful online and for me one of the most important considerations that sealed the deal for me is the incredible security and website hosting support that Wealthy Affiliate offers. The way the hosting platform is setup allows me to login to any of my various websites by simply clicking a button without ever having to remember any of my login details or passwords and new passwords for your websites can be autogenerated through the click of a button. There is no need to even understand how Cpanel works. With website hosting and security taken care of, it allows me to fully concentrate on my business and content creation.

Understanding The Affiliate Marketing Process

When we consider online marketing we can distinguish between 3 main categories, namely the affiliate marketing model, e-commerce model and the multi-level marketing model, which some perceive to be quite a controversial marketing strategy due to it often being associated with pyramid selling. Although the principles that Wealthy Affiliate teach can be applied to any online business, regardless the online marketing business model you choose, WA concentrates on the affiliate marketing business model with search engine optimisation in mind as the main strategy. The idea behind the SEO strategy of WA is to ensure that members can generate income from their websites through SEO strategies alone in the first instance without the need of spending a lot of money, or any money, on paid advertising to begin with.

An online marketing course like Legendary Marketer (which also primarily concentrates on the affiliate marketing strategy) on the other hand has a completely different strategy. Legendary marketer of course does not dismiss the importance of the generation of organic traffic through search engine optimisation, but they hold the point of view that it is important to kickstart your new online marketing business with paid advertising in the first instance. Of course the paid advertising strategy that Lengendary Marketer propose will yield faster results, but is also a lot more costly and risky to begin with. Although WA holds the point of view that it is better to send paid traffic to a more established site that already enjoys some organic traffic, nothing of course stops you to do paid advertising in the beginning as Legendary Marketer suggests. So in short, you can certainly combine the knowledge offered in the WA and Legendary Marketer course for optimal results.

If the online marketing business strategy you are looking for is e-commerce related, then WA is probably not the best fit. In this case there are two options you can possibly consider. As the focus of this article is WA I am not going to go into details here but in my opinion the top option to consider, which is available throughout the year, is “Six Figure Mentors” and “The Amazing Selling Machine“. Six Figure Mentors is the best option if you consider e-commerce in general, but if you are considering the Amazon FBA e-commerce model then The Amazing Selling Machine is hands down the best option.

Education

Now this is the number one reason, although not the only reason, why I decided to join Wealthy Affiliate. I have made a lot of mistakes in my online marketing journey and wasted a lot of time, because instead of learning from online marketing experts I have tried to learn from free resources online, which is not always the best of ideas, due to a sea of misinformation that can be found online.

I have decided therefore that this time around I am certainly going to do things right and instead of being stubborn and follow my own path, I am going to listen to people that know better than I do and I am going to implement step by step what I have learned from them and then of course add my own unique personal touch.

So Wealthy Affiliate offers a training course that shows you step by step what you need to do to become successful online and it is a very practical course as you implement everything you have learned along the way.

On top of the main training course offered inside of Wealthy Affiliate, there are more than 1,800 expert coaches that creates online marketing training that can be accessed by members at any time. You will find training on whatever online marketing topic you can imagine and if you cannot find training on the particular topic you are looking for, then you can request that one of the expert coaches create training on that particular topic for you and the rest of the community.

Websites And Hosting

Hosting

As an online marketer you can of course not make money online if you do not have a website, unless of course you are one of those YouTube or Twitch celebrities thats able to make all of your online revenue via streaming and video creation.

Now one of the most complicated aspects of having a website is that it requires hosting and this can sometimes be a very complicated process for beginner online marketers to know how to set up their website with their hosting company. Wealthy Affiliate takes care of your hosting for you as they are also a hosting company and therefore if you are a member of Wealthy Affiliate you do not require any knowledge in regards to hosting and to get started with your own website on Wealthy Affiliate is literally as simple as clicking a button. Further to this you also need to pay for hosting whereas at Wealthy Affiliate you do not need to pay for hosting as this is included in your membership fee. However, saying this, as a free Wealthy Affiliate member you  are entitled to one free website, which includes free hosting.

Further to this Wealthy Affiliate also provides you with a free SSL certificate for your websites. Usually this is a feature that you have to pay extra for and can be obtained from e.g. your hosting company, but at an extra cost. For those that do not know, the SSL certificate is what enables the https protocol instead of http which allows for secure connections from a web server to a browser. Back in the day SSL certificates were typically only required for sites dealing with secure credit card transactions, data transfer and logins, but has recently become a requirement by Google. If your site is not secure you will be penalised by Google and will not stand a chance to rank very high within the search engines.

The Power of Site Comments

We all know that Google loves to see activity on your website and the more comments you receive on your website articles the higher Google is likely to rank your website or website articles within its search engine. At WA you have a massive unfair advantage as you have a massive community that is willing to comment on your website articles on the condition that you return the favour.

Now I do know that some would say that this is not really ethical. Well, it certainly depends on how you go about the process. I am certainly not going to have my credibility shot by praising rubbish articles if no praise is due. At WA however you can make a selection of which articles you would like to comment on and of course I am only going to choose the ones I feel comfortable commenting on and the articles that testifies being of quality. I am then certainly not commenting for just the sake of commenting, but commenting because I really find the article interesting or enjoyable to read and can therefore submit an honest ethical comment, which really comes from the heart.

Due to the power of this massive community you surely have the ability to blow the competition out of the water.

Potential To Earn Money Via WA

When you reach a certain level at WA you are able to create training for the rest of the WA community. The more members that likes your training, ask questions regarding your training and the more members that utilise your training, the more you get paid by WA.

Some WA members are able to generate quite a bit of money by simply providing training to the WA community.

No Spam Policy

The absolute most fantastic thing about WA is that there is a no spam policy which means that spam is an absolute no-no, and if it ever happens, it gets punished quite severely. There is nothing more liberating than simply being able to receive good quality training and to have positive and inspirational input from a massive community without anyone ever trying to market to you along the way.

What Are The Negatives?

Not everyone that is in the WA community are experts as there are also a lot of people in the community that are brand new to online marketing. This however I have not found to be a problem, because newbies are not going to try to answer questions you might have if they themselves do not know the answer to your question. Further to this at WA people are very concerned about their reputation and will therefore not provide you with incorrect information normally. If they are not a 100% sure, but very close to a 100% sure they will tell you that there is a small possibility that they might be wrong, but that you are free to take the information that they have provided and then investigate it further.

When site comments are exchanged there is sometimes the possibility that you will receive a low quality comment on your article and you might then have to make the decision to reject the site comment.

Despite the fact that there are very strict spam laws in place at WA, spam does still happen very occasionally, but whomever spams and gets caught are severely punished, eg. will not be able to post or comment for a period of two weeks plus etc. So spam is usually not a problem at all. Spam usually only happens via those that are new to the community and not fully aware of the rules of WA. Members in the community are very quick to correct such members and therefore in general this is not an issue at all and the reason why being a member at Wealthy Affiliate is such a liberating experience.

My Final Verdict

If you took the time to read the full article then you will realise that there is so much value that is offered here, that I cannot see how some can even refer to WA as being a scam.

I will tell you who these people are that calls Wealthy Affiliate a scam. They are the ones that are looking for a quick rich scheme, which WA certainly is not. From the very word go Kyle (one of the co-founders of WA) made it very clear that the only way that online success can be achieved is through a lot of hard work, dedication and sacrifice.

For a long time I was looking for those shiny objects and I was listening to all these so called online marketing gurus that is trying to sell you their so called underground secrets (quick rich schemes that does not exist).

The truth to real online marketing success is hard work and dedication, full stop. So if you are prepared to work hard then I can tell you that you can be massively successful online. You do not have to be the best writer in the world and you do not have to be the best web designer in the world to become super successful online. All you need is a lot of dedication and determination.

Once you are empowered by the right kind of training and you have the right mindset, then there is nothing that can stop you from being a massive success online.

I can wholeheartedly recommend WA to you, as I myself am a Wealthy Affiliate member that had a lot of doubts whether I made the right decision when I first joined. It only took me a couple of weeks to realise that I am so in the right place and that with the support of WA and with this massive community behind me there is no other way than to be a massive success online.

The only regret that I have, is that I have not found out about WA when I first started doing online marketing as I honestly believe that the amount of money I managed to earn online in isolation is a drop in the ocean compared to what I could have earned if I had the right kind of training and support from the very beginning.

For me personally, WA is one of the best online marketing platforms I have ever had the privilege of being a part of and this is certainly one of the best online marketing investments I have ever made. I am certain that as a result I will be much more successful online than I ever would have been should it not have been for this community.

So What If I Am Still Uncertain If WA Is Right For Me?

Well you are able to join WA for free and during the first seven days while being a free member you will have some of the privileges of that of a premium member in order to test drive WA for yourself to see if this is right for you. If you feel that it is not right for you then no harm done as WA does not require any payment details of any sort when you decide to sign up as a free member. So what do you have to lose? So simply give WA a go and then see if this is right for you.

How Much Will It Cost And What Is Included In My Membership?

If you click on either option you are interested on below it will provide you with a breakdown of what is included in the Starter membership (free account) and the Premium membership (paid account), as well as the Premium+ membership (paid account). Pricing regarding the paid accounts will also be revealed and be sure to take note of the difference in yearly vs monthly price, as big savings are possible when choosing the yearly option.