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Wealthy Affiliates Starter and Premium Memberships Compared

March 15, 2020November 8, 2018 by John Crossley

If you are still unsure on what the key differences are between the Starter membership and Premium memberships available at Wealthy Affiliate, I am here to help. I have been with Wealthy Affiliate since 2016 and could see no better partner in my Affiliate Marketing business.

Their training has a proven track record, and has helped many people take their first steps in to Affiliate Marketing and beyond to building up a profitable online business where you can leave the day job behind.

I personally have benefitted from the training and can see anyone with the inclination to spend some time and effort learning from them to have the same success.

So, I want to share some of the most common questions I get about the different memberships and also include some tips along the way of how you could benefit from the platform too.

Wealthy Affiliates Starter Membership

Let’s go through some of the most common questions with the Starter Membership.

Is the Starter Membership a Free Trial?

No, the Starter membership is not a free trial. It is a free membership for life if you choose not to upgrade to the Premium Membership.

It will not cost you anything for as long as you want.

The confusion around the trial is that you get to trial the premium features for 7 days. Take them for a test drive to help you understand them.

Who is the Starter Membership for?

The Starter Membership is for anyone who wants to get started in affiliate marketing and building their own business. But is also helps you decide whether affiliate marketing is the right decision for you.

What’s included in the Starter Membership?

First 10 lessons in their online entrepreneur certification course for any niche
First 10 lessons in their Affiliate Bootcamp course for promoting Wealthy Affiliate
Access to 2 out of the 10 classrooms available
Build 1* Free Websites (Web Hosting Included)
SiteBuilder
Keyword Research Tool (30 free searches)
SiteContent with templates to use
Live Chat for instant support – limited use

[*Updated March 2020 – Starter Members will now receive access to one free website]

Can I Make Money with the Starter Membership?

You can make money with your free website, if you already know what you are doing with Affiliate Marketing.

But if you are new to Affiliate Marketing, then I would have to say that it will be difficult. Considering what I have learned from Wealthy Affiliate and my experience in the field, you need the right support to succeed.

There is just so much to learn, it isn’t as simple as just building a blog on a website and off you go.

There are many aspects of affiliate marketing that you need to understand to build a business which gives you the freedom to earn from home.

How Do I Close my Account if I Don’t Want to Upgrade to Premium?

You haven’t invested any money, just log out and go on your way.

Can I Get Coaching as a Starter Membership?

It does depend on who you sign up with. I personally help each and every member that accepts my invitation, regardless of whether they go premium or not.

I know how difficult it is in the first few months when you are just starting out and not too sure of what you are doing. If I can be of any help, I am there helping regularly in live chat or answering questions, my username is Jcross93 at Wealthy Affiliate.

What’s the Purpose of the Starter Membership if I can’t Make Money with it?

The Starter Membership was never meant for someone with no knowledge of Affiliate Marketing to make money. If you are a beginner, how could you know enough to make money from your websites.

The purpose of it was to give you a way of experiencing the platform without having to hand over any money or commitment. I have seen many platforms say you can try it but you have to pay up front, and claim a refund if you are not happy. That isn’t as easy said as done.

But with Wealthy Affiliate, you get to test out the premium features for 7 days, like Live Chat, Live Weekly Webinars, see that we are real people out there to help beginners start their affiliate marketing business without handing over any credit card details.

You can test it, launch your own free website and experience it for real.

I think that shows how much the owners behind WA care about making sure you know what you are paying for.

But there is no pressure to upgrade, and if you choose to stay a starter member, you keep your websites.

Is It Really Free for Everyone?

There are some instances where you will not be able to access the free Starter Membership…

There are 10 countries, where the Starter Membership is not available. There are more cases of fraud and scams happening in these countries and WA wants to protect its members, so they are no eligible for the free starter membership.

Bangladesh
Egypt
Ghana
India
Kenya
Morocco
Nigeria
Pakistan
Philippines
Vietnam

However, this doesn’t stop people who are serious about Affiliate Marketing in these countries, joining through the Premium Membership – which is $49/month or $359/yr.

If you are in one of these countries, please sign up here.

You Will Not Succeed Without the Premium Membership

Some might say that I am making a bold statement with that, but it is true. Many people miss a few key elements when starting an Affiliate Marketing business but following the complete training program with Wealthy Affiliate and following every step and task they set will ensure you succeed. Those key elements are people do not commit to their business properly and they lack the support to get their business up and running and keep going until it succeeds.

Following their training allowed Gemma to give up her day job and work on her own online business and is allowing me to earn money every month from Affiliate Marketing, from home.

How Much Does the Premium Membership Cost?

It costs just $49/month or $359/yr.

If you are eligible to sign up for a free starter account first, I can then offer you a discount on your first premium month – saving you 61% of the cost.

This is unfortunately not available for those who are not eligible.

Who is the Premium Membership For?

If you are serious about building an online business and are seriously about learning every aspect that will allow you to succeed, then the Premium Membership is for you.

It is for those who are going to persevere until it is earning you your financial targets, but also reach your non-financial targets. Mine was spending more time with my family.

Who Is Eligible for the Premium Membership?

At present only Nigeria is currently unavailable to join. But anyone else is eligible to join.

What is Included in the Premium Membership?

All 50 lessons in the Online Certification Course for any Niche
All 70 lessons in the Affiliate Bootcamp Course for Promoting Wealthy Affiliate
All 12 classrooms are accessible
10** free websites and 10** full domain websites = 20 websites
Fast & Secure Web Hosting for your websites
SiteBuilder
Keyword Research Tool – Unlimited Searches
Live Chat for Instant Support – Unlimited Use
Private Messaging for 1-2-1 Coaching
Weekly Live Webinars
SiteComments – Get Comments and Engagement for your websites and earn credit too
SiteFeedback – Get Feedback on your websites to push your business forward
SiteSpeed – Website speed can affect your rankings, this helps keep it fast
SiteProtect – Awesome Spam Protection
Free SSL Certificates for all websites
Access to thousands of tutorials created by other members
Your Own Blog on Wealthy Affiliate
Make Money through Wealthy Affiliate by creating training (after 3 months)
Help from the community at all times, I have really benefitted from this
Access to the Owners, Kyle & Carson – they are regularly online, and you can chat to them about your business.

[** The Premium Membership has been updated and now offers 10 Full Domain website]

When Do I Upgrade to Premium?

You can upgrade at any point. The earlier you do it, the sooner you can start your journey to earning money online.

When Do I Upgrade to an Annual Subscription?

You can upgrade to an annual subscription at any point. If you have just paid a monthly fee, it will be factored in when you buy your annual subscription. So, you will not overpay!

Does WA Have Any Sales on Their Premium Membership?

They tend to offer a discount on their annual subscription as part of the black Friday weekend. The Annual subscription will drop to $299.

There is no guarantee, this will be available every year, but it has been the case for the last couple of years and I benefitted from it and now my annual membership is the same every year.

What If I Need to Take a Break from the Premium Membership?

No problem. Just remember to note down your username and password, so you can log back in when you are ready.

Once you have noted that down, go into Account Settings and cancel your Wealthy Affiliate subscription. When you are ready to come back, just resubscribe.

If you do not want to re-subscribe, then you will need to move any websites you have hosted at WA to another hosting provider.

Are There Any Refunds?

No, all of the information available is digital and you gain access to all of it as soon as you subscribe.

How Long Does It Take to Make Money with the Premium Membership?

That is a hard question to answer, everyone will go through the training at a different pace, everyone will put in different amounts of time and effort. So it is really hard to give you a definitive timeline for earnings.

There are too many variables to factor in, but what I can share is my experience. If you are consistent in the training, follow all of the steps and do everything properly and correctly. IF you can commit to spending an hour a day either learning or doing something with your business – you could start earning money from it within 3-6 months.

I started earning money after 6 months, but I could have been more committed and earned that earlier.

If you can get your website noticed by the search engines, as the training shows you how to do this, then you will start to see that month 3 is key and from that point on your earning potential will grow.

When you will make money will depend on you – your niche, your time and effort, consistency and persistence.

Side-by-Side Comparison of the Starter & Premium Membership

Here is a summary of both memberships side by side, for you to review

Success Stories Are Constant with the Wealthy Affiliate Premium Membership

The first thing I will say about success stories, is that success doesn’t always mean financial. In my experience, the more I focused on my non-financial goals the easier it was to work towards my financial goals.

Success could be launching your first website, getting ranked on page one of google or even earning your first dollar.

Celebrating every success will definitely help you stay motivated before that first dollar comes in, once you have earned your first dollar – you just keep working on scaling that to a full-time income.

See some success stories from Premium Wealthy Affiliate Members below.

Get Personal Coaching from Me

If you sign up to Wealthy Affiliate through the links below, you will also get coaching from me for free.

I understand the need for help when you are just starting out with Affiliate Marketing and want to offer help at every step of the way for anyone who accepts my invitation.

After you sign up, I will send you a welcome message with all of the information on it and you will also be connected with me on the platform. You will be able to find me, look for me on there – my username is JCross93.

I am currently in the top 200 of Wealthy Affiliate and that is down to how many people I help on there. Do not ever be afraid to ask a question, someone else might be thinking the same thing and we are all there to help you or anybody succeed.

So if you really want to start your own affiliate marketing business and earning money online, then you will not find a better platform than Wealthy Affiliate.

CHECK OUT THE BEST AFFILIATE MARKETING TRAINING OUT THERE!!

If you still have any questions around either the starter membership or the premium membership, or Wealthy Affiliate itself – then please leave them in the comments below and I promise I will respond to you ASAP with an answer.

Can I Do Affiliate Marketing Without a Website? 5 Ways To Make Money Without a Blog

November 1, 2021November 5, 2018 by John Crossley

We personally believe that a website is an ideal platform for affiliate marketing, as you have full control over it and can use it as a base for some of the methods we discuss in this post.

But having said that, there are still a number of alternative ways for you to make money with affiliate marketing without a website. Whichever method you choose, you still need to remember some key things to help you convert clicks into sales, and we will share some tips in our post too.

Can You Make Money with ClickBank? Or Is it Full of Scams…

September 8, 2021November 2, 2018 by John Crossley

Alongside Amazon, Clickbank is one of the most recognised Affiliate Networks online. Amazon is well known and in the public eye, 43% of all US transactions online went through Amazon and there a lot of ways of making money with them.

But Amazon around physical products. Clickbank is typically a lot of digital products. It’s affiliate program accepts anyone and their commission rate is much higher.

10 Best Reasons to Work from Home… But Why it’s Harder Than you Think

November 6, 2019November 1, 2018 by John Crossley

There are many benefits to working from home and it is a lifestyle many crave. Being able to work when you want, how you want and more importantly fit it around you rather than your company or boss all has an appeal. But I also want to share with you the other side of working from home to consider… it is definitely harder to motivate yourself at times too.

I will share with you 10 of the best reasons to work from home, but also a couple of factors to consider if you do.

I use affiliate links to support bestaffiliatemarketingtools.org, for more information click here.

You Control Your Schedule

Being able to control when you work has a multitude of benefits, I find myself more productive on an evening. But compare that to your normal job – a 9 to 5 job suffers with the commute; a flexible shift worker never knows their shifts too far in advance. Working nights to earn extra money means you miss out on the family… the reasons are endless, and it can be much better for you if you planned your own schedule.

No Drive to Work

The amount of time we lose through the commute to work and then there is also the fuel savings. Fuel is costing more all the time, especially with the push for electric cars and getting penalised for driving a diesel car. You might be someone who goes to work via train, but the train fares are constantly going up with overcrowded trains a big problem.

It is no surprise that many of us are stressed before we even get to work, and we have the same joys to go through on the way home.

More Time for Parenting or Your Own Pursuits

One of the biggest benefits I have seen from working from home is spending more time with my family. Being able to walk Will to school or take him to his Tae Kwon Do lessons is something I really enjoy and missed out massively with my day job.

There are also the benefits for if he is ever unwell and cannot attend school.

But for many of you who aren’t parents, there is the opportunity to get back into a hobby or arrange to catch up with some friends without the normal barriers. I remember one Friday, my day job involved a lot of driving, and I was supposed to be meeting up with Friends and Family for a drink to celebrate a birthday – but due to a pile up on the motorway I didn’t get back home until 11pm and missed out on it.

It seems to be your hobbies or interests always take a backseat to the job, as it pays the bills and I get that – but working from home definitely gives you more freedom to pursue them.

Control Over Income

One of the key reasons why people do not pursue working from home is they worry that they will not bring in the same amount as their day job or having enough to live on. But the advantages of a home business are it can allow you to earn what you are worth – and you will get paid based on what effort you put in and not whether a boss feels you deserve a pay rise.

As a business owner, you can set your own income goals and product/service prices. You will also reap the rewards from the time and effort you put into your home business. Plus most home businesses start as a side gig on top of a normal job, until you are ready to change that arrangement.

Tax Benefits

There are tax benefits to having your own business from home, you can write off equipment, supplies and even a portion of your home or car if appropriate. You can even claim a portion of utilities you use, i.e. internet or electric.

It is also worth pointing out that with a normal job you get taxed on what you earn. In your home business, you can deduct your expenses first and only pay tax on your net income.

I would always advise you seek professional advice with this, but there are definite benefits.

No Work Uniform

Wear what you like… unless you have clients to see or are doing a skype call, there is no restriction on what you wear.

During the summer, you will not have to wear formalwear that bakes you when the heatwave arrives.

No Boss

There are normally a couple of reasons why we look for ways to work from home, sometimes it is to earn more money or pay off debt. Or that your boss is not that great. Not all of them are a problem, but at the end of the day reporting to a boss doesn’t give you the freedom to push yourself into doing something or making decisions.

Feel a Greater Level of Satisfaction

Think of it with your current job, when you achieve something is there any recognition… does it mean that you can go home and feel motivated from it…

Everyday there is some level of satisfaction from starting your own business. Launching your first product, launching a website, getting your first customer review.

Let’s be honest, you will never get the same level of recognition from your day job. Starting an online business and growing it to the point where it is helping people and creating income for yourself will be a much better place to be.

Learn New Skills & Grow as a Professional

To make an online business work and grow to that point where you can say goodbye to the day job needs some hard work and time spent learning some important skills. This will help your online business, but also help you grow as a Professional.

You will notice the tone I have taken with this post, the only real way of earning money online is by thinking of it as and building it as a business.

Building a business plan around it, having the mindset of it as a business and you will definite grow in an awesome way as a business owner. That is why I advocate to anyone the opportunities of starting a Home Business.

Start a Home Business – A Passion Becomes Your Key to Working from Home

This is the starting point for being able to work from home. There are a couple of paths:

Creating & Selling Your Own Products – Many have started with this path, starting on eBay and building up a home business from there. My wife traded her 9-5 admin job for this and now creates bespoke Wedding Stationary and ships worldwide.
Drop Shipping – Not everyone has their own products or the inclination to create them. Drop shipping is an alternative where you sell products from a wholesaler. You sell them as your product and when someone buys something, you instruct the wholesaler to ship it direct to the customer.
Affiliate Marketing – This is my preferred method. My wife is arty and very good at what she does, but I use Affiliate Marketing to bolster the earnings from the wedding stationary to allow us to work from home. Affiliate Marketing is gaining a lot of popularity and it might seem like a difficult path to traverse but is by the far the best option if you are looking to work from home. I suggest you read my guide on “How Affiliate Marketing Really Works?”

I would to just spend a minute pointing out a couple of things for when you are searching for genuine opportunities to work from home. Anything that tells you “You Can Earn Money Overnight with this System!” or promises you “You Don’t have to Do Anything!” are full of BS. There are no magic-button systems out there that can allow you to quit your job tomorrow. (Sorry). It took me 15 years with my (day-job) company to earn the salary I got to, there was no way a platform was going to equal that overnight – But if you are willing to put the time and effort in you can start to see rewards with an online business after 12 months. Being realistic with our expectations is something I have learned a lot from on our quest to push the wedding stationary business and my affiliate marketing business.

Affiliate Marketing presents anyone the opportunity to work from home building an online business from something we really enjoy or even a passion. I love helping people find that opportunity, but it could be in anything. But I would be lying if it was easy (what is) and many stop before they actually start making money.

Some do not believe me when I say that I am earning money through Affiliate Marketing, but I am, and it gives me all of the benefits that are above and more.

With Gemma’s wedding stationary business, I utilise all 3 of the above business models to supplement the income from the wedding stationary.

A Few Watch Outs to Working from Home

I mentioned earlier that whilst there are many benefits to working from home, there are a few things that can make you less productive or even mean you do not get your business off of the ground.

Watch Out #1 – Distractions & Self Motivation

Whether it is your favourite tv show, social media or the washing up, there are a lot more distractions at home then you might think. It might seem like the dream to stay in your PJ’s all day and having the mentality of “I’ll do it later…”. You will soon notice that you actually get a lot done at home, but not on your business. Social Media can be a powerful tool to your business, but you can easily lose 2 hours just surfing Facebook and not having anything to show for it.

My first piece of advice for working from home is… Make yourself an office and organise your time. I know this might sound like your day job and clocking on”. But it will help you get into that home office mindset. Even with my day job I was a home worker, and it can be so easy to sit on the sofa with the tv on, whilst checking emails. You do not get a lot done. Trust me, you are better having no distractions.

Watch Out #2 – It Can Be Lonely

When you finally reach that point where you are working from home and not having to get out of the house for work – you soon realise that you miss the social element of your old job. Don’t be afraid to meet up with a friend for a coffee. There are times with an online business where you might need to bounce an idea off, but if you aren’t interacting with anyone close this can be hard to do. I have also found a friend is more likely to give you an honest opinion compared to some of the family.

Watch Out #3 – Managing Our Expectations

I know I have mentioned this before, but it is a really big one that can get us in the way. If I just talk about Affiliate Marketing for a moment as a business model. Most people get disillusioned with it after a couple of months as it hasn’t earned them any money. But in everything I have ever read or done with it, you shouldn’t expect it to. The main reason is the search engines are not really noticing your website until month 3. So, they could be giving up just before they start seeing revenue.

eBay is really good for Gem’s wedding stationary, but there are fees. But the website isn’t getting the traffic it needs to not do eBay.

Wanting to work from home can be such a powerful emotive thing that we jump into decisions that we shouldn’t really make, and it tends to end up costing you more money.

Making money online at home is really doable, but you need to manage those expectations. I didn’t earn anything in the first 6 months with Affiliate Marketing, but I didn’t give up. If I had, I wouldn’t be seeing the success that I am now. It is really pushing forward with Gem’s business and I have a training platform and a great community to thank for those successes.

Getting the Help, You Need to Work from Home

There are watch outs to consider when starting out online, but the benefits definitely outweigh those. I love being able to spend more time with my family, and I also help people who want to get started online too.

Starting out might seem daunting, but I can offer you help every step of the way and get you to the point where you can give up the day job and say you are a home business owner.

When I first started looking for ways to earn online, the one thing I noticed was the number of programs that were full of false promises. How can a system earn you that kind of money overnight with no work…? The answer was it didn’t, but you needed to hand over your credit card details first to find out.

I’ll admit, I got stung by a scam and got my fingers burnt. I let my emotional side make the decisions for me and it didn’t work. But it did lead me to a path that was genuine and offered me all the help and support I needed to start and grow my online business.

That platform offered training, expert help and support and the ability to launch my own online business with Affiliate Marketing. But it offered so much more, and I have used a lot of the knowledge with Gemma’s wedding stationary business. So whatever online business you are considering you can get the same help and support + I will personally help you every step of the way.

That training platform is Wealthy Affiliate. It offers:

Training for every aspect of an Online Business
Websites & Hosting for your Online Business
Expert Help & Support from the Community
Online Training Platform where the Owners Get Involved
Personal Help & Guidance from Me

I highly recommend Wealthy Affiliate to anyone who is interested in starting their own online business, and truly believe in them. Here is my full Wealthy Affiliate Review, which I would advise you to read.

If you are really interested in building an online business to help you be able to work from home, then Wealthy Affiliate can definitely help. But I will also be on hand to help anyone in the community. One of the things you will soon realise is, everyone is there to help each other including the owners.

If you want to take the platform for a spin, you can try their starter membership. It is totally free and will not require you to enter your credit card details. Just experience the premium features for 7 days and make your own mind up.

I would love to hear what you guys thought of my 10 best reasons to work from home or even the watch outs. Are you thinking of starting out and not sure which way to go or have you found your own benefits or concerns when working from home? I would love to hear from you – just leave me any questions or comments below. I promise to come back to you ASAP and good luck with your pursuit of working from home.

The Affilorama Review – Is it Still Worth It?

September 17, 2021October 26, 2018 by John Crossley

Welcome to our Affilorama Review!

Affilorama has been around for a long time and many respected Affiliate Marketers used it get started in Affiliate Marketing, but I want to explore whether it is still the best option in 2020…Is it still worth your time if you are looking for a way to get started in Affiliate Marketing.

First off, it’s great to see that you’re doing your research before buying into any “seemingly good” product.

That’s how you avoid scams and find only legitimate ways to make money online…

Affilorama is a well respected option for those looking to get started in Affiliate Marketing, but you need to decide whether it’s the right fit for you…

Let’s get started with a quick Product Overview…

How to Work from Home for College Students

November 6, 2019October 24, 2018 by John Crossley

Being able to work from home whilst studying will bring so many benefits, so it is only natural that many are looking for genuine ways to achieving income from home.

But whilst there are opportunities out there, it does take more than just finding something – it will take the right mindset to achieve it to. Having to go out and get a normal job, will actually get in the way of your college studies, as they are not normally close to where you live and will require you to travel. Time that could be better spent earning some money.

In this post I will be sharing with you a couple of genuine ways on How to Work from Home for College Students, but also how to get into the right mindset to make it work for you.

I use affiliate links to help support bestaffiliatemarketingtools.org, for more information please click here.

Get in the Right Mindset

Regardless of which direction you choose when looking for ways to earn from home, it does take a little thought to ensure you get something that works for you.

Even if you choose to look for something where you earn a little extra money or take a leap and choose to become your own boss, it still requires you to apply some effort and time to achieve your financial goals.

Part of getting in the right mindset is setting yourself financial and non-financial goals.

For example, you want to earn $100 a week and by not having to commute, I’ll have an extra 1 hour to study for college.

Something that can help you achieve by earning money online and your studies is by reducing any distractions you may have. Social media is the biggest one that comes to mind. Studies everywhere show we spend too much time on social media and nothing ends up getting done.

Work out your weekly schedule and understand how much time you actually have to pursue your goal of working from home. This will help you understand which options will have the best return on your time.

I have written about 3 directions you could take to work from home, all have their own pros and cons, but all are able to earn you some money.

Completing Surveys

This is a common one that comes up when you are looking at earning money online, it hasn’t got the best return rate for your money, but it can be a good bet if you are just looking at earning a little money. I like Swagbucks.

Sites like Swagbucks, pay you to complete surveys, watch videos, play games online. Whilst it is a way of earning money online you will find that you will spend a lot of time completing surveys and I have personally found that it can take a while to even earn enough to actually take out your earnings due to you having to achieve a threshold.

Don’t get me wrong it is a way of earning money online, and the best way would be to sign up to a number of sites to make it work. But I believe the main reason why College Students are looking for ways to work from home is to earn enough to not have to go out and get a normal job. You will still require the normal job with this option.

Let’s move onto the second option, this is where you could start earning real money.

Freelancing – Utilise Your Skills

There are massive opportunities when it comes to freelancing. Whether you are great at writing, creating graphical designs (logos, etc.), online marketing, social media marketing, creating content.

You might be able to turn your skills into money.

Websites like Fiverr allow you to hire yourself out to (typically)website owners to utilise your skills. If you are a languages student, it could translations. If you are into video editing, you help edit their videos.

Regardless of your skills, this can be a great way of earning money with your spare time. The beauty of freelancing is you are not tied to anyone, you only accept work when you can, but many freelancers that are good could turn this into a full-time income.

It is easy to get started with freelancing on websites like Fiverr, but I must point out it can be quite competitive depending on your niche. Writing articles will be very competitive and you will be up against some established players, whilst I imagine some other niches might be a real opportunity for you.

Once you have established yourself with Fiverr, you could choose to go with more upmarket sites like Upwork, where you could eventually get long-term deals with website owners.

Of course, if you are creating content for website owners – this leads me to my third option…

Be Your Own Boss & Start Your Own Blog

If you are creating content, it might as well be for yourself in your own online business. My third option is called Affiliate Marketing.

Related Post: How Does Affiliate Marketing Really Work?

Build a business in a subject you are really interested in, start earning money with it and it could easily turn into a full-time income where you never have to get a normal job.

Affiliate Marketing is a genuine opportunity to do just that. By helping people online in a niche (close to your heart) and introducing them to products that are in your niche with an affiliate link becomes your way of earning money online.

Let me give you an example, smart technology is big at the moment – but not everyone has an idea of how it works, what it is, what products are out there…

You start a blog about everything to do with smart tech, helpful guides to get the best out of it. You also include some reviews on certain smart tech products.

I find you blog and want to learn more about smart tech, and I see your review about an ‘Alexa Echo’. I find it really useful and I decide to click on your link to take me to the product page and I actually buy it. You have just earned a commission on that sale.

Put simply, that is how affiliate marketing works.

It is one of the fastest growing markets online, and you could easily use your spare time to build up your very own Affiliate Marketing business.

I have been using this model for 2 years now and I have never regretted getting started with it.

All it takes is time, effort, some excellent training and expert help and support to get started.

Get Started with Expert Help & Support

You might at this point be saying that sounds great, but does it really work? I can honestly say Affiliate Marketing is a sound business model – but you need the right help and support to get started and make it succeed. I will also say it is not a ‘get-rich’ scheme, I haven’t found one yet that can make you earn money overnight. Any you find are a scam or a low-quality product designed to get your money.

You need a platform that will teach you how to turn your interests into a successful online business and offers expert help and support every step of the way. That platform is Wealthy Affiliate.

Related Post: My Wealthy Affiliate Review

One of the key reasons I recommend them is that their training platform is the reason I have this website and am earning money online.

I knew nothing about an online business before I joined and now I have a number of websites earning money online.

Now I know you might be thinking, I have enough learning to do at college why would I want to do more training? Think of it this way, any normal job you go for will have training. They will get you to sit in a company induction and bore you with the company policies and procedures, show you how to do the job, etc.

What differences are there… for a starter you are doing it at home at your own pace and it will be a business in a subject you enjoy. Fitness, Technology, Fashion, Health & Beauty, Making Money Online are all effective categories for you to pick your niche from.

Wouldn’t you rather be learning a way to build your own business?

I highly recommend you read my Wealthy Affiliate review and check out their free starter membership and take them for a test drive – The owners of the platform are eager for you to make your own decision too.

My Promise to You

If you do decide to take up my invitation with Wealthy Affiliate, my promise to you is that I will be there to help you every step of the way. If you ever get stuck or want help you will have personal access to me, via Wealthy Affiliate. If you can stick to the training and plan your time effectively across the week, you will definitely be able to succeed and leave any jobs to get you through college long behind.

My Conclusion

It is very important you choose a direction that suits you, some are happy filling in some surveys and watching videos and getting a little extra money ready for Christmas. Others are quite happy doing a bit of freelancing and earning some money for the weekend.

But if you want to be comfortable and possibly even earning a full-time wage online, Wealthy Affiliate can definitely help you get started and achieve it. You do not have to be an expert online to do it.

An example I will give you is Jerry, he is a fellow member at Wealthy Affiliate and he gave up on University due to the amount he was earning online, check out his blog post here.

It is definitely worth a read.

Anyways, there are three ways you could use to work from home for college students. If you have any questions about completing surveys, freelancing or even Wealthy Affiliate please leave them in the comments below and I will definitely get back to you ASAP.

What is SEO and PPC? – Which Strategy is Best?

November 6, 2019October 23, 2018 by John Crossley

If you don’t know what SEO and PPC are, this will be your chance to fully understand both strategies. But it will also answer the question which one is best for you.

Getting your website found by the search engines is key in getting any traffic. Both strategies are effective, but there are definitely things to understand about them before you choose which one is for you.

We will explore both strategies, let’s start with SEO…

Search Engine Optimisation – Everyone Needs This Strategy

The reason why everyone needs this strategy and will benefit from it is… it is a free marketing method.

By making sure your website is optimised and found by the search engines, it means that any conversions (sales) you have become 100% profit.

Let’s start with the Pros and Cons of SEO Marketing:

The Pros of SEO Marketing

It is a free marketing strategy for online marketing and this makes it an ideal strategy for beginners. It makes it very cost effective and has the better Return on Investment.
When you get ranked in the search engines, it is classed as an organic ranking, which can improve over time with more engagement.
A great way of increasing organic traffic, and also gives you an insight into how you are ranked against your competitors for the same keyword.

The Cons of SEO Marketing

It isn’t a quick method, it takes time to build up your trust and rankings with the search engines
The Search Engines change their algorithms regularly, which can affect any rankings you have built up. (Easy to combat with quality content).
Competition on some keywords will make it harder to rank for it, without the correct strategy.

How Does SEO Marketing Work?

Whilst both SEO & PPC marketing starts with a keyword, they have different things you are looking for.

The first step with SEO is keyword research. You need a keyword research tool; our preferred option is Jaaxy.

In fact, if you are not doing any keyword research you are just writing content with no chance of getting it ranked on page one of Google. With SEO, there is no point in targeting a keyword that gives you a chance of getting onto that page one.

But if you target a keyword with high competition or no searches, then there is no point writing the article.

I go into more detail on keyword research in my post “What is Keyword Research in SEO”.

But in short, you want to target posts with an average traffic of 100 a month and a competition of less than 100.

But do not just rely on the keyword in the title, the key to Search Engine Optimisation these days is Quality Content.

How to Optimise Your Website for the Search Engines

There are some key things you can do to ensure your website is optimised for the search engines.

WordPress is an ideal website choice, it is ideally optimised for SEO, is mobile friendly and with the addition of a simple plug-in, you are good to go and get found by the search engines.

I highly recommend the All-in-One SEO plugin for WordPress, I know others use Yoast – but either way, installing this plugin will be the first step to getting your website onto the Search Engines.

Now, Google is great at finding new content – there are steps to quicken the process, but I will cover that shortly. But Bing & Yahoo, are not so great at it.

To get your website and your posts ranked into the search engines you are best off submitting a sitemap to both Google & Bing/Yahoo.

You will need to use Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools for this.

SEO does heavily rely on both effective keyword research and quality content. Whilst submitting a sitemap and using the right keyword is a start to the SEO strategy, the most effective route is quality content.

Google is constantly changing its algorithm to give its users better results. Things they are now looking at are:

Is your Website Mobile Friendly? More searches are done on smartphones now
Is your Website Secure? Websites with SSL will rank better
Is your Content relevant to what the search was?
Does it get Engagement? – Comments

SEO Rankings can sometimes not be consistent, and they are constantly reviewing it. If your content is highly relevant and helpful to the searcher, gets regular comments and people are staying on your site and really engaging with it – your rankings will go up. You goal is to be on the first page of the search engines.

But if your content is the reverse of all this, then it is likely to go down. Be mindful of any platform that works off duplicate content, the search engines hate duplicate content and will just drop your rankings massively. It needs to unique and helpful.

Getting your content ranked relies heavily on the content, but it can be hard when first starting out – See my review of the training platform I learned everything online.

Related Post: My Wealthy Affiliate Review

Final Word on SEO Marketing

There are many aspects of SEO marketing that are appealing, definitely when starting out and it is the most used way as it doesn’t cost you anything.

Getting natural rankings through SEO will lead to long term marketing campaign that isn’t reliant on anything other than keep posting great content. The more often you post great content, the higher your rankings will be.

Some aspects are harder at first, like getting the engagement side of it – but platforms like Wealthy Affiliate have great features like SiteComments. Where you will get quality comments from other members that will definitely help with your rankings.

If you want to learn a sound SEO strategy, you will definitely benefit from their training.

Relevant Post: Keyword Research in SEO

The PPC Strategy – What Do You Need to Know?

Whilst SEO is a free marketing strategy, it does take time to get those natural rankings that will benefit your online business. But there is a marketing strategy that will get you to the top of the search results straightaway, but it does mean you will need to pay for it. Let’s go through the Pros & Cons of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) before I delve into it fully.

The Pros of PPC Marketing

Instant Traffic – You don’t need to wait for the search engines to find your content
Very easy to Target a Specific Audience
You only Pay When Someone Clicks

The Cons of PPC Marketing

Has to Be Relevant – You are paying with the hope of it converting
Can be an Expensive Strategy
Will Stop When You Stop Paying

Investing in PPC can be a sound strategy, but it is more important to have highly relevant content with this method. If you are spending money to get it to the top of the search engines and getting people to click your advert – then you want the reader to follow a Call to Action (CTA).

You do not want to get people to your post to just leave, otherwise there is no point of using PPC.

How Does PPC Marketing Work?

If you want to advertise on Google, you will need to join AdWords. Bing & Yahoo use the same platform and you would use Bing Ads.

Keyword research is still essential with PPC marketing, but you are not so worried about the competition figures as to you are paying to be above the natural rankings.

PPC Marketing requires you to choose which keywords you target, and you put in a maximum amount you are willing to spend per click.

You will need to consider your budget, but also how many other people are advertising for that keyword. This will impact the price you pay.

You do not want to bid too low and not getting anyone visiting your site, but also you do not want to pay so high that it doesn’t pay to convert.

It is always worth checking out how many other ads there are for that keyword, as you don’t want to be appearing as an ad on page 3 because you will not get clicked.

Final Word on PPC Marketing

If you can get PPC Marketing right, you can use it effectively to increase revenue – either from expanding campaigns or using it to increase traffic to an SEO post that you have found is converting well.

The key thing to consider with PPC is you are paying, so it needs to convert to have any chance of having a Return on your Investment. But also remember, once you stop paying your audience will disappear too.

You also need to consider what your budget is and stick to it. If you don’t get your PPC campaigns right you can lose a lot of money and if you haven’t got it, it is not worth it. Don’t chase it because it is quicker, use it when you know what you are doing.

SEO vs PPC??

Some opinions out there are that you should choose one over the other. That is simply not the case, I have found great success in SEO without venturing into PPC. I have tried PPC Marketing and it can be useful, but I much prefer SEO and getting natural rankings. But that doesn’t mean I will not recommend PPC.

In my experience, many have used SEO and utilise PPC when they know which campaigns are converting natural and using it to increase their revenue.

So, I would recommend both strategies for the right circumstances. I would advise that if you are still unsure or do not know a lot about PPC, then SEO is more suited to you until you can learn PPC effectively.

The key things to consider with either strategy is that it all comes down to effective Keyword Research and Relevant Engaging Content.

If you can do this effectively, then you will succeed at either strategy.

Where Can You Learn SEO & PPC Marketing Effectively

At this point, I am hoping you have a grasp of both SEO & PPC Marketing, the key differences and which strategy might be better for you.

But I want to stress that for me, the best strategy is to use both – SEO is the core of any online business, it costs nothing and means any Return on Income is 100% profit. But PPC is a great way of growing campaigns that are working.

But if you are still unsure about what it takes to master these strategies, I would recommend you read my review of the platform I used to start my online business.

Wealthy Affiliate has great resources that will help you master SEO & PPC campaigns, create great content and get started with an online business.

Whether you are looking at starting an online business, or you are struggling to get your SEO or PPC campaigns off the ground, Wealthy Affiliate can help anyone with their online business.

I used the knowledge I built up from WA to help with my wife’s online wedding stationary business – but have also been successful in starting an affiliate marketing business out of it too.

Check Out My No.1 Recommended Training Platform – Wealthy Affiliate

If you still have any questions about SEO, PPC or anything to do with Internet Marketing please leave them in the comments below and I will definitely come back to you ASAP.

Is My 10K Model a Scam? – Find Out All Your Need to Know

September 15, 2021October 22, 2018 by John Crossley

Welcome to our My 10K Model Review!

My 10K Model on first impressions promises you an easy-to-use automated system that can generate instant commissions with no work… Michael Mansell, the guy behind it claims that it is a ‘no-brainer source of income’.

But can you really sign up to a platform like this and just sit back and earn money? Is it worth your hard-earned cash or is my 10K Model a Scam?

First off, it’s great to see that you’re doing you research before buying into any “seemingly good” product.

That’s how you avoid scams and find only legitimate ways to make money online.

To be completely transparent with you, we’re not associated with My 10K Model in any form. We’re not here to pitch or sell you anything.

Instead, we want to reveal to you how this really works, and why you should stay as far away from it as you can…

Let’s get started with a quick product overview…

What is the Best Web Hosting Service for WordPress?

November 8, 2020October 18, 2018 by John Crossley

WordPress is a fantastic Content Management System (CMS) for website, and over 50% of the websites that are out there are using this great platform to manage their sites.

But a website is only as good as the hosting it is working from. Any good house needs a strong foundation and that is no different when it comes to your website.

There are many different hosting providers out there, and many are advertised as free. But when you really dig into the details, you soon start to realise that as you grow your business, you will end up paying hundreds of dollars a month to keep up.

There are enough things to worry about with your online business, besides escalating costs.

In this post, we want to recommend a platform that offers premium web hosting (without the premium costs) that is ideal for someone just starting out with WordPress. It also comes with training to help get your business up and running, and then how to scale your business.

Without the worry of spiralling costs as the number of people who visit your site increases.

In fact, with one monthly fee you can host up to 10 WordPress websites on their servers and that fee is nowhere near what it would be with comparable hosting companies. All with SSL certificates, and a ton of other features aimed at helping you get the most from your site, and your hosting.

We will be going through all the features and benefits that come with hosting your website on our top recommended web hosting provider – SiteRubix.

What is Web Hosting?

So, what is web hosting? Web hosting is the place where all the files for your website live. It is like the home where your website lives.

Another way to think about it, is your domain name (website name) is the address of your house, and the web hosting is your actual house.

A Hosting Service Provider houses all the technology and systems that helps facilitate your website being presented on the internet, and then for people to be able to use your website in their internet browser.

Does it Matter Which Web Hosting I Use?

In Short, Yes!

If you think about how we said the web hosting provider is the house that your files are kept in, if your house was falling apart, not in great condition or used sub-standard material would it be something that you would be happy to live in?

You will find many different options for your WordPress web hosting, but not all of them offer the best hosting for your site.

They are a number of factors to consider when choosing a website host.

What you don’t want is to tie yourself with a provider that charges you a really high fee each month, and yet still get issues with your website being down. If you have a web host that keeps having issues that means your website is offline, then that means you will be losing sales.

The other thing to consider is that there are tons of hosting providers that offer a free website, but when you start going through the details you notice that the website you get is extremely limited and to anything you need to do, you will need to keep on spending to access facilities.

There are even hosts out there that charge you more as your visitor count increases.

That is why we recommend SiteRubix! It is premium WordPress web hosting, without the premium price tag. Their hosting is on par with some of the best web hosting providers out there, that easily charge $299 per month for their services, and yet SiteRubix gives you the ability to host ten WordPress websites for $49/month or $495/year. They have also introduced a new tier that can let you host 50 WordPress websites and get Jaaxy enterprise for $99/month.

SiteRubix is brought to you from the guys behind Wealthy Affiliate. So, along with your hosting for your sites, you also get extensive training on how to grow your business online, 24/7 support and a ton of other features that make this the best solution for someone just starting out, or someone who is finding their current hosting a bit lacking.

What is SiteRubix?

SiteRubix is a cloud-based web hosting platform, which focuses more on what is right for its website owners, then the profit margin. Like I said, they could easily charge $299 per month for their hosting alone.

Yet, they provide their members websites included in their membership, plus all the benefits of Wealthy Affiliate.

A free starter member gets access to 1 free WordPress website hosted on their SiteRubix servers
A Premium member ($49/month)get access to 10 full-domain WordPress websites hosted on their SiteRubix servers
A Premium-Plus member ($99/month) gets access to 50 full-domain WordPress websites hosted on their SiteRubix servers

They have a number of people in mind, with their membership levels. Those just starting out, those who are established and want better hosting, to those thinking of running a marketing business that require hosting for a number of client websites.

Then, they also gain all the other aspects to the Wealthy Affiliate & Jaaxy platforms. These include:

Extensive Training on All Topics of Online Marketing
Weekly Live Training with an Expert (on a number of different topics)
Keyword & Niche Reseach Tool (Jaaxy)
Access to a community of like-minded entrepreneurs
Get Help whenever you need it with different aspects of support
Personal mentoring/coaching from experts

Wealthy Affiliate, SiteRubix and Jaaxy are all housed under the one roof, and they are passionate about helping people become successful online. With over 1.4 million active members all benefitting from their training, and their website hosting, that should give you a good insight into the benefits of hosting your website at SiteRubix.

Let’s get into the features that are included with a website hosted on SiteRubix…

SiteRubix Features

SiteRubix keeps it simple. Where you would find with other hosting features, there are many different levels of membership and you pay more as you go up. It is as simple as a premium member of Wealthy Affiliate gets access to all of the features. And, that is the end of the conversation.

So, all of the features we are going to go through below are all included within the premium or premium-plus membership. The only difference is the number of websites you can host.

The image below shows you the standard features that are included with each site:

Site Health – monitor the health of your website to ensure you have the best chance of indexing, ranking, and acquiring traffic
Site Support – Website Technical Support 24/7
Site Comments – Website Engagement Tool (Awesome!)
Site Security – Website Security
Site Feedback – Get Feedback from WA members to help you understand how you can improve your website

Then there are these advanced features that again, each member can use on their website:

SiteSpeed – The speed of your website is key in many different ways for both your rankings, and the user experience. There are two levels you can access to – Accelerated & Extreme
SiteSSL (HTTPS) – Other hosting providers charge you an additional fee for an SSL certificate, but this is all included within your membership.
SiteProtect (Spam Blocker)

The main difference between SiteRubix and other hosting platforms, is that these features are all installed at the server end.

Why does that matter?

Well, anything you install you end, i.e. a spam blocking plugin, etc., can end up giving your users a slow experience on your website.

A slow website will put people off, and they will leave your website. People don’t tend to have much patience for a slow website, these days.

But the security of your website is really important, but if you install all of these features as a WordPress plugin, you will end up with a slow website. By SiteRubix, doing it all at their end, you get all the benefits and it will not affect your website speed in any way, in fact it will help speed up your website!

Thanks to their Spam Blocker technology, they have thwarted 27 million attempts on websites hosted on their server last year. They take additional steps to prevent spam or hacking of sites on their servers.

Each new website you install on their servers also benefit from having two plugins installed automatically, one is the All-in-One SEO plugin which is aimed at helping you get ranked in the search engines. The other is the Kraken Image Optimiser plugin. We will go into that shortly, but it is a fantastic app for optimising your images.

Each website will also benefit from these features (please note the number of domains will be different for a new member:

Let’s go through some of the awesome other features you get with a SiteRubix website:

Daily Backups & Double Hosting

Your website will get backed up every 24 hours, just in case. This can be used if there was ever a problem presented. Their support team is awesome, and will get you back up and running within minutes. I have not had many issues, but when I have a message to the support team gets me sorted within minutes.

But they also take an additional step, which is that they double host your website. This means there is a second website always running in the background. So, if there is an issue with your website, they can switch it over to the second version within seconds, so the majority of the time, your user will not even notice.

Won’t Slow You Down

We mentioned this earlier, but a slow website will have a major effect on the user experience, and can lead to people leaving your website. Then there is the fact that the search engines will also penalise you for a slow website.

With the SiteSpeed feature, their score is 1.3 seconds standard load time for sites!

Mobile Friendly

Google has changed the way it works, and this is in-line with the fact that the majority of us are using our mobile phones to search the net over using the computer/laptop. You’re probably reading this on your phone, right?

Google now focuses on mobile first, so your website needs to be responsive and be mobile friendly. SiteRubix websites are designed to be responsive, and are completely mobile friendly. They are optimised to work on whatever display someone is reading it on.

Site Domains Platform

There is no need to go elsewhere to buy and register a domain name, as you can do that direct from the WA dashboard. See if your chosen domain name is available and then register it with the SiteRubix servers.

Typically, they are priced at $1399-$15.99 per domain and that covers it for a year. That is the only addition cost, on top of the membership price.

Unlimited Email Addresses

With a SiteRubix website, you get unlimited email addresses. This is usually an upgrade feature in other web hosting.

Free SSL Certificate

Another thing Google is focusing on is, how secure your website is. An SSL certificate is an important feature, especially if you have an e-commerce website.

But Google (the largest search engine) will rank a mobile friendly website with an SSL certificate over a website that hasn’t got these features.

We have found other web hosting provides that are charging $100 for a SSL certificate per year.

But with a premium membership at Wealthy Affiliate, you can have 10 websites all with SSL certificates and all of these other feature for $49/month.

Or, if you are considering starting a digital agency, or marketing business working on client websites, then the premium plus membership can give you 50 hosted websites all with SSL certificates for $99/month.

Kraken Image Optimiser

Getting your images optimised is an important step in ensuring you don’t compromise your user experience, or your website speed. Wealthy Affiliate signed up with Kraken a while ago, and it is one of the best image optimiser platforms on the net.

It is also quite expensive if you were to go direct to them, but that isn’t a worry here, as it is included in your membership.

Check out this blog post, to learn more about it.

Affordable Web Hosting & Training For Your Online Business

The key factor here is that it totally depends on where you are with your online business. If you are just starting out, and want good training and a free website, then the free starter membership that gives you one free website, plus some training is a great option for you.

If you already have an established website, but are completely frustrated with your current hosting provider, then we would completely recommend you sign up as a premium member. For $49/month or $495/year you can transfer your current WordPress domain over to the SiteRubix servers and gain all the benefits we have listed. Plus, you will get all the benefits that come with a Wealthy Affiliate premium membership and get access to the Jaaxy lite membership.

Then, there is the new Premium Plus membership (Nov 2020) that will be ideal for an online marketing company, wanting to host their client websites on a great hosting provider.

But, I am guessing you might be in the first camp and are looking at getting started, and that is why if you want to get a feel for how SiteRubix, and Wealthy Affiliate can benefit you, I would recommend you start with a free starter membership.

What Are The Alternatives to SiteRubix?

If we were to consider the hosting companies that come close to offering what SiteRubix & Wealthy Affiliate, then we would need to consider the following hosting providers:

Pagely (5 websites) – $199 per month
WPEngine (10 websites) – $115 per month
Kinsta (10 websites) – $200 per month

Then, when you compare those prices against what you get with Wealthy Affiliate:

Wealthy Affiliate Premium (10 websites) – $49/month
Wealthy Affiliate Premium Plus (50 websites) – $99/month

I hope you can see the value you are getting with hosting your website at Wealthy Affiliate. But if you want to learn more about the innovate take Wealthy Affiliate take with regards their hosting, here is a blog post from one of the owners – Kyle!

If you want to see all the features that are included with both Wealthy Affiliate and Jaaxy, here are our links to our reviews:

Getting Started with SiteRubix

If you feel ready to get started with SiteRubix, and get access to the fantastic training that Wealthy Affiliate offers, then you can get started with a free starter membership. That way, you can take WA for a test drive and see it for yourself before deciding on investing in the premium membership.

If you already have a WordPress website and want to consider transferring it to the SiteRubix hosting platform, then you would need to go premium. But my advice, would be to still join WA with a free starter membership as you can check it out for yourself first, plus there is a discount on the first month of premium if you do it that way.

It makes it $19 for the first month, if you upgrade once you are in.

We’ve been members of Wealthy Affiliate for a few years now, and can’t think of a better place to get started with an online business, and make money online.

If you have any further questions about SiteRubix, Wealthy Affiliate or Jaaxy, then please write them in the comments section below and we would be happy to answer your questions.

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Is Easy 1Up a Scam? Find Out How It Works

September 15, 2021October 17, 2018 by John Crossley

Welcome to our Easy1Up Review!

Easy 1Up claims to empower online entrepreneurs and can allegedly earn you big money fast. Checking out their site it claims to become your personal ATM. But with these kinds of promises, it could quite easily fall into the scam category. But is it?