In this post, I am going to cover some of the negative aspects about Wealthy Affiliate. Every service or product has a few negative sides to them and inevitably complaints follow. Even though the training is amazing and the community itself is incredibly helpful and informative, there are a few niggling downsides to joining a service such as WA.
The purpose of this article is to fully uncover any possible downsides to a community dedicated to helping online affiliate marketers earn money online. With that in mind, I am going to include information from my own personal experiences when I joined Wealthy Affiliate and take information from other members to give an in-depth review of the complaints some members may have.
DISCLOSURE;
I am, and always will be, a premium member of Wealthy Affiliate. I promote them, and all my websites are hosted on their servers. I fully believe in the community and everything WA stands for. However, I feel it is only fair that anyone who is thinking of joining Wealthy Affiliate has as much information as possible, including the possible downsides – even though the positives far outnumber the negatives.
If it was not for Wealthy Affiliate I would never have earned a single dime online – I owe all and any success I have to the training and motivation I received at WA.
Related Reading:
How Long Does It Take To Make Money With Wealthy Affiliate?
Information Overload
I think the initial problem most newbie WA members have is as simple as information overload and the distraction which comes with the very lively forum and chat channel within the community.
When I first joined I quickly got bogged down and wasted a lot of time reading about other topics and Internet marketing related forum posts – all of which were either completely irrelevant or way above my training level.
This quickly added to my confusion as I worked through the training modules because I was trying to implement methods – such as e-mail auto responders, CTA buttons and affiliate adverts – BEFORE I even had more than 10 blog posts. I did not even have any traffic yet but I got so caught up in the community I got sidetracked almost every single day.
There are so many posts about improving site conversions, increasing sales, improving user experiences, and so on, that I just did not realise that I was no way near ready to even think about any of these topics.
This is obviously down to the individual and I cannot blame WA for this, as I should have been smart enough to focus on the training and nothing else – but this is a recurring forum topic and I see a lot of newbie WA members talking about “distractions and time wasting” because there are so many topics on the forum itself.
Perhaps there could be a way of limiting newbie WA members interaction with the forums until they have finished the training modules? Not sure about the practicalities of this but I would certainly have benefited from it.
This is definitely a downside because I have seen a lot of newbie affiliate simply lose hope as they drown in information they have no idea how to implement or to put to any good use.
How To Overcome The Information Overload?
Focus on the training. Nothing else!
When you first join try not to read any other blog posts or any other techniques to improve your site. Focus on Kyle’s training modules only and work all the way through. Do not miss a single step.
Preaching To The Lowest Denominator
This one is one I struggle with. I do find the training to be a little bit too simplistic at times. I LOVE Jay’s webinars – they are definitely one of the best things about WA – full of wonderful tips and everything is explained in great detail (when he gets a chance)
However, this is where the problem lies. 90% of the people who watch and ask questions on these webinars are complete newbies and ask the most simple and repetitive questions. Jay always has to spend way too long answering questions which are already covered in the basic training modules withing the training.
If they have not done the training – why are they watching a webinar about this topic?
From my point of view it seems as if the webinars are watched by members who have not even written a blog post yet, they are there just by chance and are asking completely irrelevant questions, resulting in less time for people who are there to learn. This probably also only serves to leave the newbies members confused because they are soaking up information which is way above their training level – they should be focusing on other things.
In a recent webinar I watched – “Building a Massive List of Awesome Keywords” – I was hoping to get some insider tips from Jay and perhaps a few cool new ways of coming up with some valuable keywords.
However, out of the 80 minutes webinar about 60 minutes is spent explaining keyword research on such a simplistic level that it does leave me a little bit frustrated. This is confirmed when there are dozens of questions, related to keyword research, which Kyle already covers in great depth withing the training.
Why are these newbies stopping the people who want to watch Jay do keyword research, not answer simplistic questions?
Should there not be a more advanced webinar for people who are 6 months + into the WA journey and need advanced tips on how to increase their productivity and SERP impressions?
You Quickly Outgrow The Training
My last point leads me into this subheading. I did find I outgrew the training quite quickly.
Once you are 6 months into your blog creation, you do start to find that there is less for you at WA. There are still lots of great resources and forum posts you can use for references and motivation but in terms of training, there is not much else to go on.
People like Kyle and Jay have SO much information they could teach about more advanced methods for blogging, keyword research, improving user experience, increasing profitability, scaling up your traffic, scaling up your social media presence, and MUCH MORE.
However, there seems to be no way to tap into this knowledge because they are busy making training content for the newbies only which is of little use to anyone who has completed the basic training and has started to make sales with their websites.
Overall, this feeling of growing apart leaves you feeling a little bit disjointed because you want to learn more but there is nothing available.
Do These Complaints Detract From The Value?
Absolutely NOT. Wealthy affiliate is by far the best place to learn how to create a profitable blog. Even once your blog is fully functioning you will still find value with the WA hosting, support and community.
The amount of “POW! POW!” you get for your buck is incredible and you have your hosting, support, community and resources under one roof – which is wonderful.
Is Wealthy Affiliate Any Good?
Every service will always have a few downfalls, that is natural. With regards to Wealthy Affiliate the complaints I mentioned here are real but in the overall scheme of things, they do not matter that much and they will be fixed in the future.
Kyle and Carson are always coming up with new and improved way to make WA a more effective, friendly and valuable place to be and this will continue into the years to come.