When I came across Wealthy Affiliate in September 2019, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had access to 10 FREE Online Entrepreneur Certification lessons. No credit card or other payment was required. I registered my User Name, set my password and there I was.
My experience that first Sunday evening was very intimidating. There I was in this online community, not knowing anything about what it meant to have an online business. I was curious and skeptical at the same time. As much as I wanted to learn, the thought of being scammed – again – was at the forefront of my mind.
Before that evening, I had dabbled in a few of the promises here and there on the internet. Thankfully, nothing that I had paid for cost me an arm and a leg. However, I was not yet certain that I had found a place that would really help me to succeed online.
After a few days of exploring the platform, I felt certain that things were different this time.
One More Cup Of Coffee
Much like your discovery of Wealthy Affiliate (WA) at Cassi Of Troy, I literally stumbled into what WA offers on the website of one of their longest-serving members. What was I searching the internet for that fateful Sunday evening? Well . . . coffee!
Yup! I wasn’t even looking for anything to do with having an online business. My Jamaican coffee was running low and I thought I would do some research and see what other varieties I could find. The internet is a web (pun intended), so one search led me to another and another and another.
Soon, I was on a website where this guy was writing about having the flexibility to stay at home each morning and enjoy one more cup of coffee. The genuineness of his style caught me as I reflected on having to wake up the next morning at 5 AM to get my daughter and myself out the door by 6 AM, ahead of the weekday traffic.
He was not selling me anything but rather offering me the opportunity to taste (pun intended) what could be possible by accessing 10 lessons for FREE.
How could I say “no”?
Wealthy Affiliate Quenches My Thirst!
Almost immediately, my desire for coffee had dried up and I was suddenly consumed by a thirst for the lifestyle that my enticing author had placed in front of me. He said all the right things almost as though he was in my head. I wanted to be like him, not having to rush off in the morning to face the menacing daily grind.
I wanted to enjoy one more cup of coffee with the birds in my beautiful back garden.
WA was new to me. I had never heard about it. So, I was taken aback to know that the platform was started in 2005 by 2 friends, Kyle Loudon and Carson Lim, to help people learn Affiliate Marketing, start their own online business and enjoy a lifestyle of freedom.
Freedom! That hit a chord.
Here’s a brief overview of some of the more important lessons from those 1st FREE level 1 Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) lessons.
Lesson 2: How To Make Money Online
The process for creating and building an online business is simple. There is no reason to complicate it or make it seem impossible to achieve. It is not. It is also not necessary to go chasing all the empty promises and bling offers that are probably flooding your inbox and making your time on the internet so challenging.
There are 5 primary steps that you have to master.
- Choose your niche.
- Launch your website
- Write your content for your website.
- Build your traffic.
- Monetize your content and traffic.
There is nothing more to the process that needs to occupy your time and effort. Each step may be new to you now but you will learn the skills along the way. With practice, you will become better and it will become easier for you.
Do you remember your first day at work or doing anything that was new to you? I am certain that you were not an expert from the first day. You had to learn new ways of doing things, new skills and even how to communicate with different people.
Building an online business is no different.
Lesson 3: Choose Your Niche
This is where you will want to take your time. I strongly suggest that it is not a lesson that you rush. There will be an eagerness to get started and a feeling of wanting to catch up with other members but do take your time here.
A BIG mistake that I see many people making when starting to create an online business is jumping into a niche without putting much thought into it. Remember, you will be working in and on this niche for a long time. It should be something that you have an interest in, a love for, know about and are willing to invest a lot of time, effort and energy into nurturing.
Perhaps you can start by putting pen to paper and making a list of all the things that you enjoy doing. Also, write down what your skills are, especially those that bring you joy and that warm sense of accomplishment.
You do not have to be an expert. As you build out your business and continue to do your research and learn more, you will develop your strengths. For now, start in an area that you find enjoyable.
Here is a simple 4-step process to narrow down your niche.
- Choose an industry, interest, general area, for example, wellbeing
- Narrow it down to one of the areas of wellbeing, for example, physical health.
- Narrow it down further to one physical wellbeing method, for example, yoga.
- Narrow it down further to include the audience (customers and clients) you want to attract and engage, for example, yoga for men and women, over 40, experiencing back pain.
Lessons 4-6: Launch Your Website
One of the most thrilling experiences is to actually SEE your website, live, on the internet. Every day, with over 2M members, we have the opportunity to relive that thrill with new members who launch their website and then have it “found” by the Search Engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Although it takes a while, (on average 4 days to a couple of months), most of our members have their sites indexed by Google within a couple of weeks. This means that your website has been identified and catalogued by the number 1 Search Engine, making it easy for persons on the internet to find it.
Your next step is to activate your SEO Framework. Search Engine Optimization, (SEO), makes it easy to be indexed, found and then ranked by the Search Engines. As you progress through the lessons, you will learn about ranking and how to be consistent with your online activities for your website, such as creating new, quality content.
Lessons 7-9: Create Quality Content
Creating QUALITY content! This is perhaps the number 1 skill that you should master as you build and scale your online business. All the Search Engines reward QUALITY content. It is the essence of not just surviving within the sea of almost 2 BILLION websites on the internet but rather thriving and rising.
Your ultimate goal is to be highly ranked by the Search Engines. The only sustainable way to do that is by creating QUALITY content, consistently.
A technique that will help you with this is keyword research. That is what lesson 9 covers in great detail. And do not worry. You already know what keywords are and you use them every time you search for something on the internet.
By clicking on one of the results that Google has provided me with, I can start researching the data and information and extract what I need for my blog post or article. Of course, I will not plagiarize but rather, I will use the findings from my research to understand what people are looking for, what kind of content the Search Engine ranks highly and what opportunities there are for my original, QUALITY content.
Everything I need to build my QUALITY content is a click away!
My Closing Thoughts . . .
For a few years, I drifted around the internet with no structured goals and objectives. Thankfully, I did not fall into the trap that many people do and get myself financially tied up with all the false promises of overnight success, fast money and bling rewards.
With just under 17% of the 2 billion websites on the internet being active, the internet is a graveyard full of hopes, dead dreams and wishes. I did not want to fall into the 83% abyss. The truth is, I could not afford to.
My objective is to build a profitable and growth-focused online business with a respected brand and a reputation for quality. The primary driver for this is the legacy I want to pass on to my creative and talented 12-year old daughter.
What Legacy Do You Want To Create?
Thankfully, in 2019, while using the keyword “coffee“, I discovered Wealthy Affiliate (WA). In just under 2 years, I was able to achieve my short-term online business goals by launching out into the provision of online services to Clients all over the world.
At the end of 2021, I started to build out my medium-term infrastructure with a focus on Content & Affiliate Marketing. I could not have achieved any of the success I currently enjoy with the training, tools and community support that WA has been providing to our over 2M members for the past 16 years.
These are the 10 free Online Entrepreneur Certification lessons that got me started. They could help you create a legacy of your own and
Change Your Script!
