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?

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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:

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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

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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 [email protected] 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!