If you have been thinking of joining Wealthy Affiliate or have recently joined and still wonder how is it possible to make money with Wealthy Affiliate? I am here to help you answer those questions… the Main purpose of becoming a Wealthy Affiliate member is to make money and their training is top notch, but how exactly do you make money???
In this post I will share with you the ways you can earn money from following their training and from outside sources. But also, how you can actually make money within their platform too. (Yes, you can make money within WA too!)
I have been a member since 2016 and know my way around the platform really well, and in total there are 8 different ways to make money with Wealthy Affiliate.
Like I said there are 2 main ways to earn money from Wealthy Affiliate, within the platform and from following their training. We will be focusing on the external sources of income first.
Ways to Earn Money from Wealthy Affiliate’s Training
Their training is perfect for people first stepping out of their comfort zone and looking to earn money online. 
The training focuses on building up an online business foundation, giving you all the tips and experience that Kyle and Carson (the owners) have built up over the years.
You will not meet a nicer couple of guys who really focus on paying-it-forward. The training is upfront and takes you step-by-step through the process needed to make a business that is built for the long run.
Going through building a website, creating content, building up traffic and ultimately monetising that website. You are truly in great hands with Wealthy Affiliate’s training.
Let’s get back to how you will make money from this training.
Affiliate Programs
Affiliate Marketing is the primary focus and the way many WA members are earning money from following the training.
Affiliate programs are set up by companies who pay people commissions for promoting their products and making sales.
Most retailers are utilising this method as it is a much cheaper way to promote then multi-million-dollar advertising campaigns. Amazon, the world’s largest marketplace actually uses an affiliate program and is a common partner to many affiliate marketers across the world.
How it Works – you promote a product available on amazon via a blog, someone visits your blog and decides to buy that product, they get taken to amazon and buy the product. You have just earned commission.
Example – You create a health and fitness blog, and join an affiliate program like Webvitamins and promote a number of their products. You could always join Amazon too and promote relevant products on your blog. Any time someone completes a purchase, that is how you will be making your money.
There are literally tons of affiliate programs out there in any niche, meaning you can choose any of your interests or hobbies to earn from affiliate marketing.
As a rule of thumb, it is best to diversify your earning potential. Don’t just stick with promoting one product from one affiliate program. You want to ensure that if one product does disappear, you will not be affected as you will just rely on the other products whilst constantly looking for new opportunities.
- Awesome for Beginners – Affiliate Marketing is a great way to get started in the online world, it is the starting point for many online marketers who can the progress into other ways of marketing. It is low cost and simple to implement (with the right training).
- Low Cost – You do not need a lot of money to get started with affiliate marketing, you can even get started for free with Wealthy Affiliate. WA will provide you with a free website and some free training to get going. You will need to invest some money at some point, but that is only to realise the potential of affiliate marketing. Affiliate programs are typically free to join too.
- The Premise is Simple – There is a lot of time and hard work to affiliate marketing, but it is a really simple premise to get your head around. Promote other people’s products and earn money from it. You just need the right training to ensure it works out for you
Advertising (Google Ads, MediaVine, Monumetric, etc.)
Once you are starting to get traffic through, you can start to see your affiliate marketing campaigns starting to take off. It also gives you another opportunity to earn money through having ads on your website.
The usual starting point is Google Ads, but when you reach a certain traffic point you can start using better higher-paying options like MediaVine and Monumetric.
But Google Ads is popular as you don’t particularly need a high level of traffic to add it to your website.
With Google Adsense, they ask you to insert a code into your website header and the ads will be displayed automatically.
The key to success with affiliate marketing and ads is to not saturate your website with ads, otherwise your affiliate campaigns might get lost in the mix. But this doesn’t mean ads aren’t good for your website.
The fact is, not everyone will visit your website and click on your affiliate links. They might be having second thoughts or are not ready to make a purchase yet. You can still earn from ads being on your website. But again, if your blog is written well and is engaging your audience, you shouldn’t have to worry about ads distracting from your affiliate promotions.
CPA Offers
Cost Per Action offers are also an opportunity to monetise your website. Whilst they are not going to earn you a high amount, they can still be quite lucrative. Small amounts can easily mount up and CPA offers are something that you should consider once you have traffic coming to your website built with WA.
CPA offers pay you when someone completes an action, not necessarily needing to buy something. They just need to complete an action, such as:
- Sign up for an email list
- Register an account
- Sign up for a free trial
- Use a comparison site
They are normally easy to monetise, as they are normally free for the people to do. But they do not pay as much as affiliate marketing opportunities typically do.
Ecommerce
There isn’t as much focus on ecommerce within WA, but you can still find member created training on ways to do it. If you have your own product or want to consider drop shipping, the training and the tools they offer are still relevant for you.
We used a lot of the training to launch Gem’s wedding stationary business which uses a combination of our own products, affiliate marketing and drop shipping all in one.
The website you create on the WA platform is run by WordPress, so all you would need to do install a plugin like Woocommerce, which again is covered in the training available on WA to allow you to sell products directly and process the payments.
Whilst most who join WA do not have products to sell and are more interested in affiliate marketing, we still get asked questions about whether you can, and the answer is always Yes!
You can definitely make good money using ecommerce, but there are complications with it in a way that you wouldn’t find with affiliate marketing.
The main is you are dealing with the customers direct, so you need to be great at customer service for a start. Affiliate Marketing, they deal with the seller and not you.
Ways to Earn Money Within Wealthy Affiliate itself!
There are also ways to earn money within Wealthy Affiliate, and we will share these options below.
WA Affiliate Program
WA has an awesome affiliate program, which many members like the look of if you want to promote Wealthy Affiliate itself.
Whilst it is available to members straightaway, it is honestly better to wait and promote it once you have already found some success within another niche, purely as it will help you have some proof it works before promoting it.
But having said, that it is one of the best paying affiliate programs out there and even free starter members can benefit from it.
Any member will earn a recurring payment for every new member they introduce that goes premium. If they stay premium, you will earn money each month they stay a premium member. There is also a recurring payment if they go annual too.
Even free starter membership can benefit from referring new members, whilst the commission rates are lower many use it to pay for their premium membership. They also run an incentive program for those that achieve 300 premium referrals in a calendar year. They fly you out to Las Vegas to meet with Kyle, Carson and other Super Affiliates to learn how you can better scale your business.
Earning Cash Credits & Affiliate Credits
Inside WA there are two types of credit, you can earn. These are called Cash Credits & Affiliate Credits. These come from actions taken from members inside WA, once they are already members.
These credits can be redeemed for real money deposited into a PayPal account, or can be used for the benefit of your website. For example, you can use these credits to request comments, buy domains, get feedback, etc. A recent change has also meant you can use these credits to pay for your premium membership with Wealthy Affiliate.
These are not just a currency within WA, each credit is worth $0.50 and can be cashed out for real cash.
Earn from Writing Comments
One of the best features of the website tools that WA provide is the Site Comments platform. If you are unsure of how important comments are on your website, let me tell you that they are so important to help build trust with the search engines and your audience. But a new website doesn’t have comments, and readers can be a little unsure of a blog without any interaction.
The site comments platform allows you to use these credits you earn to get high-quality comments from Wealthy Affiliate members. This is a great way of using your credits, but it also an opportunity to earn money from giving comments.
A change last year made it that once you had given 50 comments within a 30-day period, you started earning cash credits. You already earn credits for giving out comments, but this was another way of earning money within WA.
Earn from Creating Training
Member created training is something that is encouraged within WA, as there are all types of people with experience in different elements and sharing that experience with a well-written training is rewarded with cash credit.
The core training is built by Kyle (the co-owner of WA) and Jay does a live training video every week, but the majority of the other training has been created by members of WA.
If you are experience in social media marketing, or wordpress you can create a relevant training video that will benefit other members and earn these cash credits.
You can add video tutorials, written guides, etc. and depending on the interaction with your training will determine how many credits you can earn.
Please note – you need to have been a Premium Member for 3 months to be able to create training.
Domain Registrations
Wealthy Affiliate is also a domain registrar, much like GoDaddy is. This means that you can buy domains (websites) directly through WA. There are a lot of benefits to hosting a website on WA’s servers. You are getting a premium hosting service included in your membership, which would normally cost about $250/month.
The cash credits come in useful as you can use these to buy your domains and renew your domains.
But you also earn whenever one of your referrals buys a domain. You will earn 2 cash credits for this, valued at a $1.
There is not much you can do to earn this, but whenever your referrals do buy a domain, you will earn from this. This way of earning goes along nicely with the WA Affiliate Program.
Account Setup Credits
Whenever you introduce a new member to WA, there is a step that makes sure they are a real person. This is a stage where you add an image and create a description for your WA profile.
When they complete this step, you again earn 2 cash credits, valued at a $1.
This stage is all about making sure they are happy interacted with the platform and will definitely receive more support from us within WA.
Kyle & Carson are always looking at ways to improve the platform, and like the change with the Site Comments platform there may become other ways to earn money through WA in the future.
Making Money within the Platform vs Off the Platform
Let’s just clarify the ways you can earn from Wealthy Affiliate.
Here are the ways you can earn within WA:
- WA Affiliate Program
- Creating Training
- Writing Comments
- Domain Registration
- Account Setup
Here are the ways you can earn from going through their training:
- Other Affiliate Programs
- Advertising (Google Ads, etc.)
- CPA Offers
- Ecommerce
What is the Best Way to Earn?
So, at this point you might be thinking which is the best way to earn online? Which path should you be focusing on? My advice would be to focus on Affiliate Marketing first. Most affiliates, including us are earning most of our money from affiliate marketing.
Without traffic, you will not earn anything from ads or CPA offers.
Affiliate Marketing will help you gain the traffic to earn from these additional sources of income.
The main focus of the training at Wealthy Affiliate is on Affiliate Marketing and ads, so you are in a prime place to be able to earn well from these 2 sources in the future.
Another key point of affiliate marketing is the fact that this is an easier path to explore than other forms of marketing and are a really good source of income too.
Pro Tips to Earn with Wealthy Affiliate!
I also want to share with you 3 tips to ensure you do earn from Wealthy Affiliate:
No.1 – Avoid the Shiny Objects and Stick to the Training! The training is set out in the perfect way to get you started on the right foot. If you gloss over things or miss something out you will feel the pain from it. It is so easy to try something that isn’t in the training because you think it will speed up the process, but it ends up being a waste of your time.
Follow the training to the letter!
No.2 – Choose a Niche You Actually Like: If you focus solely on earning money, you will normally find that it doesn’t end up working. Choosing a niche that you actually like will pay dividends in the long run.
If you go and choose a niche, solely because you think it is lucrative means you can end up being burned out and bored of the subject before you even make any money with it.
I have made this mistake and ran out of stuff to write about and wasn’t inclined to write anymore. This meant I had to start again from scratch.
No.3 Patience is So Important! You have to be so patient for this to work. Affiliate Marketing is an awesome way to earn money from something that you love, but it will not be a quick thing.
There is no other way around it, Wealthy Affiliates offers great training to achieve success with Affiliate Marketing, but do not expect it to pay back after a couple of weeks.
The concept of earning from an online business is different to a normal job. In a normal job you complete an hour work and get paid for that hour’s work. An entrepreneur will work for no return, but in the long run it will pay back 10x. A single article could and does earn affiliate marketer’s money for years. But it takes time to get to that stage.
If you would like to learn more about Wealthy Affiliate, you check out my full Wealthy Affiliate Review.
If you feel you are ready to join Wealthy Affiliate, create your free starter membership account here (no credit card required).
If you have any questions or comments, then please write them below and I will get back to you as soon as I can. All the best, John
