Wealthy Affiliate Reviewed – My Honest 2019 Report

Wealthy affiliate is an online community with over 1 million members. It is a platform that claims to provide its members with all the tools, knowledge and support needed to start a successful online business. Wealthy Affiliate reviewed will divulge all of the wealthy affiliate platform secrets. By the end of this review, you will have all the information you need to decide whether it is right for you or not.

 

As you all know by now, I was attracted to affiliate marketing because I was looking for a way to secure my future. I wanted to stop worrying about the security of my 9 to 5. I wanted to stop worrying about what would happen to my family should I be laid off.

 

Unfortunately, I took a very long path to get to where I am. I got ripped off by many get-rich-quick schemes. In fact, I quit affiliate marketing for a while because I was so disappointed!

 

So before I move forward with my review of Wealthy Affiliate, I want to be very transparent. One of the reasons I came back to the online world was because I “re-discovered” Wealthy Affiliate. It has allowed me to get back on track and to achieve a measure of success. So I obviously think it is legitimate and helpful. I am also an affiliate for Wealthy Affiliate. So if you ever become a paid member through one of my links, I will earn a commission.

 

I wanted to get all that out of the way because I never want to be misleading to my readers. Having said all that, I promise to be as detailed as possible in this review. I will breakdown all of the services that wealthy affiliate offers. I will tell you what I like and what I don’t like. By the end of it, you should be well-equipped to decide whether Wealthy Affiliate is right for you or not.

 

So let’s get to it. Here is how I am going to proceed with this review:

 

• Overview
• Starter Membership
• Premium Membership
• What I don’t like
• Who should stay away from WA
• What I like
• Recommendation

 

DON’T WANT TO READ THIS WHOLE REVIEW?  CLICK HERE NOW TO GET STARTED FOR FREE

 

OVERVIEW – WHAT IS WEALTHY AFFILIATE?

 

 

Wealthy affiliate is an online community that has been around for over 15 years. It has over 1 million members. It is a site that contains tools, training and support to help its users build an affiliate marketing business. I would say it is definitely geared towards new and intermediate affiliate marketers.

 

Essentially, Wealthy Affiliate teaches you a 4 step process to earn money online:

 

1. Choose an interest: This is where you pick your niche
2. Build a Site: Using the tools provided you build a site in 4 simple steps
3. Attract Visitors: Using the site content tool, you create SEO optimized articles to attract readers
4. Earn Revenue:Make money using affiliate marketing

 

 

 

The model used by WA is to build authority sites in order to gain trust from the search engines and to provide massive content that is relevant, original and helpful to readers.

 

The Site is broken down into many different sections, all accessible from the main page. Here is a screenshot:

 

 

 

 

That is my main page. As you can see, there is a menu to the left that gives the user access to the various tools and training. Each one of those menu titles will drill down deeper and offer you more access. This is what happens when you click on “Training”:

 

 

 

You get the idea! I will be diving deeper into all the sections later on in the review. I will even post a walk through video so you can get a good visual idea of what the site is about and how it works.

 

Wealthy affiliate offers two levels of access. The first is a free membership often referred to as a “Starter” membership. The second level is a paid membership, also known as a “Premium” membership.

 

The free membership is a teaser membership. But this does not mean that it is not packed with value. It offers some very robust features that will definitely help you. The hope is that once you see how thorough and effective the training and tools you get for free are, you will decide to upgrade to the paid membership. I believe the statistics say that 1 in 8 people decide to upgrade to premium very quickly.

 

You will see the whole dashboard as a starter. You will have access to a few menu items but you will be restricted from accessing the full suite of tools and training. The inaccessible parts will be greyed out or they will be marked as “premium only”.

 

One of the things I like about this “freemium” offer is that it is truly free. They do not require a card on file that will get billed automatically. I also believe that the material that is offered to starter members is powerful enough to add real value to the user.

 

The paid membership allows access to the whole enchilada. I will break down this membership further down the review but essentially the user gets access to research tools, website building and supporting tools, weekly live training, site support and expert advice among other things.

 

You can decide to pay monthly or yearly. The yearly option represents a bigger initial outlay of cash but it will give you a substantial saving.

 

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BEST AFFILIATE MARKETING TRAINING FOR FREE

 

STARTER MEMBERSHIP – WHAT DO YOU GET FOR ABSOLUTELY FREE?

 

 

* THIS STARTER MEMBERSHIP IS COMPLETELY FREE – NO CREDIT CARD NEEDED!*

 

I am going to go down the menu and address what access a “starter” member will have for each section.

 

– Dashboard: Starter members have full view of the dashboard. This is where blogs from other members are visible. Users have access to their profile page as well as the search bar and all the navigation links. From here they can access the available training and tools like the keyword research tool and the website building tool.

 

The dashboard is the main interface of the site. Some functionality will be greyed out but the user will generally have the ability to get to just about everything. Notice how I said “get to”. While a free user can navigate to any page, they may not be able to use the tools or services on that page because those tools and services may be for premium members only.

 

– Training: The starter user will have limited access to two separate training courses. One is the Online Entrepreneur Certification program. The other is the Affiliate Bootcamp training. Here is a screenshot of both:

 

 

 

 

Let’s get into each one of these training programs.

 

• Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) “Getting Started”: This is the “blueprint” of affiliate marketing. The whole course is broken down into 5 modules of 10 classes each. As a starter member you get access to the 1st module of 10 classes. By the end of the 10 classes the user should have a website ready to go.

 

Each class has a written component where Kyle (one of the founders) will break down different concepts and explain how to implement the concepts. In addition to the written content, there are also step-by-step videos to help guide the learning.

 

The 10 topics covered in the first OEC module (Free):

 

• Getting Rolling
• Understanding how to make money online
• Choose a niche
• Building your own Niche Site
• Setting Up Your Website
• Getting Your Site Ready for Search Engines
• Creating Your Initial Website Content
• Creating Custom Menus on Your Website
• Understanding Keywords
• Congrats and Next Steps

 

Here is an example of a video offered by Wealthy Affiliate:

 

 

 

 

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BEST AFFILIATE MARKETING TRAINING FOR FREE

 

As I see it, the whole free membership is geared towards giving you the tools to achieve each of the steps in the first 10 modules of OEC. You get enough access to the website tool to create your own site (class #4). You get just enough access to perform effective Keyword research (class #9)…..

 

• Affiliate Bootcamp “Getting your Business Rollin”: As free members, WA users get access to the WA affiliate program. They get to market wealthy affiliate for commissions. While OEC is a comprehensive blueprint for affiliate marketing in general, the Affiliate Bootcamp is geared very specifically to promoting Wealthy Affiliate. Here is a screen shot:

 

 

 

The course is broken down into 7 modules of 10 classes each. Each class is structured like OEC. There is a written component of the concepts and how to use them and there is one (at least) video for step-by-step instructions.

 

Here are the 10 topics covered:

 

• Getting Started
• Choosing your Direction
• Building your Website
• A Website Look Around
• Activating your Plugins
• Getting your Website ready for SEO
• Your Initial Framework of Content
• Understanding the Keyword research Process
• Creating Thoughtful, Insightful Reviews
• The exciting Journey Has Begun

 

As you can see, there is a lot of training available for free. You can pick to do one or both. The good news is that the ability and access to take these classes never expires so you can take your time.

 

Wealthy Affiliate believes in the ”learn while you earn” model. Each class has a set of tasks that need to be completed before moving to the next class. If you follow the instruction and then complete the assigned tasks, you will have a fully functioning website online, ready to earn some money.

 

Classrooms: Still under the Training section of the menu you will find “Classrooms” section. These are sets of videos and courses that are centered around specific topics. There are classrooms on social engagement, content writing, wordpress, along with a bunch of other affiliate marketing subjects. Starter members have access to 2 of these classrooms:

 

Since I am a premium member, I cannot take a screenshot of what a starter member will see but this will give you an idea:

 

 

 

This does it for the Training tab! Let’s go to the Websites Tab.

 

 

– Websites: This is where wealthy affiliate gives access to their suite of website building and website hosting tools. Here is a screen shot of the tools available to starter members:

 

 

 

 

Let’s dive into each one of these tools.

 

 

• Site Manager: This is where you go to access the websites you have built through WA. Starter members get to build 2 sites on the platform for free. They can also host them there at no charge as well. The site manager gives you an “at-a-glance” status of your sites:

 

 

 

You can login to your site this page. You can also look at your site health and security settings by clicking on the SitePlus link.

 

• Site Builder: This is where you can create your free websites. As a starter you have access to 2 free websites as well as a choice from 12 available free themes. The Site builder has a step by step format where you fill in a specific set of fields. The tool automatically takes the information you provide (which was explained in depth during the training classes) and builds you an SEO ready website. As you saw from the video above, it creates a site in as little as 30 seconds. Here is a screen shot:

 

 

 

As a starter member you can only use the “Free Domain” Option.

 

 

• Site Domains: This is where you can look for and purchase relevant domains for your niche. This tool is pretty cool as it will go out and search for relevant variations of your keyword. Let’s say your keyword is “Vegan Recipes”. You can put that in the search box and the tool will go out and find all related domain names that are available for purchase and that are related to your keyword:

 

 

 

You can buy your domains directly from the Wealthy Affiliate platform very easily. This is extremely convenient as you do not need to mess with transferring domains or screwing with domain settings and such.

 

Starter members also get free Malware and Virus protection.

 

• Site Content: This is where you create content for your websites. There are existing templates that will help you with the standard affiliate marketing pages like the “privacy Policy” and the “About” pages. There is also an excellent template for writing keyword rich content. It breaks down your posts in sections with headers. Following the templates will ensure that the content is extensive enough (at least 1000 words). The template also breaks the content down into smaller chunks ensuring the content flows well which is essential to online readership

 

The content writing tool comes with an excellent grammar tool, sentence structure and spellchecker. This makes content writing easier. It ensure that the content is well written. This is especially helpful to folks whose main language is not necessarily English or for those that are simply not confident in their writing skills. Please note that the content tool will not write the content for you 🙂 You still have to do that yourself (or have someone else write it for you).

 

Site content also allows you to set writing goals and to see how your writing compares to other people on the platform. It is a way to keep you accountable and on track.

 

CLICK HERE TO ACCESS THE BEST AFFILIATE MARKETING TRAINING FOR FREE

 

The next available menu item for starter members is the Research link. Let’s talk about that one.

 

– Research: The research link takes the user to a service called Jaxxy. It is a complete research suite. Starter members have access to the keyword research portion of the tool. This is where you can conduct research on search terms. There is access to competition data as well as domain data.

 

Starter members can do 30 keyword searches as well as 30 keyword scans. The keyword searches are the cornerstone of affiliate marketing. With your starter membership you will be able to investigate keywords and choose the ones you want to target for your free sites.

 

 

This screenshot shows premium access so all the services are available. Starter members will only be able to access the keyword search and Site rank sections.

 

The Last link available to “Starter” members is the Live Chat section.

 

-Live Chat: Here you can interact with fellow community members. Most people ask questions to solve issues that they are encountering while building out their sites. There are a bunch of other questions relating to the concepts of the training taught at WA. There are always senior members that are experts available to respond to any questions.

 

I have never had to wait more than a minute to get responses to my questions. As a starter member, you will have access to live help for 7 days. You will also be able to get help to your questions directly from the classes you take (for 7 days). Each class has a comment section below it where questions and answers are shared.

 

This seems like a pretty short period of time. The truth is that you can still get most of your questions answered even after the 7 days live help feature has expired.

 

WA is a very active community. Almost any question you may have has been asked and answered in some way shape or form. If you are passed the 7-day period, you can use the search bar at the top of the site to look for a solution to your problem. Here is an example. Let’s say you are having a hard time figuring out how to embed a video on your wordpress blog. Simply type a query in the search bar and you will get several options for answers:

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the search returns many answers. Only one of those answers is reserved to premium members.

 

So the 7-day limit may suck a bit. It is not the end of the world though. You can still get answers to your questions. In fact, I suggest you always search for an answer this way before asking on the website.

 

As you can see there is a TON of value in this FREE membership.

 

This concludes the review of the “Starter” membership. Now, let’s dive into the “premium” membership review.

 

*EVERYTHING I OUTLINED ABOVE IS COMPLETELY FREE – THAT IS A LOT OF VALUE!

 

CLICK HERE NOW TO JOIN WEALTHY AFFILIATE FOR FREE

 

 

PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP – ACCESS TO THE WHOLE SUITE OF TOOLS

 

 

The Premium membership gives the users access to all the tool and services offered by Wealthy Affiliate. There are quite a few of them so I will try to stick to what I think are the most important and useful ones. I will follow the same format as I did for the “Starter” section of the review. I will address each menu item starting from Training on down.

 

-Training: In addition to the free modules, Premium Users will have access to 40 more classes in the Online Entrepreneur certification ( for a total of 50 classes) and 60 more classes in the Affiliate Bootcamp (for a total of 70 classes).

 

 

 

 

The training is comprehensive, covering all topics that are relevant to affiliate marketing. The classes are broken down into text lessons combined with in-depth step-by-step videos.

 

Each lesson has very important and relevant tasks that must be completed. If you follow the training and complete the tasks you will have a viable online business.

 

The training is updated on a regular basis to account for changes in the search engines, or to remove or add techniques as needed.

 

In this training section, there are classrooms that deal with any and all affiliate marketing topics. Whereas Starter members could only access 2 of those classes, premium members can access them all:

 

 

 

 

CLICK HERE NOW TO JOIN WEALTHY AFFILIATE FOR FREE

 

-Websites: In addition to the 4 sections covered under the “Starter” section (Site Manager, Site Builder, Site Domains and Site Content), premium members have access to 3 more sections:

 

• Site Comments: In order to increase engagement and relevance in the eyes of the Search engines and your readers, WA allows for members to request comments be left on their blogs by fellow members. Most of the time the favor is returned. This makes sure that your content is always updated.

 

• Site Feedback: This is another key premium offer. You get to ask the membership (many of them are super affiliates) to critique the content, layout or design of your blog, or of a particular post. This is done through a “pay-it-forward” process by which you have to leave feedback on 2 sites in order to ask for feedback on your site. This is an awesome system where engagement is kept high. It also limits selfish members from taking advantage of the system.

 

• Site Support: This is 24X7 outfit of professionals that are super responsive. It is a support staff dedicated to helping you with any issues you encounter with the sites you built on WA. These are not some low wage tier1 techs. They are all server administrators that will not have to refer your issues to anyone else. They will solve your technical issues themselves.

 

In addition to these extra resources, premium members will have the ability to host 50 websites with 3000 available premium themes to choose from. Starters were allowed 2 websites and 12 premium themes to choose from.

 

One other additional benefit worth noting is that premium members have access to over 1,000,000 high quality images that are free to use. This is a HUUUUGE time and $$$ saving. Looking on the internet for relevant images that are free to use is a very big time drain. The alternative of paying for images can get expensive real quick. WA takes care of that for its premium members.

 

 

 

 

-Live Events:In this section, premium members have access to weekly live training. Usually on Friday afternoons, an expert Wealthy Affiliate super affiliate (Jay) will present a live web class on relevant topics. These classes are recorded for later viewing if you missed the webinar.

 

Here are some of the topics scheduled for the rest of this year.

 

 

 

 

-Research: Beyond the keyword tool and site rank which were available to “Starter” members, the research tab provides a huge array of additional tools. You will be able to spy on your competition and analyze their sites. You will be able to locate relevant and lucrative affiliate programs. You can continuously improve on your niche keywords by adding to your keyword lists.

 

Keywords are the heart of affiliate marketing. The research tools in WA are comprehensive and give the users a huge leg up on their competition. Here is a snapshot of the tools available to Premium members:

 

 

 

 

-Live Chat: This is where people post quick questions that they want answers to right away. It is basically a scrolling blog where members interact on a live basis. There are always one or two senior members “on duty” to answer questions.

 

I have never had to wait more than 1 minute to get an answer to my questions on the live help section. It is very helpful when you are doing some work and come up against an issue you can’t solve.

 

 

The live help section will usually get you over the hump! Here is an example:

 

 

 

 

-Help Center: This is where all of your options for help are kept. You can access site support, live chat, private message or your blog from here. It just makes it convenient to find help if and when you need it:

 

 

 

 

This review is getting extremely long so I will stop here. What I have covered so far are what I think to be the most important and helpful tools and resources. There are many more that I have not covered. Mainly they have to do with hosting and website monitoring, but as I said, the review is getting a bit too long and I don’t want to bore you. So let’s wrap this up!

 

CLICK HERE FOR A COMPARISON OF STARTER VS PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP

 

WHAT I DON’T LIKE ABOUT WEALTHY AFFILIATE

 

 

To be honest, there is not much I don’t like at wealthy affiliate. But there are 3 things that I think could be improved.

 

1- Search function: There are so many topics covered on a daily basis on the blogs and help chats that it is very hard to keep track of. The search functionality works but it could be improved. I wish that the WA platform had the ability to perform searches by category. As it is today, I can spend 5 minutes trying to figure out the correct search term to enter in the search bar to find answers to my question. This can get confusing and annoying. I am sure many frustrated users get tired of looking and go straight to the chat to ask a question that may have been covered many times.

 

2- Focus:This is not Wealthy Affiliate’s fault but I find the amount of information distracting. They have done a great job providing the users with excellent tools and training. But many users get distracted away from key tasks that will build their businesses. It is easy to look at the blogs on the dashboard as they update and to get side tracked. You could spend hours just looking through the blogs and the questions.

 

3- No Forum: I like forums. I think they are easy to navigate and to search. While Wealthy Affiliate likes the blog and chat model I would prefer a forum. The blogs are a bit hard to find and the chat is so busy that your question will scroll right off the page in a minute or two. You are left scrolling to find your question and this can get annoying.

 

You would be forgiven for calling me a bit nit picky but these are some of the things that annoy me about WA. I think we can agree that these are very minor complaints compared to the positives I find in Wealthy affiliate. Before I go on to what I like, let’s talk briefly about folks that should not join wealthy affiliate.

 

 

WHO IS WEALTHY AFFILIATE NOT FOR?

 

 

Three types of individuals should stay away from Wealthy Affiliate:

 

1- Anyone looking for a get -rich-quick scheme: Wealthy affiliate teaches how to build authority sites. This in itself takes time. In fact, it may take 3 to 6 months to even start seeing any income at all. It is a proven model, but it takes hard work and patience. If you follow the classes and complete the tasks, you will be successful, and that takes time

 

2- People who are financially strapped: Wealthy affiliate is a membership platform. The monthly membership is $49/month with a big discount if you pay yearly. If you cannot afford the monthly rate or if paying it will stress you financially, just go with the free membership until you can gather the funds.

 

3- People who HATE to write: The model of building an authority site means that you will write content. And a LOT of it! You must be prepared to write 100’s of blog posts (or have them written for you). If you cannot see yourself writing that much (or if you don’t have the ability to pay for someone else to write your content) then I would suggest looking for another model.

 

 

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT WEALTHY AFFILIATE

 

 

It has everything you will need to build a successful affiliate marketing business. From keyword research to website building tools. The Community is very welcoming and helpful. There are so many super affiliates that are active participants that you can get your questions answered by pros! In fact, it is not unusual to get questions answered by Kyle (one of the founders).

 

If you are wondering whether the many services offered by WA are worth the $49 monthly fee, consider this.

 

• If you were to individually purchase each and every service that is available to members, the total would be substantially more than $49. How much are the 120 hours of constantly updated step by step classes worth? How about hundreds of hours of recorded and ongoing live training?

 

• The website tools alone offer a very good value. You can host 50 websites with access to over 3000 themes. Features like site speed, site protect, site health and the free website encryption (Free SSL) are all included. Wealthy affiliate websites and blogs are hosted on the fastest and most powerful servers in the industry. Equivalent services would cost you around $200/month

 

• The Jaxxy keyword platform is a powerful suite of tools that covers just about anything you will need that is keyword related. Comparable services easily go for $19/mo or more.

 

• Access to 1,000,000 images for your use is a huge time saver as well as a massive money saver. Equivalent images go for $8……..EACH

 

I think that the $49/mo is a real value. Add to that the fact that Wealthy Affiliate has no upsells, they are constantly updating their training and they provide excellent support to their members.

 

FINAL RECOMMENDATION – WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE?

 

I shared with you at the beginning of this review that I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate. I have tried to give you as much information as I could for you to make an educated decision.

 

I hope that this review helped you even though is clear that I am a bit biased. But my bias is well-founded. I have found Wealthy Affiliate to be the most important tool in my affiliate marketing education and success. I truly believe it will help you too!

 

Ultimately, you have nothing to lose. Try the free “Starter” membership and see for yourself. Go through the training. Put what you learn in your training to use and build a blog. Remember you can build two. There is no time limit to your free membership, so take your time.

 

CLICK HERE TO JOIN WEALTHY AFFILIATE FOR FREE

 

There is no pressure to upgrade to premium. If you find value to the site like I did, the decision will be a no brainer. If not, then you have not lost a thing. In fact, at a minimum you will have gained knowledge from about 20 lessons of step-by-step education for free.

 

I believe that if you really dive into the free content, you will find that it really is the best around.  Check out the fantastic testimonials and helpful posts.  So many people found success last year.  2019 promises to be a hugely successful year for the entire community!  See you on the other side!

 

Please do me a huge favor if you would. Please leave a comment below if you have any questions or comments about this review or the wealthy affiliate platform.

 

I hope you have found this review helpful,

 

Sincerely,

 

Mike