Why Wealthy Affiliate went up-market and stopped giving free services away. A strange decision for some but valid reasons for others
How has Wealthy Affiliate changed
Training now included
Critical support 24/7
Reserve capacity
Keyword Tool
Affiliate entry
Active Forum
I have been a member for five years now and witnessed many upgrades that have actually enhanced the service however I wonder at the latest changes.
First of all the free trial service that lasted forever has gone. But Why?
The internet world is changing rapidly as providers try and get a reasonable return on their service. You will find that free services are really limited and the push to upgrade you is constant.
However, you can beat a path around much of this with discount periods or occasional upgrade specials that make the price far more attractive.
In fact, a monthly fee at Wealthy Affiliate is $49, and annual at $41 but the Black Friday special works out at less than that. If you don't have the money then card it and pay it off, you should save money
The other side of this is that as an affiliate you need from just two referrals to get your money back.
Why Wealthy Affiliate went up-market and added bundeled training
Wealthy Affiliate training schedules reduced
Not specifically true except for the starter membership when only 5 modules are now available. This is to encourage full participation for those joining the group.
The training included in your package is worth far more than your payment schedule at any level. A lot of this has recently been upgraded and comes with Video as well as written instructions. The world of internet marketing is in continual change so keeping up is not always that easy. Fortunately, contributors at Wealthy Affiliate cover every subject in a continual feed of top-line marketing advice.
Sometimes a simple idea bought up by others can increase your return 10-fold with easy changes.
There is a cost to training development and maintenance and Wealthy Affiliate has decided they want a return for those that are genuine in trying to gather personal development. Anything that is free loses value in the eyes of the users.
Affiliate marketing starts at your signature
In tradition, you became an affiliate at WA when you started your free trial however the payment for referrals was halved. This represented good value but did not really push the sell buttons.
Now with no free period, the half-rate commission has gone and you become a full affiliate on day one. The commission rates are generous but more important is lifelong pixel retention. This is indeed rare in internet marketing where Pixel rates can drop to 24 hours ( think Amazon) making your marketing hazardous indeed. Wealthy Affiliates want you to gain from your efforts and are not interested in pinching your clients.
Indeed if I was to send you straight to an online training course like this and you join WA I am still the mentor behind you.
Furthermore, the plan is managed in-house and I can not see them migrating to an aggregator like many of the others have done and dropping your history file and starting from a new day.
Establishing your affilite bonefides allows you to gather extra opportunities based on your experience at WA. You have access to many new products through the WA portfolio where you are mostly preselected as amn affiliate
Why support must be 24-7 with online marketing
The world is a small place in our market and time diffeneces range from local to 14 hours difference. However problems don't come in a 9-5 operation as some companies want.
Therefore support needs to be live all day everyday if you are to survive in this market.
Wealthy Affiliate has dropped part time support and every new member gets several levels of help at the time you want them.
A good forum acts as a support base
Your marketing site drags problems from different areas and they are not all supported by one entity. In might be a site problem , WordPress issue, a Plugin problem or even an analytics dispute. I recently changed my web security and I think I used all the above to overcome minor interference.
Asking your support members will usually find someone that has experienced a similar problem and will deliver a solution to fix the issue as you speak. Among the memebers I follow are a WordPress expert, a Keyword fanatic, a google spy that releases all the new changes, YouTube promotor and many others that have made a success of this field.
We can not be an expert in everything , but when we need help we don't want to spend an afetrenood doing Google searches. Quick answers are good answers and a forum will do that for you.
The wealthy Affiliate forum is consistently active
Reserve capacity is a barrier of protection for marketers
Wealthy Affiliate give you an option of five or ten included websites so you can use them as you wish. In fact you get a free domain ( or two) with your membership. One benefit of Wealthy Affiliate domains is that they don't ramp the second and subsequent years fees. GoDaddy are cheap entry and high cost retention because they know once you have a domain you won't want to lose it.
Having a dummy site to play with and practice new ideas makes building your main product a lot safer. This try before you act is achieved using one of the free sites in your package
Site speed is esential and furthermore knowing what your wonderfull work is achieving in the way of Google acceptance. Slow Mobile speed is prevalent in the market and will harm your search portfolio.
Naturally high level security needs to be free and included. This is a current luxury as in the past we paid highly for this and to get it for free is a bonus.
All this is included in your single payment
Why Wealthy Affiliate went up-market
Besides tightening up their product they want to focus more on the genuine marketers and not the time-wasting entries that logged in because it was free. Affiliate marketing is a serious business yet the costs are still very small to get a great start
Why you need a Keyword tool
Hoepefully you will learn early that the whole internet world revolves around Keywords and getting them right is essential to success. One way to do this is with a good Keyword tool. Wealthy Afiliate previously offered basic level entry to Jaxxy but now it is all available on paid memberships. It should be noted that the retail value of Jaxxy is roughly the same as your WA membership so getting complimentary access is a bonus.
Everytime you consider a keyword it need to be analysed so that your success or otherwise can be established. Does any one actually search your words or is everyone doing it. A consistent balance is required.
Jaaxy offers a value postion in your membership
Conclusion
There are many domain hosts in the market and they offer all variety of performance and cost.
Wealthy Affiliate set out to add a value package without a bundle of upgrades that will deliver a consistently high level return.
It is a complete package that works for anysize business.
