This post contains affiliate links for things that helped me make money as a stay at home mom, which means I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you if you purchase after clicking a link. All opinions are my own.
A little over a year ago, my husband and I had about 55k in student loans left to pay off. We had a plan to pay them as aggressively as we could, but it wasn’t going to be easy. At that time, I had just gone down to only one day a week at work, and the amount of money I made was about equal with the cost of childcare. I wanted to find ways to make money as a stay at home mom, and in my search, I stumbled upon many suggestions.
I was tired of reading the same old “Do surveys! Try Swagbucks!” type suggestions. Those sorts of things are HUGE time sucks with little reward. I am not a fan of taking 10 minutes to do a survey and earn $0.50 if I am lucky…that’s not counting all the time I spent trying to qualify for surveys and missing out. Wasting time is a big pet peeve of mine.
I was willing to work hard, but I wanted the work to be meaningful and worth the time investment.
What Is Affiliate Marketing Training?
In my search, I stumbled upon the concept of Affiliate Marketing Training. Affiliate marketing is how many bloggers earn some of their income. In a nutshell, you review or promote products in exchange for a commission. This is why you sometimes see the disclaimer, “This post may contain affiliate links” at the top of my (and other bloggers’) posts.
Product reviews are the meat and potatoes of affiliate marketing, but affiliate marketers can use all kinds of posts and creative strategies beyond reviews, too.
Affiliate Marketing is an awesome way for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit to begin earning money from home. But it is NOT a “get rich quick” path, so if that’s what you’re looking for, affiliate marketing isn’t for you. Affiliate marketing takes significant time investment and lots of grit to push through and do what it takes to see results. However, it isn’t difficult to do. Anyone can do it as long as you have basic communication skills. In the end, you have created a beautiful blog/website/business that is all yours and that earns you passive income.
What Does It Take To Be Successful?
Patience. Most people that give up affiliate marketing do so because they don’t have the patience needed. You can’t make a website today and expect Google to start sending you thousands of hits of search traffic tomorrow and effortlessly get 10,000 followers on social media by next week, and then make six figures a month from now.
To accomplish these things, you need patience and consistency. That’s it. A successful blogger didn’t just get lucky…they worked their tail off and pushed through even when they were second-guessing themselves.
What Affiliate Marketing Is Not:
Affiliate marketing is NOT promoting any old product just to earn a paycheck. It is not randomly writing articles with no experience with a product but yet promoting it. It is not convincing others to buy something you wouldn’t buy yourself.
Any successful affiliate marketer first and foremost wants to help people. They are doing what they are doing because they believe in it, and they want to become an expert in their field. They have worked hard to build trust in their brand, and any GOOD affiliate marketer is not going to want to harm the trust their readers have in them by promoting terrible products. It won’t take long to kill your business if that’s how you go about it.
As an affiliate marketer myself, you can be 100{9994046f29331ee04cc0b5e07eb28364315ea03ccc2f01b5a43e8b85b372d1e9} confident that I have either tested, extensively reviewed, or experienced anything I positively promote. If I don’t, I risk losing the credibility of my brand. Without credibility, there is no future for my business.
Affiliate Marketing IS Honest
I say all this because sometimes people become skeptical whenever they feel like someone is selling something. You don’t need to be skeptical of salespeople when they are a credible person or brand you trust. Salespeople are essential in our economy, and the best ones HELP us get exactly the right thing we are looking for to solve a problem. The most successful salespeople are not the ones selling the junkiest things with the highest commissions. The most successful salespeople are the ones selling products they are passionate about and believe in. That is the great thing about Affiliate Marketing–it allows you to be that expert salesperson within the realm of your passion!
Is Affiliate Marketing For Me?
If you want ways to make money as a stay at home mom and are considering affiliate marketing, here are some questions to ask yourself to see if it’s right for you:
- Are you passionate about a subject?
- Are you willing to research, educate yourself, and test things?
- Do you want to help others in your area of passion?
- Do you enjoy creating content through writing and/or video?
- Are you creative?
- Want to be your own boss?
- Do you have the patience and tenacity to see your website through?
- Do you believe in yourself?
Alternatively, here are some questions to ask yourself to see if maybe affiliate marketing isn’t the right path for you:
- Do you need money immediately?
- Do you have a hard time committing to things?
- Are you too busy to work on your site consistently and treat it like the business it is?
- Do you struggle to ask for and taking feedback from others?
How Can I Start My Own Online Business?
Over the past year, I have dabbled in many blogger training programs, and there is one that is HANDS DOWN superior to all the others I’ve tried.
Wealthy Affiliate (WA) is not just a training program, but an entire community filled with some of the most genuine and helpful people you will meet online. It was founded by two guys named Kyle and Carson, and they have dedicated their lives to teaching people the art & science of affiliate marketing. WA has a free account option, but the premium option is worth every penny.
Their training WORKS. There is no way I would be here one year later writing a post about them if it didn’t.
What Does WA Do?
Wealthy Affiliate is a training program that will take you step by step through the process of creating a successful niche website. It’s not any sort of scam or pyramid scheme. In fact, at this time Wealthy Affiliate hasn’t paid me a single penny (though they do have an affiliate program as well, which I am linking through here). They have taught me how to make money in the online world as an affiliate marketer promoting products I love (cloth diapers!) and how to seek out affiliate partnerships.
They have a step-by-step training program (actually two programs) that you can take to get your site up and running. If you do the training, complete each lesson and corresponding assignment, and follow the program progressively, you will have a wonderful and effective online business.
If you choose to deviate from the program, well, I can’t tell you how that will go. It could go great or maybe it flops. But if you follow the training, you can be certain that you will learn all you need to know. If you have questions outside of what the training teaches, the community is wonderful about responding to questions and offering advice. We often refer to ourselves as the “WA Family” and it is so true!
My yearly premium membership just ran out and I immediately renewed it. I would not have done that if I had not received tremendous value from this community this year.
Wealthy Affiliate Has Been Invaluable To Me
That is why I am sharing my experience with Wealthy Affiliate here on my blog. I am not an affiliate marketing blogger and don’t desire to be, but affiliate marketing has given me the creative outlet I desired. It has given me professional and entrepreneurial excitement that I’ve never felt before.
I know I have many moms reading my blog, and I want them to know that there are quality ways to make money as a stay at home mom that allow you to use all of your skills, talents, and passions and give you an outlet to share your creative fire with the world.
The best part about Wealthy Affiliate is that it is free to join! There is a premium option that does cost money. I highly recommend premium, but you do not have to buy the premium membership to get started. In fact, they give you a free week of premium when you sign up so you can see if you think it is worthwhile or not. But even if you decide not to upgrade to premium, you still have all the great resources associated with the free account.
Join the Wealthy Affiliate Family!
I believe you will be right at home at Wealthy Affiliate. There are so many amazing people ready and waiting to help others grow their business, including women that want ways to make money as a stay at home mom. You will not regret any time spent at Wealthy Affiliate.
Check out more about the premium membership here, or if you’re ready to sight up with a free account and see what it is all about, you can do so with this link!
Alternatively, you can email me at holly@rockingthecloth.com and I would be more than happy to answer any questions about WA.
Have you heard of WA? Would you consider joining? Let me know in the comments!
There is no joy as that of having to stay home with your kids and be able to make money while at it. You have explained the concepts of Affiliate Marketing very well for a newbie to understand. True, patience is the key to succeeding in this affiliate marketing world. I believe that if one finds a genuine platform that offers all the training and strategies, nothing is impossible. I like the questions that you have provided for me to ask myself. This gives me a clear direction and understanding of what I need in order to succeed as an affiliate marketer. Thank you for these great insights.
You’re welcome, Carol!
Hi Holly Lee,
I just wanted to say a big thank you for writing this well detailed review, I will definitely consider signing up for Wealthy affiliate. It really feels like it’s a community that wants to help each other succeed and are getting such valuable insight without spending 1000’s of dollars and it is your own thing. I’ve always considered affiliate marketing, but I’m always of afraid of not succeeding through it. Well I believe a proper guide is what I need.
Regards!
Hi Jordan! I guarantee you won’t be disappointed with the help you receive from Wealthy Affiliate!
Hi! I’m excited about these opportunities of making money from home. Two decades ago this wasn’t possible. And now there are so many stories about these entrepreneur moms that run their business from home without going far away from their loved ones. Thanks for this post. It has inspired us.
Thank you Henry! I’m so glad.
Hello, Holly.
Right off the top, I have to agree with you on the survey option. In my experience, 50 cents was a lot for a 10 min survey. They tell you it’s only 10 min. but quite often it’s way longer. Said “No” to surveys. Waste of time. Better off being a barista at Starbucks making minimum wage.
I’m not a stay at home MOM. I am a retired senior and everything you have said here, the questions we should ask ourselves and the info about the best training available, are all important for online success and the great thing is… all we have to do is the work. Everything else is right there for us, as you’ve said, step by step.
Most everyone has something they like to do that could be turned into a profitable niche website.
As important as your first set of questions are, I think your second set is doubly important. If you can’t answer “Yes” to all those questions, then making money online is going to be a problem.
I hope some stay at home dads read this as well. There are many out there that would benefit from this post. As a matter of fact, I know a couple of stay-home dads and I’m going to share this with them.
Wayne
Thank you, Wayne! You’re absolutely right about stay at home dads. I know many myself that I have met through this business that have phenomenal websites!
Very thorough article about the Wealthy Affiliate program. I just wanted to pop in and say that I am a single mother myself, and affiliate marketing has been such a blessing for me. I had such a difficult time navigating the business until I discovered the Wealthy Affiliate program. They taught me (and continue to through the University) so much, helped me make my website amazing, and the community is so encouraging and helpful. I can’t say enough about it.
Thank you Babsie!
I totally enjoyed your article. It explained exactly what affiliate marketing is.
When I first joined WA, I thought that it was something like everything else on the market. What was nice is that first week I got to investigate, take classes, see what was available. Then my week was up and I discovered I wanted to continue learning how to become an Affiliate.
I do have a question. The one thing you didn’t include was how long before you actually got your website noticed and people actually started to come visit your site? I am going on my 4th month, although google has found me, I can’t find me yet. It does get a little frustrating at times and quitting is alway that, “This just isn’t worth it, I am never going to get anywhere.”
Did you go through that?
Hi Bonnie! That’s an excellent question. You for sure need the patience of Job with this process sometimes. Things didn’t start picking up for me until about the 6-month mark, and at that point each month I got more and more traffic. It is so awesome when you start to see that steady growth! But those who give up too quickly will never get to experience that. Good luck–I know your success is just around the corner!
You are absolutely right! Affiliate marketing takes much patience to succeed. This will always be a struggle for stay at home moms because they have a child to be responsible for. I think that this article gives a lot of inspiration to people who are thinking about starting up. You certainly nailed the Wealthy Affiliate benefits!
It is very hard to stick to something when your attention has to be so divided. But it is worth it to do whatever it is you are able each and every day!
Excellent review on Wealthy Affiliate! I have been with WA for over one year and it’s truly everything that you stated. Like you said, it definitely takes time and patience. I like the questions you asked to see if this type of business is the right one for people. You were very honest to say that your desire is to not be an affiliate blogger- you’re very good at it!
Thanks Misty!
Thanks for the encouragement of someone who only recently started an online business and I am trying to get this affiliate marketing thing right because I see where it could work well for me……if I exercise the patience. What I like about it is that with the guidance and support, working in something I am passionate about, I could be working on this for a very long time with possibilities of increasing my income. Thanks for the information expressed here and the motivation it gives me.
Glad it motivated you, JJ! Good luck on your business.
Hi Holly, thank you very much for your writing on how to make money from home. I am very happy to read it.
I am also a mom with 1 child. However, all this time I still work 9 to 5. Sometimes I really hope to be able to work from home so that I have plenty of time for family, especially my very young child. Sometimes, when I was at the office, I thought of him and I wanted to go home soon.
I think what you write here is a good solution to making money from home. But, I have absolutely no experience about affiliate marketing or the internet world.
Can the Wealthy Affiliate program that you write here help me deal with and learn about this with a zero experience case?
And how far can Wealthy Affiliate make us not have to go to the office?
From your experience, how many years do we need to earn at least $ 1500 a month?
Thanks
-Kylie-
Hi Kylie! Wealthy Affiliate is perfect for someone with zero experience. I had no clue what affiliate marketing was when I first stumbled upon WA, and I was able to take the course and learn everything I needed to get going.
As far as how soon will you start making certain amounts of money, it really depends on so many factors. Of course, the time and effort you put in will make a difference. Someone working 5 hours a week on their site is going to move slower than someone working 5 hours a day. Niche plays a bigger role than I realized, too. If you are in a physical products niche (like I am–cloth diapers and green products), commissions are usually smaller than people in niches where they can promote digital products (like the “make money from home” niche). It depends on your marketing strategies…so many things. I really can’t tell you when you would be earning enough to justify quitting your full time job, but there has never been a better time to get started!
Hi Holly, I too, do not like the idea of getting paid fifty cents for a survey that takes me ten minutes to do
I was introduced to that just yesterday, and I said, no way
I too am a member of Wealthy Affiliate and I agree with you that WA has everything we need to become successful as affiliate marketers
I am PROUD to share this company to anyone, because I know it is not only a Great Value, but it is an honest and ethical company with NO HUGE up sells. I hate Up sells.
Me too, Phil! Love the people at WA.
Hello. We are very lucky that we have this opportunity to make money. I met women with children in our family who after giving birth to a child they need to stay at home for 2 years. Because there were not so many possibilities, many mothers went into depression and when they returned from their maternity leave it was very difficult to accommodate them. Wealthy Affiliate is the best choice for every mom want to make money online and stay at home with their child.
I’m a premium member at Wealthy Affiliate and I want to say that this was my best decision I ever made. There are a lot of members who will help you to achieve your goals.
Thanks again for this article. If you don’t mind, I will share this article ln my social media accounts. Good luck!
I have learned so much at WA! I wouldn’t know anything about maintaining my site without it.