Is Wealthy Affiliate a SCAM?

As I mentioned I’ve been doing a little side project and came across the Wealthy Affiliate University and wondered if Wealthy Affiliate was a SCAM. Of course, your definition of a SCAM might be a little different to mine so what is a SCAM?

SCAM Definition – a dishonest scheme; a fraud. (noun)

Now Internet Marketing has had a bad name in the past but I truly believe we’ve turned the corner however it’s still likely people are sceptical learning about anything new when they don’t understand its full potential. So let’s get one thing straight.

Affiliate Marketing isn’t bad.

It’s really no different to the salesperson you meet in a brick and mortar store whose sole objective is to get you to make a purchase. Yes, that’s their job and an affiliate marketer has a similar objective.

It’s just another form of selling and yes, the affiliate marketer may make a small commission if they are successful in sending a qualified lead to the product they are promoting.

What has changed is the ethics behind affiliate marketing and now you’ll find plenty of genuine people only recommending products they have used and believe complement their website or blog. And most importantly are a good for fit for their readers.

And while there are still plenty of old format websites still trying to sell anything to anyone, I feel the public has wised up to this behaviour and certainly the FTC is making inroads with their disclaimer requirements.

What I found during my Wealthy Affiliate Review

Firstly the signup process was quite painless and to my surprise there was NO CREDIT CARD NEEDED which is already a unique selling point in my opinion. Usually, I find even the free trial products need some sort of credit card imprint before they’ll let you pass through the gates. But not Wealthy Affiliate and do you know why?

Wealthy Affiliate doesn’t have a trial product, it offers FREE TRAINING, yes free training as their core product.

Once you’ve JOINED Wealthy Affiliate you have access to their starter course on affiliate marketing. You might have seen a banner like this and no they aren’t lying when they say ‘no credit card required‘. That’s the real deal.

And when you’re trying to work out if Wealthy Affiliate is a SCAM you need to be assured that what they say is true from the get go.

Now once you’re inside you quickly realise this is a professional product and it has a busy community eager to help one another and you’ll find they’ll introduce themselves to you on day one. But this is just a taste of what you can expect as some features, you’ll soon learn are for the premium members only and quite rightly so.

You see Wealthy Affiliate is a non-promotional community which means you can’t try selling stuff to each other, or not directly within the open chat or virtual classrooms. There is scope to do a little one-on-one through direct messaging, but that requires mutual agreement and follow back.

So the premium product separation is great so that the serious affiliate marketers aren’t being bothered by SPAMMY behaviour from the free members who join.

But hey the reason why you joined was because of the free Wealthy Affiliate University training and that is totally free and will take you a few weeks to complete the courses and homework tasks.

The Wealthy Affiliate University is a self-paced step-by-step video course aimed at showing you how to setup your website and then everything you need to start succeeding at affiliate marketing.

And when you’ve finished you might be ready to join the premium community and to get access to the more advanced topics and features of this website. Still no signs of a SCAM at this stage.

Oh, did I mention you can set-up a couple of free WordPress websites right within the product? And yes these are also free, and premium members can enjoy up to 25 websites. Yep, this product has everything you’ll need to start making affiliate commissions and if you can’t think of what to sell then just start telling people about Wealthy Affiliate and join their referral program.

Here’s my referral link if you’re thinking of joining and if you do, make sure come and say ‘hi’. http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com?a_aid=8d6b6d7d

There is so much more on offer to the members of this thriving affiliate community and if you want to learn how to be successful at affiliate marketing then this is the right community for you. At the very least you should give it a try. It is free after all.

Check out this video for an inside look into Wealthy Affiliate

But let’s get back to the reason why you’re here.

Is Wealthy Affiliate a SCAM

No, Wealthy Affiliate is not a SCAM and there are no tricks or sleazy upselling going on either. What you see is what you get.

You sign up for a free Affiliate Marketing Course and that’s exactly what you get. Sure you’ll see opportunities to upgrade to a full membership but you don’t need to and it’ll still be there when you’re ready to take your Affiliate Marketing to the next step.

My advice is to take a few weeks to work through the basic course and get your websites setup and then jump into the full membership when you’re ready to start making some serious money. The monthly membership should more than pay for itself if you get serious about Affiliate Marketing.

You are serious aren’t you?

Another tip I can give you is to take advantage of a discounted free month when offered and then upgrade to a yearly membership as this will save you around 40% of the costs associated with a monthly membership fee. You’ll need to commit to affiliate marketing for at least a year to get the results you’re expecting, your websites performing and making you a steady income.

For less than a dollar a day you’re getting all the training and help you’ll need to start making money online with Affiliate Marketing.

Your other option is to try and go it alone and hope you’ll figure it out. In reality, you’ll soon discover you’ve wasted much more time searching the Internet for answers when you should have been making money.

So hopefully I’ve answered your questions in this Wealthy Affiliate Review, but the moment I joined this site I realised it was a legit business, just trying to help people thrive in the online marketing world.

I’ll see you inside…