Wealthy Affiliate: Day 1

I first heard about the Wealthy Affiliate forum and resources years ago — early 2008, I believe — but had no money to try it out. I had made the decision not to buy anything online until I had earned money from my efforts. I wanted to start for free and see some success before spending money I really couldn’t afford.

So I plunged forward, with more effort than knowledge, and over many months of work managed to make enough money that I quit my part-time job. I was making more money working much fewer hours — an amazing situation for me as a work at home mom of two, then three, and now four young children.

Now, several websites and hundreds of online articles later, earning $2,000 to $4,000 a month through advertising revenue and affiliate commissions, I’m ready to take my internet business to a higher level. I still have limited time, but I fully intend to build up to $10,000 a month before my one-year Wealthy Affiliate membership comes up for renewal.

On your mark, get set ….

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Wealthy Affiliate: Days 2 and 3

I’m blogging about my Wealthy Affiliate journey as I go, to share what I learn along the way and perhaps give you ideas to use as you build your residual income, whether or not you decide to take the course yourself.

The day after I joined the WAU affiliate training course, I completed the first lesson and was notified I had to wait another two days before having access to the next segment. There was a list of extra things to do in the meantime, and I soon found myself browsing the Training Center. It was there, under Intermediate Resources, that I found a short guide on “Building a Mailing List.”

I’ve long known that an opt-in subscriber list is like gold for internet marketers. If you have a website on dog training, and an email list of visitors who are interested in dog training tips and resources, you can better market your website articles as well as dog-related products and services, to an interested audience. This is true for any niche across the web. For those who wish to receive them, your subject-specific newsletters can be a helpful resource. For you, it can be an opportunity to build credibility with your audience, as well as increase online income.

Typically, you wouldn’t work on building an opt-in subscriber list on day 2 of an internet marketing course. Most students are still learning the basics of internet marketing, unless like me they’ve already had some experience before taking the course. But since I already have blogs, websites and articles going, and am simply waiting to delve deeper into the meat of the course, seeing that simple guide was the motivation I needed to get moving on my subscription list.

A free service,  MailChimp, which is really very robust and actually quite cool, handles my subscriber list. My initial list is less than 300 contacts, all of whom opted-in in the past six months to receive my ebook updates, and it’s a good start. I have also created a newsletter subscription form which will import subscribers to my MailChimp account to help grow my list.

On day 3 of my WA course, I sent my first subscriber list email. In reaching out to my subscribers, I want to make sure  that my newsletters are first and foremost helpful and useful resources. We all hate junk mail and sales pitches, and I respect my readers’ time. I intend to only send information I’d be glad to receive myself. In addition to good content, links to helpful resources — whether or not I may receive a commission on them — will also be included, but only if I have tried them and believe them to be good and worth MORE than the cost.

Any tips on what you as a subscriber want to receive in a newsletter? If you have a website, do you have a subscriber list? What kind of updates do you send to your list?

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Wealthy Affiliate: Days 4 & 5 — it’s paid for itself

Wow.

I had high hopes but really did not expect to see my investment pay off so … quickly.

My Wealthy Affiliate membership, which I’ve been blogging about for the past week, has already paid for itself.

I spent $359 for access to the Wealthy Affiliate course and resources for a year (the price will more than double, forever, starting tomorrow) and, following their action plan, will more than make that back through affiliate sales from the past three days.

If I’d subscribed for the $39/ month plan, that one $39 investment would have earned itself back in spades even if I quit and never spent another hour on the site. For those on the fence about joining this incredible community of internet marketers, webmasters and online writers, I urge you to try it — just for one month — as it might be the best $39 you’ve spent all year.

While I first heard about Kyle & Carson’s membership site two years ago, I waited until now to join because I always had more work than I could handle and was trying to earn money without spending a penny — and I did. But my knowledge of affiliate marketing is a hodgepodge of what I’ve read and what I’ve experienced through my own trials & errors.

I make a few thousand dollars a month — which is amazing considering how few hours I really devote to it — but Kyle & Carson and their numerous success stories show much higher earnings than I can imagine achieving on my own.

For me, spending the money made sense — doubly so now that I’ve already earned it back after implementing only a fraction of the material in WA — as it furthers my goals to bring my online business to the next level.

Whether or not you purchase this particular resource depends on where you are and what goals you have. I wonder, if I’d joined two years ago, what kind of success would I be seeing already? But then I remember — the second best time to start is now. And I have.

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