No matter what stage in life you are at, improving your life and well-being of your family is always a high priority for most 
of us.
So how do you go about doing that?
Most people work in the corporate world all their adult life or they have their own business, typically a brick and mortar store-front. With the advent of the internet, your choices have been broadened.
Security on the web is still a major concern, but there is a bunch of protection options out there as well.
I know this was one of my major concerns and also of being scammed by someone just looking to profit from someone else’s misfortune. Just like a lot in life, you have to be very careful and stay informed so you can make the right choices that lead to a better life for you and your family.
I hope you find my story interesting because some of you may have very similar experiences and hopefully the younger generation can benefit from my experiences.
How did I get to this point in my life?
I will not tell you how old I am, but I will tell you I am a “Baby Boomer” generation. That means I grew up without the internet, way before the first PC was invented, and anything that was considered “social media”.
Technology has exploded within my lifetime and keeping up with that level of advancement has been interesting and fun. Just look at how far the family car has come in the last 40 to 50 years.
I went to college and graduated with a Mechanical Engineering degree and being from the south, the oil and gas industry was a natural fit for my newly acquired skills.
I spent the last 39 years working in that industry and it provided very well for my family (2 daughters and now 4 grandchildren) and help me build an adequate retirement fund.
After I retired, I spent a lot of time working on old and new hobbies; and finishing projects around the house. However, that just didn’t seem like it was enough.
So here I am exploring and working within the community of Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate Marketing fulfills two of my basic needs; to stay socially active and maintain a productive lifestyle. Staying active is a BIG deal, at my age. Oh, if I make a little money from this, it’s just “icing on the cake”.
So what is Affiliate Marketing?
Wikipedia definition: Affiliate marketing is a type of performance base marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts.
In other words, you build your own websites targeting a passion of yours (its called a Niche) attracting and directing visitors or customers to providers of a product or service. Providers of a product or providers of a service will pay you, the affiliate, a commission for directing that customer to them.
There are 3,75 million people out there using the internet today. This is a huge potential audience or customer base.
What Affiliate Program or Platform is the Best?
Keep yourself informed and do your research. That is some of the best advice I can give you.
There are a lot of choices when you look into the Affiliate Marketing world, but if you read and research you can narrow down what affiliate program or platform is right for you.
Sometime when you work in the corporate world as I did, you don’t always get a job that is passionate for you during the course of your career, but you work to be passionate to move up on the proverbial corporate ladder.
Today you have more options. Most people that open their own business do so because they are passionate about what they are marketing or selling. Maybe it is from a hobby or their genuine concern for help others. You have to ask yourself what are you getting into Affiliate Marketing to do?
This is what is great about Affiliate Marketing, you get to work on whatever things or subjects that you are personally passionate about. It doesn’t have to be one thing, it can be a multiple of things or subjects. You are your own boss.
And you get to do all of this from the comfort of your own home or where ever there is an internet connection. You work to your own schedule leaving more time for hobbies, family, and fun.
If you choose the right Affiliate Marketing Program, you can fulfill all of your needs of personal growth, family, or monetarily.
What Affiliate Program did I choose and why?
After a lot of reading, research, and consideration, I chose to be a member of the Wealthy Affiliate Community. I call it a community because that is what is really is, people helping people.
Wealthy Affiliate is the #1 rated Affiliate Marketing program available today.
Wealthy Affiliate is a training platform that teaches you how to build a website from zero knowledge, and use it to generate passive income through various ways such as affiliate marketing, google AdSense, and even selling your own products.
Today I am building my websites targeting Affiliate Marketing. Wealthy Affiliate distinguishes itself as there are no hidden cost as a lot of other programs have, they have a training and help program that is second to none, and they help you build your own business in a simple and no nonsense way.
Wealthy Affiliate platform is a Search Engine Optimization, SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in website search engine’s unpaid results. This is often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results.
In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. These visitors can then be converted into customers.
The beauty of this platform is it gives you all the tools you need to be successful.
What are Wealthy Affilite Marketing basics
Wealthy affiliate follows a simple method to make money.
How does the Affiliate Marketing work cycle work?
You making money is the best part, the ultimate reward. But as you can see, you get out what you put into the program. In other words, the better the quality of your website, the better the rankings will be, and this results in increase traffic of people visiting your site. Your site has to be genuine and interesting for the reader. This will keep them coming back and purchasing through your website(s).
Training and Feedback, who needs training and feedback?
One of the things that sets Wealthy affiliate apart from other programs and platforms is the training that is available. Wealthy Affiliates offers a Certification training process that will enrich you into the basics of setting up and running a successful internet affiliate marketing business(s). Most other programs out there don’t have the level of training available and in fact most just provide a helpline type assistance.
Wealthy Affiliate will take you through this intensive, yet rewarding, training to give you the skills, knowledge, and motivation to preserve to running a successful business and making profits.
This is not a get-rich-quick program and does not promise as such. However, It will lead you down a path of having the fundamentals in place to be successful yet giving you the freedom to create and organize your way.
Wealthy Affiliate builds a comment and feedback system based on mutual interaction. In other words, if you are willing to help others, you will get that back in folds in the form of constructive feedback and comments. This is especially helpful to the person such as myself that was new to Affiliate Marketing online.
So How do you get stated?
Another thing that differentiates Wealthy Affiliate from any other program out there is that they offer a free membership (no credit card required) to join and play around on their platform. This shows you how their system and program work, all for free and there is no time limit set. You can work within their system as long as you want or need.
Yes there are limitations, but it allows you to set up 2 websites, you gain access to training, and you get available comments and assistance to get you started.
This is how I got started and I was so impressed that I bought the Premium membership after 1 week.This gives you unlimited access to their program and increased ability to be more successful.
It has been an amazing journey!
Here’s how to get started:
I strongly encourage you to give Wealthy Affiliate a try (the test drive is free).
Do it, you won’t regret it!!
I hope you find Wealthy Affiliate as rewarding as I have.
==> Get Started for Free Here!
Don Chapman
Hi Don, thanks for sharing your story about how you got into affiliate marketing. It’s great that you’ve picked up an entirely new skill set through Wealthy Affiliate, and are putting it into practice here with this great site.
I am very familiar with Wealthy Affiliate and can attest to their excellent training and support. It is because of Wealthy Affiliate that I’ve been able to set up my own online business, which I love doing because I get to write about my favourite things every day.
I have always liked new challenges and Wealthy Affiliate is fulfilling that need of mine. My story is probably similar to a lot of people that spent most of their life doing the same thing and then trying to do something completely different than before. I am up to the challenge here at WA and look forward to working with the community that WA offers.
Thanks for taking the time to review my post and site. Are you still a member of WA?