Where to begin…
So, I am thinking that you may have read my Wealthy Affiliate review, if not, click the link before you read more on this blog.
Go ahead I’ll wait…but don’t forget to come back here when you’re done.
If you clicked the link above, and are back now…Welcome back! If you didn’t click the link, then you still need the information to learn how to make money by blogging. And I intend to show you a little of what the training at Wealthy Affiliates consists of…well maybe more than a little.
If you have already read it…there are a few things to cover to help you make your decision. That is if your mind isn’t made up yet…and you’re still teetering on the edge of a decision.
Forgive me if I am a bit abrupt or to be brutally honest here.
What are you waiting for?
I mean no disrespect, but I mean to say that joining Wealthy Affiliates (WA from here on out) was the best decision in my life…other than marrying my wife 30+ years ago…you get the idea.
Ok, enough already…on with it now…
Two Types of Training…
As I mentioned in my review there is the Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) training and the Affiliate Bootcamp Training. Each has a purpose in its own right. One is for building a niche site, the other is for the purpose of promoting WA to show more people how to become online entrepreneurs. The fact that it brings in commissions for you is a bonus. It just depends on which direction you want to go.
The best part is that it is free.
There are business owners here that do both – with that I mean they start with a niche site, then decide to go the WA route after their niche site is making money. I personally chose to go with WA first.
But, I won’t stop there…I have two ideas I would like to try for niche sites…as I am always thinking about new ideas for a website. I just jot them down in a notebook and continue with my work here first.
But, I will work on them later, after I am successful with my WA site.
There are those who are only doing niche sites and still others doing only WA.
The decision is yours to choose which direction you want to go to.
Did I also mention you can start for FREE?!
Anyhow, I am going to start with the Online Entrepreneur Certification first, then give a rundown of what’s involved in Affiliate Bootcamp next. So, here goes…
Online Entrepreneur Certification…
I mentioned Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC)…well as a Starter member you can do Level 1 completely free. If you decide it is working for you and a Premium membership is the way you want to go, you will be able to complete all five Levels of the OEC with your membership.
Each level is 10 lessons and it is completed at your own pace. There is no requirement to finish at any specified time. I do suggest you not take too long as it will prevent you from achieving the success you may want in a timely manner.
The beauty of this training is you are building your niche website as you learn. By lesson 4 of Level 1, you already have a website up and running. All you have to do is build on it as you complete the rest of your training.
Check out this screenshot of Level 1: Getting Started
As you look at the 10 lessons you see different stages of website development. Things like website creation, setting it up for search engines, writing your first blog, placing menus, and then how to set up keywords in your blogs. By the time you finish this first level, you have a website operating as a potential to earn an income.
If you are satisfied with this, you work on publishing more blogs or creating content and gaining trust with Google and hopefully start getting noticed by the online world and getting hits.
You may also decide to take your training further. To do that, you’ll need to either switch to Affiliate Bootcamp to complete Level 1 or sign up as a Premium member to continue with Levels 2 through 5 of OEC.
In a nutshell here is an image with all 5 levels of OEC:
Level 2: Building Your Own Traffic Producing Website
In lesson 1 of Level 2, it talks about a domain name. At WA you are using SiteRubix as the web development platform. So, you get a free domain name with the sub-domain of siterubix.com after your domain name.
As a Premium member, you can buy a domain name and if you already started with siterubix sub-domain then you can transfer it over to your newly purchased domain name. There is training in WA to do this, and if you still need help, well site support is here to help you. They are the best and there is satisfaction guaranteed when they help you.
Again, the thing about buying a domain name, you are not able to do this and host it on WA unless you are a Premium member.
Ok, moving on…
The remaining lessons are to help you to better enhance the traffic you receive on your niche website.
Here is a list of the remaining lessons in Level 2:
Lesson 2: Move On Over, My Brand Has Arrived
Lesson 3: Creating Keyword Rich Content
Lesson 4: Setting Up A Domain-Specific E-mail Account
Lesson 5: The Traffic Breakdown
Lesson 6: Making Use of Words
Lesson 7: Understanding the Low Hanging Fruit
Lesson 8: Making face as a real person
Lesson 9: Amplifying Your Productivity
Lesson 10: Boosting Your WA Ranks!
Level 3: Making Money
Now you will learn how to use affiliate links and better understand how the whole affiliate program works. In other words, how to actually make money and that coupled with the traffic on your website will increase your presence on the Internet.
Lesson 1: Understanding the MONEY in Online Business
Lesson 2: Understanding Affiliate Programs & Networks
Lesson 3: Relevant Affiliate Programs are Everywhere
Lesson 4: Adding Affiliate Links to Your Pages
Lesson 5: Instant Access to a MILLION products
Lesson 6: Leveraging Product Reviews
Lesson 7: Getting Paid for Ads on Your Site
Lesson 8: Earning Pennies OR Dollars?
Lesson 9: A Brilliant Way to Track & Understand Your Traffic
Lesson 10: With Help Comes Financial Success
Level 4: Mastering Social Engagement
Level 4 shows you the best ways to utilize Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media to enhance and still again to drive more traffic to your site.
Lesson 1: What Does Social Engagement Mean to Your Business
Lesson 2: Making Your Website a Place to Engage
Lesson 3: Using Facebook the Right Way
Lesson 4: Pinterest & the Visual Social Hemisphere
Lesson 5: Incorporating a Sound Tweeting Campaign
Lesson 6: Google Plus or Minus?
Lesson 7: The Benefit of Being Social at WA
Lesson 8: Make Your Campaigns Social Branding Animals
Lesson 9: Using the Wealthy Affiliate Social Community
Lesson 10: You Cannot Be a Master of Everything
Level 5: Achieving Maximum Success Through Content Creation
And finally, Level 5 shows you, even more, to get a much fuller understanding and knowledge to really make your website(s) even better and much more professional. You can see the titles in each of the lessons in all the Levels to see what is in store for you as a member.
Lesson 1: Content is YOUR Business
Lesson 2: Setting Up Google Webmaster Tools
Lesson 3: Improving Indexing Times and Speeds
Lesson 4: People need to read your content
Lesson 5: A Year is a Short Period of Time, Yet BIG for Business
Lesson 6: Writing Within a Devised Plan Architecture
Lesson 7: Writing Your Content With Conversion Intent
Lesson 8: Injecting Comments with Intent
Lesson 9: Bing and Yahoo!, They Are Still the 33%
Lesson 10: Articulating a PLAN for the months and year ahead
This was a quick rundown of the lessons contained in OEC and if you have signed up for a free Starter membership and wish to take advantage of the remaining lessons then the Premium membership is the way to go.
But remember, you only have access to Level 1 with the free Starter membership. Of course, you will still be a member of the great community of successful entrepreneurs where there is help available.
Just ask…oh and you will also have access to me as I am quite active in the community also. You have the choice as to the direction you wish to go.
Now, a little about the Affiliate Bootcamp training…
Wealthy Affiliate – Affiliate Bootcamp
Ok, so if you are still on this page (I’m assuming that you want to sign up and just haven’t yet) and are not so sure as to what exactly your niche is or will be. Join the club, I had no idea either when I first started with WA.
I was into the OEC, Level 1, Lesson 3 when I asked Kyle because I didn’t know what niche to blog about. And, yes he is a real person and still very active in the community also, he suggested I go with Affiliate Bootcamp. It will give me time to come up with ideas for niche sites as I work on promoting WA. It worked, I have three ideas.
I now have a promotion site to support WA as an option of helping others in my position. Those who need or wish to have extra income to help make ends meet. The commissions I may receive for supporting WA are just a bonus.
As I continue to come up with ideas to implement in my niche sites I also jot them down. It gives me options for later as to what I would like to do, then that is where I intend to focus most of my efforts…later.
Now, since I have covered my reason for this site and you are now reading this blog, here is a quick view of what the Affiliate Bootcamp looks like:
As you can see there are 7 Phases in the Affiliate Bootcamp and each level contains 10 lessons (very similar to OEC). So, you have a total of 70 lessons to train you on how to write blogs, manage them, work with social media, and then get them noticed by Google and other search engines.
But, instead of writing content for your own affiliate campaign, you are promoting WA. Much the same way I am with this site.
The list below breaks it down by lesson:
Phase 1: Getting Your Business Rolling
Lesson 1: Getting Started
Lesson 2: Choosing Your Direction
Lesson 3: Building Your Website
Lesson 4: A Website Look Around
Lesson 5: Activating Your Plugins
Lesson 6: Getting Your Website Ready for SEO
Lesson 7: Your Initial Framework of Content
Lesson 8: Understanding the Keyword Research Process
Lesson 9: Creating Thoughtful, Insightful Reviews
Lesson 10: The Exciting Journey Has Begun
This first phase is similar to Level 1 in OEC, in that it gives you the foundation of a website to build on. The name of Wealthy Affiliates is well known in affiliate marketing and is the most lucrative systems around. So, WA will help you get off the ground running.
Phase 2: Content, Keywords, and Conversions
Lesson 1: Creating Readable Content that Converts
Lesson 2: Properly Using Affiliate Links
Lesson 3: Understanding Keywords & A Day of Selling
Lesson 4: Creating Reviews & Using Targeted Keywords
Lesson 5: Take a Break, catch up
Lesson 6: Backing Up Your Website
Lesson 7: Enhancing Your Website “Experience”
Lesson 8: Building MORE Content Through Internal Links
Lesson 9: Write a Review and Share It
Lesson 10: Offering Bonuses the Easy WA
In Phase 2, content is the major focus on your website. Many successful business owners who are also WA members are successful because of the quality content they produce as blog writers and website designers. The training in Phase 2 will teach you how to make your blogs pop with content that is presentable and readable. It also will help you with keyword leveraging and allow you to be ranked by Google. This will enable your content to actually convert readers into members of WA.
Phase 3: Giving Your Site Social Value
Lesson 1: Making Your Site Social With Plugins
Lesson 2: Making Your Social Profiles Brand Friendly
Lesson 3: How to Create Socially Engaging Content
Lesson 4: Social Waste vs. Productivity
Lesson 5: Take a Social Hiatus!
Lesson 6: Power Writing Gone Wild!
Lesson 7: Adding Google Analytics to Your Site
Lesson 8: Leveraging the Jaaxy Affiliate Program
Lesson 9: Making Promotional Use of Your Sidebar
Lesson 10: Build, Build, and BUILD!
Ok, so you now need Social media to help readers share their ideas. Phase 3 will help you with this.
Phase 4: Get Visual. Get Aesthetic. Get a Brand Through Media
Lesson 1: Introduction to Website Design
Lesson 2: An Image Says a THOUSAND Things
Lesson 3: Leveraging Wealthy Affiliate Videos for Conversions
Lesson 4: Creating Logos & Images
Lesson 5: Give Yourself a Break!
Lesson 6: Creating an Effective Jaaxy Review
Lesson 7: Research Jaaxy Keywords, Then Show & Tell
Lesson 8: Pinning Habits Lead to Pinterest Power
Lesson 9: Creating Your Own Videos
Lesson 10: A Lesson on Customer Perspective
So…do you think the appearance of your site matters? How about media usage? Or even the design of your site? Phase 4 will show you how to make the best usage of all three to enhance your readers’ experience of your site.
Phase 5: Knowing Your Audiences & Catapulting Your Referrals
Lesson 1: Creating Content With INTENT
Lesson 2: Getting Your Comments to Convert!
Lesson 3: Video, a HUGE Source of Traffic
Lesson 4: From Keywords to LIVE on YouTube
Lesson 5: A Discussion on Review (and a Break)
Lesson 6: The Ultimate Referral Tool!
Lesson 7: Incorporating Your Custom Sign Up Forms into Your Website
Lesson 8: Helping Folks is Critical
Lesson 9: Create a Custom Video Sign-Up Pages
Lesson 10: Creating a 6 week Plan of Attack!
Phase 5 will help you with conversion again, by helping you understand what it is your visitors want. It contains a big variety of topics.
Phase 6: Bing, Yahoo!, & the Power of PPC
Lesson 1: An Introduction to PPC on Bing Ads
Lesson 2: Letting Bing & Yahoo! Know About Your Site
Lesson 3: Paying for Traffic on Bing & Yahoo!
Lesson 4: Setting Up Your First PPC Campaign
Lesson 5: Take a Break, Do a Little Math
Lesson 6: Creating Small, Bite-Size Review Ad Groups
Lesson 7: Setting Up Conversion Tracking
Lesson 8: Capitalizing on Hidden PPC Landing Pages
Lesson 9: Getting REAL Creative With Keywords
Lesson 10: Refining Your PPC Campaign & Your Journey Ahead
Did you know that Yahoo! and Bing make up 30% of the search engine market share? Well, Phase 6 will help you be noticed by them also.
Phase 7: How to Scale Successful PPC Campaigns
Lesson 1: Blasting Your WA Affiliate Earning With PPC
Lesson 2: Understanding the Google Adwords Opportunity
Lesson 3: Maximizing Review Pages With PPC
Lesson 4: You, the Affiliate, Are Responsible for Analysis
Lesson 5: Mastering the Flow of Relevance
Lesson 6: The “Double Down” Approach to PPC
Lesson 7: To Direct Link or Not to Direct Link
Lesson 8: The Mathematical Business Model of PPC
Lesson 9: Using Concise Pages for PPC
Lesson 10: Creating a Long Term Scaleable PPC Campaign
Ok, now…last but not least… PPC or Pay Per Click. Phase 7 will show you how to capitalize on the affiliate marketing world of Pay Per Click. This phase will help your site become even more profitable for you with the use of PPC campaigns. This will lead you to more profitability and long term success.
Hmmm…choices
So, I bet you’re wondering if this is it. It is, but now you have a decision to make. Do I sign up as a Starter Member or a Premium member? The choice is up to you. 
Only you can know your own situation and circumstances. So, decide what you think is right for you.
My suggestion is don’t become a Premium member, try it for a little while as a starter member, you can do that for a long time, maybe even forever. If that is what you want.
But, one thing you need to understand…and that is you won’t be as successful as you could be. Quite possibly because you won’t be able to utilize the full benefits of ALL the training available to you.
I totally understand if you are still apprehensive.
I was, so I signed up as a Starter Member, but after three days…I went to Premium. My rationale was where else am I going to learn how to make money by blogging.
It was a no-brainer for me. The choice is yours…you decide.
I wish you the best,
Bob