subject: Wealthy Affiliate University Review, an Inside Look! [print this page] Wealthy Affiliate University Review, an Inside Look!
Introduction
It is not my intention to try and probe or analyze all of the possible ways you can obtain an education to become a successful Affiliate Marketer. My goal here is to provide you with some insight into what Wealthy Affiliate University offers, if it provides good value, and whether or not it is a viable option to learn affiliate marketing.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is the marketing of products and services offered for sale by certain businesses on the Internet called Affiliate Merchants or Affiliate Networks and are promoted by independent Affiliates also known as Advertisers or Affiliate Marketers.
Once the Affiliate Marketer signs up he or she is assigned a unique affiliate Link that they are to use in their advertising materials such as Websites, Classified Ads, and Articles or even Email.
When a prospective customer clicks on that unique Affiliate Link they are taken to the webpage of the Network or Merchant who Displays, Explains in Detail and or Demonstrates the product.
If the prospective customer makes a buying decision they can purchase the product either by a "Shopping Cart" type checkout or fill out a form to order and then pay for the product with credit card or a PayPay type payment system.
Each sale is tracked by software using the Affiliate Link and is credited to the Affiliate Marketer's account. When a minimum threshold of usually $100 is reached payment is sent by check or electronic funds transfer to the Affiliate's checking account.
What are the advantages of Affiliate Marketing ?
There are numerous other ways to create an income online but the huge advantages of Affiliate Marketing are:
There is an almost endless variety of physical and digital products you can sell without owning them.
The Affiliate Network or Merchants companies do all the legwork like handling checkout, product fulfillment, returns, complaints, etc.
The cost to start an Affiliate Marketing business is relatively inexpensive depending how you go about it. There are certain marketing strategies that are very low cost, in fact free but very effective and then of course there is Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) which can get very expensive.
You can market to a variety of niches so you don't have all your eggs in one basket in case something happens to the market.
You can work from the privacy and comfort of your own home.
The income potential for a successful Affiliate Marketer is upward to One Million Dollars Per Year and more. This of course takes hard work, dedication, education and persistence.
Specialized Education!!
To learn how to become a successful Affiliate Marketer you will need to get yourself some specialized education. You can be assured there will be a learning curve and depending on what choice you make will determine just how flat or steep that curve will be.
However if you value your time and want to get up and running and start generating income quickly your best choice is to find aquality institution that offers that specialized training.
There are a number of sources on the Internet who claim to offer just such training but in most cases the training is very limited and questionable and expensive at best.
There are physical universities who offer courses you can study online but you have to take a critical look at the actual teachers and their qualifications.
The ones I have investigated can take up to a year to complete their course of study and you have to complete and pass each module before moving on to the next.
The problem with this is that the Internet is constantly changing. The Search Engine Algorithms change and markets change and what you learn from such a course may be obsolete by the time you complete them.
Is Wealthy Affiliate University a good option?
I have personally been a member of Wealthy Affiliate University (WAU) so I have had a close up and personal look at how they operate and what they have to offer.
Two young men named Kyle and Carson, the founders of Wealthy Affiliate University started their own successful online affiliate marketing businesses independent of one another approximately 10 years ago. Somehow their paths crossed and they teamed up and created Affiliate Marketing University in 2005.
Their growth has been quite impressive and has continued to grow since their beginning.
When I investigate,probe or review a company the first thing I look for is Integrity or lack thereof. If I detect any deception, misleading statements or information, or exaggerations the company immediately goes on my Suspect list.
I was never able to detect any such information. It appears that WAU passes my very first test.
The Training.
WAU provides sequential detailed training modules oftraining including video tutorialsthat pretty much take you by the hand and walk you step by step through the process..
They don't just show you the many steps to starting up a successful affiliate marketing campaign but they actually explain why and how to do each step and why it is important.
They offer a veryextensive library of Video Tutorials, New and Previously Recorded Webinars and even Email course where if you sign up for one they will send you a new lesson each day via Email.
Unless you have a couple of hours per day to devote to them it can be difficult to complete all of the tasks. Of course you can save the emails and go at your own pace. All of the educational materials I inspected are very high quality.
Tools! I was literally amazed at all of the tools available all under one roof (Website) designed to aid you in starting and maintaining a successful affiliate marketing business.
Unlimited WordPress access that allow you to set up an unlimited number of Websites. This is very important because to be successful you will need at least one website and perhaps numerous ones. There were literally hundreds of templates from good to very high quality. I believe most of them have all the plugins and bells and whistles for click button SEO.
Niche Research Tool. Your first assignment will be to choose a niche to market.
Keyword Research Tool with many features not found on the various free ones like Google AdWords.
Cloaking Tool for linking.
ClickBank Research tool. ClickBank is an independent affiliate network that offers thousands of digital products you can sell.
Rapid Writer. This is a unique writing tool that allow you to format content and optimize it for keyword density. Very important to get your articles high ranking by the search engines.
I was very impressed at the array of tools available at no extra charge which is an important consideration.
To start-up and operate an affiliate marketing business you would have costs to consider such as Domain Hosting, Website Hosting, and all the Research Tools.
It isvery convenietn and time savingto have all of those tools and services all under one roof (Except for Domain hosting).
Support!
WA provides support via email and their own in-house forum. You can usually find the answer to your questions by searching previous forum posts relevant to your question.
If you hit a snag and have a question you can bet someone else has had that same question. It is a vast resource and there are some very knowledgeable and successful people who participate in that forum.
If you need more specialized help you can turn to Kyle or Carson for one on one email support. I tired it and sure enough, within 24 hours I received a personal email from Kyle answering my question.
One of the things that impressed me most. Recently, during March, 2011 Google changed its algorithms or parameters that determine how a website or article is ranked. Thousands of people watched their marketing efforts go in the sandbox as a result.
Kyle and Carson were right on top of it and sent out an email warning of it had how to avoid it. This is a benefit you are probably not going to find with the other training options I have investigated.
How much does it cost?
There are TWO membership levels at Wealthy Affiliate University.
Theirfirst level tuition is only $47 per month but does not include Unlimited Website benefit.
Their Premium level tuition, if you pay by the year, is only $49.75 per month or just $97 per month paid monthly for everything you will ever need to Learn and Operate a successful Affiliate Marketing busines.
Compared to tuition at other reputable online or physical colleges this represents a real bargain!
Receivea FREE Affiliate Marketing Course that will provide you withplenty oftraining and resourses to start your own Affiliate Marketing business. This course is highly recommended to get started.
This is a high quality in depth course that will take you by the hand and give your the detailed training you need to start an affiliate marketing online business.
My Conclusion!
Pros: I was very favorably impressed with the apparent integrity, training materials, tools and support.
Cons: The only negative I found was when you first sign on to their sight you might feel overwhelmed and experience information overload. They actually have a tutorial on how to deal with just that.
Wealthy Affiliate University is a first class organization that actually seems to put their customer's needs above anything else.
I believe it represents a very good value.
I feel Kyle and Carson are to be commended and congratulated for their success by seeing to their member's success. Way to go!
Thanks for reading this article and I want to wish you the very best of luck.
