Last week or so, Kyle had a great post on our very own Wealthy Affiliate Blog.  The post was titled – What Motivates YOU to Achieve Success? I really enjoyed it and I think you might, too. You can read that post here.

However, Kyle linked out to something that was an extremely interesting read for me. About half way down in the comments section, Kyle replied to a comment with this statement:

I agree with everything you have said. However, I do believe that any weakness can become a strength through focus. Many people have weaknesses but fail to ever work on them because it is “hard”. It is much more comforting and “easy” to do what you are already good at or what you are naturally gifted to do. Most of us that are successful are that way because many of our OLD weaknesses are now our strong points.

As for survival (in business & in the sense of life) , there are different ways in which we react to difficult situations. I know of an excellent article that distinguishes the difference between “choking” and “panicking”, written by a famous Canadian author, Malcolm Gladwell. You may find this interesting.

http://www.gladwell.com/2000/2000_08_21_a_choking.htm

Cheers,

Kyle

Not only was his reply comment insightful in my opinion, the article he linked out to by Malcolm Gladwell was fascinating to me.

The article is a bit older and bit long, but it was a deep journey into the difference between “choking” and “panicking”.

In short, “panicking” is when we shut down and suffer from a loss of rational thought. Think of being at a loss for air and how your mind will go blank and just reach out for whatever – or WHO ever – has air available to you. Or when someone is drowning and you try to rescue them….and they fight you…grasp on to you…all to the point that you might have to right-hook them to knock them out so you CAN save their life. That is panic.

On the other hand, “choking”, according to the author, is the state in which we think too much. We over-analyze our every move….over think things until we lose our fluidity. It causes us to stutter and stall in our actions. Think like the golfer who suddenly chokes over a 3-foot putt after remembering he missed 6 of those putts already that day.

Suddenly he is very aware of his motions and technique. Even tho he had MADE 3-foot putts a thousand times before, he now suddenly doubts himself (or herself, says the girl golfer…lol).

So…now I know you’re wondering….

Good Golly, Jennifer, What in the WORLD Does This Have To Do With Marketing or Writing Articles?

As I was reading that article, it hit me how much those two terms – those two natural responses – apply to our marketing techniques.

Many of us will be in a panic state when we first come online.

MUST. MAKE. MONEY.

That is the only thought…and the process begins of tossing affiliate links and big “CLICK HERE” text all over our web pages. If you’re struggling for “air” in life, I can see how this would be a totally normal, absence of complete thought response.

However, I think CHOKING really applies to article marketing – especially when you’re new.

Think about it…. you gather your keywords then you open that text file to start writing…and what do you see?

That BIG BLANK WHITE PAGE…. that is EMPTY just waiting for your genius to fill it up.

Yikes!

That’s not panic setting in, it is you choking.

I don’t mean that as an insult – heck, we ALL do it at one time or another. What I want to do is give you a tip to get PAST that “choking” stage and move forward to where a big, blank, white page inspires you – instead of intimidating you and making you doubt yourself, your words, and your sanity.

I see so many folks in our forum write the most eloquent forum posts expressing their inability to write articles that are “good enough”. I used to read those posts and think, “What in the world could be the problem? They write beautifully!”

Now I know what the problem is… and how to help you past it.

Isn’t it easier when you are writing TO someone?

It sure is for me!

For any of you that have read anything I have written, you may notice that I have a very “conversational” style of writing. I prefer, and am most comfortable with, writing TO people just as if I was talking to them.

My high school English teacher may have hated it years ago, but it works for me now…. AND it got me past MY case of “choking” when trying to write articles.

Next time you are faced with that choke-inducing Big, Blank, White Page, just turn your keyword into a question and pretend you are writing an email to a friend answering that question.

Heck, pretend you are writing to me….or Kyle….or Carson – it doesn’t matter now. Over time, you will learn how to envision the ideal person that would want help from your articles and you’ll be able to pretend you are emailing them giving them personal help.

That’s what article writing really is – providing personal help to others who are looking for that help.

Just let your words flow. Don’t get hung up on keyword density or article length – just write and let YOU shine through.

As Kyle said in his quoted comment above – “Most of us that are successful are that way because many of our OLD weaknesses are now our strong points.”

Choking when writing articles is a temporary weakness that is easily overcome with a mindset change in YOU. Before long, that old weakness will be one of your strong points that will push you closer and closer to success.

Jennifer
~PotPieGirl

Google Adwords has been slapping affiliates around left right and center like helpless rag dolls,  making it difficult for the untrained Internet marketer to place an ad in the search results.  There are online reports that state Google has shut down over 80,000 Adwords accounts and this is still growing on a daily basis.  I’ll get to the reason for this in a minute.

First though, lets chat about one of Google’s only paid search competitors (a viable one), Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM).

Over the years, Yahoo has never been able to take advantage of their Search engine to effectively compete with Google.  One reason is that they don’t have the earning power Google does due to their lackluster pay-per-click framework/platform.

When I started out PPC’ marketing back in 2002, Yahoo’s search traffic was managed by a third party company, “Overture”.  They ruled the net and were the “only” place to go to put ads online.  Then along came Google Adwords and before long Overture was working in the shadows of Google.

Microsoft has tried to revive their poor search engine presence by releasing Bing (bing.com).  Bing has actually started to gain some traction due to their heavy advertising and brand awareness, however people are moving back to Google as it is better choice for finding the information you want.. NOW!

Recently however, there has been a big mix-up in the world of Pay-per-click marketing.  For Internet marketers this is a big thing.

Yahoo Search Marketing has recently partnered with Microsoft to manage all ads under one roof.  The “Yahoo! & Microsoft search alliance” as they call it is going to shake up the search marketing industry yet again.  This will equate to a much more powerful option.

I’ve been a Google supporter for years as they really do provide the highest quality traffic and conversions.  That said, the inconsistencies of their regulations, sub par support, and wish-washy guidelines have made “other options” much more appealing.

Why is Google making it so difficult to place an ad in the search results?  They have always had a vision that (and a good one) that delivering the best and most high quality websites to their searchers is key to their success.  We all know that when you search for something in Google, you find what you’re looking for.  This means that they need to monitor their paid advertisers to make sure they follow certain guidelines to deliver high quality and relevant sites.

This is great!

But…

Google had taken things a bit too far and does not seem to be following their policies at all times.  Something that works for one person, may not get approved for another. For someone who is new to pay-per-click advertising this is very frustrating because you have absolutely no idea why your ads aren’t showing. In addition, your account at Google could get shut down with no prior warning.  This is the stage of Adwords currently and is why so many people are having difficulty placing ads.

I’m all for quality…but let your advertisers know what “Quality” is.  Let advertisers improve if they need to.  Rather than slapping an advertiser in the face and telling them they can’t place an ad on the network, give them a chance to improve their ads, their websites and their offers.

What does this mean for you as an Internet marketer?  It means that you need to play by Google’s rules and advertise in a way that puts you in their “good books”.  If you’ve been slapped, or are having issues with Google, sometimes the only option is to look elsewhere for traffic and this is where BIG opportunity lies.

Starting in 2011, Yahoo Search marketing and MSN Adcenter are going to be under one roof, and this means access to 577 million web searchers world wide.  Many PPC’ marketers already use Yahoo, and MSN Adcenter alongside their Google Adwords ads, but will this new alliance cause a swing in momentum?

Here’s my take..

Google is going to continue “peeving people off” by making it difficult to get an ad placed on their network.  To be honest, it this continues too long, they are going to lose too much money and realize that their quarterly earnings are not what they could be.  97% of Google’s quarterly revenue derives from advertising!

Google is basically funneling Internet marketers from Adwords, straight into the hands of Yahoo and MSN.  When the new search alliance is made public and you can manage a single advertising account to have your ads placed across the entire Yahoo and MSN networks, there is going to be division between which network to choose.

I like the new idea of only having to manage TWO Pay-per-click networks.  Google on one hand, and Yahoo/MSN on the other.  Let’s not get too excited though just yet.  Google still offers the best PPC platform and they still rule the search engine market.  What I’m saying is that having both Google, and the Yahoo/MSN alliance in your arsenal will extend your reach substantially.

…And having the added competition is going to make both Google and Yahoo more advertiser friendly.

I’m not going to take sides.. why would I?  Is Adwords better than Yahoo Search Marketing?… um… yes. Is Adwords better than MSN Adcenter?  Yes… Is Adwords going to be better than the new alliance?  Yes..  Am I going to miss out on a massive chunk of daily searches by sticking to Google only?  No…

There are no signs that Google is going to lose any traction in its hold on the search engine market, however it is already losing many of it’s Adwords advertisers to Yahoo and MSN.  This merger will hopefully wake Google up and have them revert (or at least solidify) their unpredictable advertiser policies they are currently enforcing.

My bottom line is that The Yahoo and MSN search alliance is a small move in the right direction for PPC marketers.  It won’t change the way we work online, but it could have an impact on where are advertising budgets go.
Until next time,

Carson

Today I want to ask you a difficult question…

What motivates you financially?

Is it an inner personal standard you try to live up to?  Do you have kids to feed?  Do you have a sick family member that you are trying to support?  Are you trying to create a better lifestyle for yourself?

Or…

Have you never really sat down and thought about this question?

The other day I was looking at this question in terms of our business.  There are times where we experience great success and growth, and others where Carson and I see opportunity to improve in aspects of our company.

I thought about this.  What exactly is the difference in our mindset that makes the difference between the “good” times and the “not so good” times?  Shouldn’t a business just grow on it’s own once everything is in place?

Um…NO.

I narrowed it down to one thing:

MOTIVATION

Really.  In order to understand how to achieve greater success, you need to understand what exactly motivates you.  Unlike a dead-end day job, no business will succeed without strong underlying motivation.

Motivation can be a pretty broad term.  I mean you cannot say “I am a motivated” person unless you truly understand what your motivation actually is.

So what is our (Carson and myself) motivation to grow our business?  Well, there are two main things that motivate (ie. causes excitement) us in the sense of our core business.

(1) Honest Company Growth
(2) Fear of Failing

There are other motivating factors that we have for personal fulfillment, but I am speaking here in terms of financial improvement online.

I know, it may not seem all that compelling on the surface, but let’s take a closer look at our main motivational factors and how these are leveraged to further success.

Honest Company Growth

Growth is exciting to us.  Once you achieve a certain level of success, the monetary aspects of success are not the same.  It becomes a numbers game.  It becomes a percentage game.  And for some people (like ourselves), growth is just not enough.

We want to grow in a manner that is ethical and that has an underlying ethical motive.  We want to help people.  We want to teach people.  We want to provide timely and powerful tools for people. We want to change people’s lives.

The problem with most companies is they look purely at their yearly profits and will skin people in order to achieve these profits.  Unethical business is all around us…we want to grow as fast as possible, but in a manner that motivates us (and would make our families proud).

Fear of Failing

Failure is good.  Failing in it’s entirety is not an option.  I have always believed that if you aren’t scared of failing, to some degree you will lack an inner sense of motivation.  I personally love to take risks more than Carson…but at the same time I am freaked out of failing myself and others around me.

Failures that you learn from are good.  They can help you improve your overall skill set.  However, the actual “thought” of failure can be a very powerful motivational factor.  Carson and I don’t plan on failing at business any time soon, but the thought of it really strikes a motivational chord.

———————————————————————————

When you reach a certain level of success where you can afford to live comfortably, there become different motives.

Looking back 8 years ago before I started in the Internet marketing world, my motivation was completely different.  I was in a completely different mind-frame and I had different reasons to achieve success.

My motivations looked more like this:

(1) Get rid of my debt
(2) Be able to move out of my parents house
(3) One day be able to give back financially to those I love

Motivation is the driving force behind any action you take in your life.  Whether it be to become a better athlete, become a better parent, start a charity, or to start a business, you need to understand exactly what your motivations are.

How to take your motivations and turn them into action?

Once you understand the motivation aspect, you can fulfill your goals through this motivation.  Keep them current and keep them somewhere that you see them on a day to day basis.

HOLD UP A SECOND THOUGH…

Your actions need to be out of motivation, not DESPERATION!

I get this question all the time:

“I need to make $1,000 this week to pay my bills.  Can you help?”

That is what I like to call “acting out of desperation”.  This type of thinking will not lead to success.  If this is what drives you, change your desperation into motivation.

Make a better life for my kids
Pay off my credit card debt
Earn enough to pay off my medical bills

You see, create a list of motivating factors. Urgency rarely (I mean RARELY) leads to success because it usually comes hand in hand with very irrational decision making.

So, I ask you today, what is YOUR motivation to succeed?  Create a list with at least two items that motivate you to succeed.

Write these down and post them on a sticky note beside your computer.  You will remember these every time you come back and start working towards your success. It will become a “motivational factor”.

This list has likely changed many times over the course of your life and will likely change again.  That is OK.  The main thing to understand and take from this is that we all need some form of motivation to succeed.  Unless you understand what yours is, it is going to be much more difficult to achieve a level of success your are happy with.

Take care,

Kyle

People have been wondering what has happened to our blog over the past couple of years.

We have made intermittent posts at best…

The quality has lacked, due to a lack of time dedication, blah, blah, blah..

An underwhelming blog experience for visitors to say the least.

THAT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE HOWEVER!

Our blog has been updated for 2010…a fresh look, a fresh approach, and ultimately fresh outlook on blogging.

Our blog has never been a true reflection of the community that we have created at WA.  That is, WA is being updated an improved upon every day.

That means we are not doing ourselves justice by letting our blog become stale.

Let’s take a look at the last year alone at WA…

• Our biggest move yet…and upgrade to WA Platinum
• A Wiki-based system, users can generate content
• WA Spaces and full networking capabilities
• An ultra comprehensive, time-released action plan
• A real-time, modifiable dashboard
• Upgraded Affiliate Program w/ New Incentives
• 100’s of New videos and training tutorials\
• Upgraded WA Hosting to “UNLIMITED” domains, space, and bandwidth
• Added new WA forums
• Helped create a bunch of new successful marketers

And the last year in the Internet marketing world has also being one to mark for the ages..

• The New FTC Rulings
• Article Directories Being Squeeze into Changing
• Adwords Being up to Their Old Tricks
• The Introduction and Improvements to the Bing Platform
• Email Marketing is becoming more obvious to more people as THE WAY
• Affiliate Links Stinking Up the World
• The breakthrough or honest and ethical marketing
• The mild effects of the worlds recession/depression on marketers
• Introduction of new industries, products, and ad channels
• Social marketing, tweeting, and facebooking
• Video as training, video as marketing
• And on, and on, and on….

Next year at this time we are going to be able to look back at our blog and see exactly what has happened.  Meaning…our blog will be a reflection of the Internet marketing world…but with our own spin on it.

It is going to be timely and offer an experience outside WA that hopefully spur intriguing and sometimes controversial conversations.

It will also include and reflect industry knowledge from not only us, but as well as guest bloggers.  This will be pretty cool as sometimes people get tired of hearing just us “rap” all the time about the industry.

I personally am going to be a bit of a story teller.  I like to cover some of the deeper, less touched subjects about inner motivation and what really makes the difference between “a millionaire” and someone who flunks.

I know Carson has a ton of great stuff as well…and a ton of advice, interpretations and stories to blog about.  I know he and I may disagree on some Internet marketing topics, and this may come out as well.  Whose side will you be on?

Our blog is not going to be stale any longer.

It is going to be a true representation of the superior community that we offer at Wealthy Affiliate.  It is going to be a representation of our business ethics, our goals, and our years of knowledge.

Glad to have you on board and thank you for your patience.  It is going to be a ride!

Cheers,

Kyle (& Carson)

Come WA Platinum, all members will have access to our brand new keyword research tool. This next iteration of our KW tool offers strong search capabilities by directly accessing Google keyword databases and delivering keywords that will take your business to another level.

Searching and discovering new keywords is an integral part of building a successful campaign, so we’ve taken things a step further to offer WA members a more organized research experience.

The Platinum keyword tool allows you to stay organized by offering you the ability to build keyword lists, save, edit , and export them all in an easily-to-navigate interface. This gives you the opportunity to do your research over time and come back to your saved lists to continue working on them “later”. Believe me when I say that this tool makes your life a whole lot easier.

You can organize your lists into campaigns within the keyword list system as this is fully integrated into the KW research that you do. We want the KW tool to be the one place that you need to go in order to mine for those HOT keywords. So.. keeping that in mind we’ve integrated the Competition spy tool so that you can quickly and easily spy on competitors while you do your keyword research. With the click of a button you can setup a new campaign to see what other advertisers feel are top converting keywords.

Functionality isn’t the only part of the tool we’ve worked hard to improve. Speed has been drastically improved and you can now pull huge sets of data in the time it took you to read this sentence! As you can probably guess, I’m pretty anxious to get this tool out there and in use!

From better training, to improved interface, speed and efficiency, networking, and tools, WA Platinum will be the one place that everyone needs in their Internet marketing arsenal.

We’re excited to move the entire community over to the new system, and excited to keep spilling the beans about what you can expect come Launch day of Wealthy Affiliate Platinum.

Cheers,

Carson

Today is the day…well, maybe not the actual day of the launch of Wealthy Affiliate Platinum, however it is the day that I explain how there will be more earning opportunities than there ever has been within WA….and because of WA Platinum!

Before I explain what is new, maybe I shall go over what is old…

OLD…

(1) The way WA Gold works now…or does not get used…
(2) The way members earn within the ShareZone and the forum…
(3) The way members get the training they need to earn more money…
(4) The way in which new opportunities are announced & discovered…

And now, how WA Platinum is going to take the old system and improve upon it.

THE NEW…

(1) First off, the WA gold system is going to be much faster. At this point, the system is terribly inefficient and it can take some time to get reports on where you earned gold and when. Our aim within Platinum is to continue making gold more integrated into day-to-day activities and make it more enticing and intriguing to give gold to others.

At this point, people are not sharing gold in the way they should be simply because they are not reminded about their gold. Our aim is to make gold much more of a currency and to have this currency transferred more to the people that deserve it within WA Platinum.

(2) Within Platinum, members that develop quality resources are going to get rewarded. Gold is going to get distributed much more within Wealthy Affiliates new training center. Great resources are going to get much more exposure and members that see value in member created resources are going to be much more inclined to share gold.

There are also going to be two brand new components. Contributors and Moderators, both which will lead into Gold earning opportunities, not just from other members but from the Wealthy Affiliate system itself.

(3) Better training equates to better learning…which equates to more earning potential. Actually let me rephrase this once again, more elaborate and diverse training will lead to more diverse ways to earn money online…which will lead to even more successful members.

A critical component of WA Platinum is the training… members are going to learn more, learn better, and understand things in much more detail. One of the biggest concerns of ours is members being overwhelmed and not having enough advanced stuff… both of which we tackle with our new system. There will be no excuses for not succeeding!

(4) An easier interface to update and one that is a lot smarter, means that news and opportunities will be delivered to members in a much more timely fashion. If a holiday is coming, a resource could be created around this holiday outlining the opportunities. If Google makes a big change and we need to notify members, we can do so. Or if we see a huge opportunity brewing, we can get the word out there as to how members should leverage this opportunity to make money.

The system is easier to use for everyone…which means exact congruency between the state of the Internet and the information within Wealthy Affiliate.

In addition to all of this, a more advanced training facility will naturally lead to smarter marketers, more current marketers, and more successful marketers.

Carson and I have spent a good deal of time not only creating Wealthy Affiliate Platinum, but planning it out so it would be best suited for member success.

Go back to our old, yet still current motto…

“YOUR SUCCESS IS OUR SUCCESS”

This is truly a principle we have instilled in our day-to-day activities and one you will see that we follow with almost anything that we create. We want you to succeed and Wealthy Affiliate Platinum is going to lead to much greater member success.

GOLD…BETTER TRAINING…MORE ACTIVITY…BETTER TOOLS…

ON THE WAY FOLKS!

Talk soon,

Kyle

So, are you here to make friends?

WA is not a social network.. Nope, no way, now how… it’s an Internet marketing training program. We’re not out to re-create facebook, however, having friends in the industry is an IMPORTANT part of your skill development. WA Spaces Platinum offers a much improved system that allows you to network with your buddies, keep track of their actions, blog, post comments, and generally communicate much more effectively.

Kyle and I are a team, but we’re not the only dynamic duo or trio here at WA.

Getting in touch with and forming alliances with other WA members will improve your learning and give you a network of people to work with as you build your online business.

The more active you are within WA Platinum, the better (and faster) you will achieve success. Some people work well on their own and don’t use anything but our training resources and tools. However, if you are like me and Kyle, having a buddy network of people to bounce ideas off or ask questions to makes Internet marketing a lot easier.. Let alone fun!

WA Platinum is going to be your “Virtual Office” with brand new functionality to allow for better networking.

Just wait until you see the completely revamped, optimized, and speedy WA Spaces Platinum system.

Here are just a few aspects of WA Spaces Platinum that you have to look forward to:

* Better image management (cropping allowed)
* Ability to follow conversations with Buddy Chat, reply, and manage posts
* Fully functional blog with the ability to comment
* New “network” system to keep track of your buddies and their actions within the system
* Ability to “block” others from posting on your space

Lots more information about WA Platinum coming next week!

Keep your eyes peeled!

Carson

Frankly, Carson and I think that becoming users within our system is going to create a much better experience for us… and you. We are going to see how the resources benefit people, we are going to have more insight into how the new Platinum system works, and improvements to Wealthy Affiliate are going to take place much quicker.

Although we are currently highly active within Wealthy Affiliate every day (for a considerable amount of hours), we still feel that we can get more of a user feel if we use WA for everything…and use every component of it for our day-to-day business.

This doesn’t mean we are compromising support, this just means we are becoming users in the same way you get to see the system. This is going to help us gain a deeper perspective of improvements. Sometimes looking at WA from a higher level business standpoint we miss out on some of the more intricate improvements we can make to improve the experience for WA’ers.

We know we are not perfect and we want to find and analyze all the imperfections of the system first hand.

WE will be using every aspect and working closely with members to improve the system flow, the system tools and resources, and future upgrades.

We have never thought we were better than anyone just because we own Wealthy Affiliate, and this is proving it. We can put our “ego’s” aside and become users of the system like everybody else. This is actually quite exciting!!

WA members will now be able to rank our resources. Edit them. Tell us they are great, or not so good. You can add to our resources.. make them better.. and contribute to the BEST training platform available for Internet marketers.

Want to be #1? Well, get ready for “Member Rank”.. This is a new system that we have incorporated into the Platinum framework. A sophisticated algorithm will rank you as a member of WA.. Carson and I might get bumped off as the top users in the system by someone else! Could you be the most influential member here at WA?

So what about the support guys????

We WILL still be offering a very high level of personal support and coaching. We won’t sacrifice the support we have offered over the years. By pulling out, we do not mean removing ourselves. In fact, this will lead to more active roles within the community, quicker upgrades, better improvements, and a much greater place for everyone.

A new “US”. No more Kings of the Castle. We want to be the guys digging the ditch for the moat….LOL!

Cheers,

Kyle

“Speedy” is a term that we throw around when talking about the newly improved WA Platinum framework. We are big users of the Internet and know that a quick and responsive platform makes for a better experience!

For those “techie” people out there. WA Platinum utilizes some of the most cutting edge technologies to deliver your learning content to you faster! Our programmers have been working on a framework that is not only super fast, but scalable too. Nearly all systems in Platinum have been re-vamped to make use of these technologies. You will see, and notice a big difference.

What does this mean for your experience? Well, how about super fast “search” capabilities. We’ve worked long and hard on our search algorithms to make sure that when you look for a training resource, you get what you want in a split second. How about WA Spaces.. it’s a little on the slow side right now isn’t it? Yes we also agree with that statement 100% but we have some big surprises for you in that department.

The Training Center is one major area where you will spend a lot of your time, and this new platform is completely re-designed from the ground up to make it uber quick to work through your learning material.

Speed and efficiency isn’t the only technical improvement we’ve made to WA Platinum. We know that a large community needs the ability to adapt to the market and scale to brand new techniques, strategies, and methods. Platinum has the ability for the community to make it evolve, grow, and stay current.

What if someone wanted to learn about a brand new technique in a completely different category that doesn’t exist at WA? Well, all members will have the ability to request learning resources and have them created in a timely manner. Not only that, we have a system that allows WA to grow in a direction that the community wants as a whole. Take my word for it, this is a big deal!

As soon as Platinum is released it is going to have a mind of its own and will become the “ONLY” place to go for Internet marketing training. The way we’ve structured the Training center makes each section a complete school. No, not just a few tutorials or video’s, a complete learning environment on it’s own where you can focus on one technique at a time. Think of WA Platinum as a multi-university with complete training in many different categories!

Will you be there to experience the evolution? We hope so because it excites me to think about the day we flip the switch and move over to the new system!

Kyle has some surprising news to tell you next week, so stay tuned!

Carson

That is the feeling I get when I look at the existing Wealthy Affiliate interface (Carson feels the same way). I think I have a mild case of attention deficit because every time I log into a system I want to see something new, something that is visually appealing and something that is dynamic.

Our existing system does a pretty good job of this with the modules you can add to your dashboard and the regular updates we add, but this was not adequate when we sat down and planned out the NEW WA Platinum interface. Pretty good is not good enough for our standards!

We not only had to plan out how it looked, but also spent a good deal of time planning out the underlying algorithms that would help make it a much easier, intuitive and semantically sensitive environment for members of WA!

So what are the things that we need to address?

Easy to find, Easy to learn

First off, as a system grows it can become more and more disorganized. Although we have done the best with what we have to work with at Wealthy Affiliate, there are still some drawbacks. Finding content can be difficult for someone coming in fresh (that has no requisite knowledge of our system)…

We get that! So what we have done is improved the ways content is organized, the ways the menu’s are structured, and the search functionality within WA!

A Smart Help, Who Would Have Thunk!

When you need help…where is it? We do have a Help tab in our main menu but this is no longer become adequate. We are creating a help system in WA Platinum that is going to facilitate the ease-of-use within WA for everyone. Help is going to become centralized and context sensitive. Say you were within Rapid Writer and you need help on how to spin an article, you will just have to click the Help button. The help will know what page you are on and deliver the exact information (in the form of a video or tutorial) that you need.

Web 3.0

Ever heard of Web 3.0? If you haven’t, that is where our system is headed. We want to deliver content to you that you are interested in. If you like PPC and are constantly using PPC resources and tools within WA, we want to make your WA experience more relevant to your needs and interests. We are not rolling out our full version of web semantics right away, but you may start to notice that things that you want will be right there for you!

This also means more control, ability to categorize your favorite stuff at WA, and ways to get to your resources quicker.

So Fresh, So Clean…

Yeah, that is right. A new look will be coming to Wealthy Affiliate Platinum. As with anything we launch, we like to come out with a fresh, hip and current look. WAP will not only look different, there is going to be more working space, the ability to customize your look and for those of you that think our font size isn’t quite right, a way for you to adjust this. WAP is going to allow you to create an interface you can make your own.

————

Wealthy Affiliate is going to continue evolve, but our new interface and new look will provide an exciting environment for everyone to work, hang out, network, and learn within.

This was my “insider” on the new interface, new look, and some of the new functionality that is going to be coming to Wealthy Affiliate. We have many more updates, so please keep your eyes peeled. Also, if you want to drop some feedback, reply to this post. We love to hear from everyone.

Cheers,

Kyle