Diary of a Wealthy Affiliate Member – Introduction

When it comes to learning to make money online with Internet Marketing, it seems like you can’t move without falling over a ‘guru‘ selling their ‘secret‘ method of making $10,000 a month ‘in your sleep‘.

If you’ve spent more than a wet weekend looking for a way to make extra cash or replace your lost income, you already know that there seem to be thousands of different methods, all claiming to be the latest, greatest money making method … as long as you ‘buy before the 300 copies are gone forever‘. It’s easy to get pulled from one thing to another, spend your precious cash on something that either doesn’t work, or simply leaves you even more confused.

Another question that comes to mind is, If it’s so easy to make money online using these methods, why do 95% of people fail to make anything at all? Is it the method they choose, or is it something else?

In an effort to strip away all of the sales hype and help you get on the right track to success I’ve decided to join, buy or implement the teachings of some of these Internet Marketing gurus and report back to you on my progress. That way you can make up your own mind about a particular program or method and decide if it’s for you.

To shorten the process I’m only going to pick programs that I’ve already heard good things about, rather than simply pick any old program at random – and I’m going to start with Wealthy Affiliate.

Wealthy Affiliate is a members-only ‘Affiliate University’ run by a couple of guys by the name of Kyle and Carson, with the intention of teaching you how to build a successful Affiliate Marketing business. The site has been online since 2005 and has thousands of current members. You don’t need any previous experience, complete beginners are catered for, and catered for very well!

Affiliate Marketing is all about PRE-selling other people’s products or services. The big benefit of this approach is that you never have to stock product, handle transactions or provide customer service. You get paid a commission if someone ends up buying from the vendor after following one of your web-links. Also, you can get started with this business model using totally free methods and gradually switch to paid solutions once you are making money.

Wealthy Affiliate costs $29.99 a month if you pay a year’s subscription up front, or $39 if you opt to pay monthly. If you are hesitant about paying a monthly fee to learn how to build a successful online business, don’t be. The training, support, tools, community spirit, motivation and encouragement you get from being a member of a like-minded community beats the “here’s an PDF and a few videos – good luck!” approach hands down!

The fact that members are posting in the private WA forum on their first and second anniversary of becoming a Wealthy Affiliate member speaks volumes about how good it is. You don’t keep shelling out cash if you aren’t making any.

On joining you are recommended to begin the 8 Week Action Plan, a series of guided learning assignments to help kick-start your Affiliate Marketing career. In the next post in this series I will talk about my first week as a Wealthy Affiliate member.

-Mark Wilson.