Membership Website Hosting

Unfortunately, there is no clear best option for Membership Website Hosting.

Ultimately, it depends on your budget, your needs and your tolerance of outages and speed.

I use Bluehost for some of my smaller online membership websites.  I recommend them not because they are perfect, but because they are a cheap membership website host and the scripts they have to set up sites work well.  I have frequent short outages, but I know that and I can live with it when a membership site is only netting me a small income.

However, I would not trust serving video from Bluehost, which is why I use Amazon S3 to Distribute videos for my membership sites.  This gives me video reliability for a very low cost.

As I grow my websites and membership communities, I have to think about a better membership website hosting solution.  So I started exploring and I found Mosso – which seems like a great option.  I have not tried it yet, but will in the near future.  The biggest thing I do not like about Mosso is the charge for cycles.  I can measure storage and keep an eye on bandwidth, but the whole cycle thing makes me feel uneasy because it could just go nuts on me and ruin my business model.

However, it seems the best reliable option.  For the $100 a month you get great reliability.  Go do some searches on Mosso and you will see that many people say good things.

I will let you know how my experience with Mosso goes after I have been with them for a while.  Until then, they are definitely worth taking a look at if you have outgrown your membership website hosting.

Membership Site FAQ

Here are some general facts about membership websites.  This does not apply to any particular membership site software or membership site service.  Just a general membership site FAQ that is food for thought.

#1  Will I Make Money with a Membership Site?

It is highly unlikely that you will create a great, profitable membership site on your first try, especially if you are doing all the work yourself.  Worrying about membership site technology, membership site shopping cart integration, membership site content and membership site marketing is a lot of work.  Your best bet is to outsource the parts you can and focus on marketing the membership site and guiding the content development.

#2 What Membership Website Software Should I Use?

Because it is hard to build a profitable membership site on the first try, we suggest not going overboard with expensive website membership management software.  You can get the single licence of WP Wishlist for under $100 and you can get many wordpress templates for free to use for your membership site.

#3 How Do I Market My Membership Site?

Marketing is something you get better at over time.  You need to build and test different landing pages for membership sites and try different advertising avenues.  It also helps if you use a Search Engine Strategy to generate organic search results.  If you target your niche market that is likely to join your membership site, this should produce regular members.

#4 How Do I Retain Members in my Membership Site?

The first thing you have to do is understand that you will not retain members forever.  I have seen statistics that membership sites have an average membership retention of about 4 months.  However, it really depends on your offer and what your membership site contains.  For example, we have a much longer membership site retention at the Virtual Marketing Assistant network.  The reason is that it produces regular job leads for the members and has tools people can use, like blog posting to a blog network and a directory where people can review the virtual assistant profiles.

What other questions do you have about membership sites?  Leave your question in the comments below.

Secrets of Membership Websites

I do not think that there are “Secrets” to many things.  Instead, I think there is True behind the hype.

Membership Sites are not an easy way to get rich.

Instead, they are a great way to build residual income that can keep growing.

And eventually, if you get the right combination of niche audience, good content and sharpen your membership websites marketing skills, you can eventually make a good living running multiple sites.

The secret?  The secret is that it is work, it does take time and it is not a get rich quick scheme.

If you want a secrets besides this, invest in the membership website tools that are not too expensive but are better than the free membership website tools.  The free memebership website tools will only make you spend too much time figuring things out.  Look to the right to see what membership website tools I recommend.

Membership Site Participation

If you are just setting up a membership site, your challenges are technology, payment, hosting and membership site setup.

Once you get past that, and by no means is that easy for new people, you have a couple of additional issues.

Marketing a Membership Site

Marketing your membership site is essential to your success.  You may feel proud of finally launching your membership site – but if no one finds out about it, you will not be proud for long because you will be the only member of your membership site.

• Do not assume that your marketing site, no matter how good, will create members.  You need a membership site marketing plan.
• Promote your membership site every day.  There are a lot of ways to promote your membership site online.
• Don’t assume 3% of china will buy your membership site.  If you are a new entrepreneur, this is for you.  A common error people make in a marketing plan for membership sites or any other product is that they will look at the big market and then say, “I just want 1%” – Come on and get real.  Look at your market and ask yourself – “how many of these people in this market can I reach 5 times with my marketing budget?”   That is a more realistic number.

Membership Site Participation

This is the other thing that will annoy you the first time you start a membership site.  Many of the members of your membership site will not participate, or even use the membership site.

• Know that it is coming and don’t be dissapointed.  People join because they like the idea, but they sometime do not take action.  For that reason they stay in but do not use it.
• Members may hit a stumbling block in your membership site.  You might need to find out where people get stuck and create better content to get around it.
• You need to participate to get other people to participate.

Membership Site Reality

The simple membership site reality is that even when you launch, you will have a lot of new, ongoing issues around membership site marketing and membership site participation.  Be ready for them.

Membership Site Warning

Warning:  7 Things Guru’s do not tell you about starting a membership site.

1. Selling your membership site is not easy.  You will need to test and write multiple landing pages and learn about seo and/or Google Adwords to generate traffic and sales to your membership site.
2. Affiliate programs need to have some valuable JV partners that are heavy hitters.  The average affiliate produces little sales and traffic.
3. Creating Content is tough – While you can try to charge for some general articles each month, you are only going to retain a decent number of members in your membership site if you produce great, valuable content.
4. Charge Cards Fail – A surprising number of charge cards simply fail after a month or two, and those people often do not update their cards.
5. Creating community is hard – Getting people to participate is hard work and you really need to reach out to people.
6. Focus – you do not want to keep adding things that are outside of your core value proposition.  You end up with membership site creep and it is hard for people to figure out what they should focus on.
7. Lax Usage – One of the hardest things for me was the fact that many users paid each month but did not use the site.  I know, I should not complain, I am getting paid.  However, I want everyone to be wildly successful with our membership site and it was a hard lesson to learn that many people do not want to take the time to use things they are paying for.

I hope this is helpful to you.  Membership sites are great, but instead of selling you on how great and easy they are, I’d rather see you know what some of the issues are before starting your membership website.  Then you can make an educated decision.

Website Membership Ideas

You might be wondering what kind of membership site to set up.  Maybe you have set up one membership site and now you are thinking it is time to do another.  For whatever reason, here is how to get ideas for membership sites within your area of expertise.

First, know what you are good at and what you can teach online.  It does not have to be a career.  For example, if you have lost weight you may want to start a membership site about that.

Second, remember you are not trying to conquer the entire industry.  It is far better to go after a hot industry and get a small percentage than to try to make up some new, odd topic and then have to figure out how to market it.

Now we have the basics in place to start generating website membership ideas.

Take what you are good at and what you want to teach, and find ways to niche it into different segments.

For example, if you work with business executives and you have lost weight, maybe you create a specialty site for travelling executives on how to loose weight and keep fit.

Does this mean you are excluding people that might benefit as well?  Absolutely.  However, it is always easier to sell to a smaller, targeted group.

So knowing this, create a matrix of your skills and targeted segments that might be trying to find information on your skill online.    The most specific you are while brainstorming your website membership ideas the better.

Membership Website Hosting

Recommending hosting for a membership site is tricky.  Here is why.

I believe that you should minimize your startup costs for your membership site.  That means going with a low cost website host.

However, you need to know what you are buying with a low cost membership host.

I use Bluehost as my low cost membership host.  But here are the risks.

1. I need to do my own backups, and even occasional database repairs.
2. There are regular outages that usually do not last more than a minute.
3. They have great software in the c panel that help you set up wordpress  – but you will not feel comfortable with this if you intimidated by technology.

I have provided people with full service hosting in the past.  However, it can run hundreds of dollars per month when things do not go wrong, and even more when there are problems.  For that reason, my feeling is to live with the occasional headaches of an inexpensive host.  Make sure you do regular backups yourself and have a tech person on call that can help you when you need it.

If you decide to use a host like BlueHost, the good news is that you can put a lot of membership websites on one hosting account.  So you should be able to cover your hosting costs with one member per month.  Just plan for problems and make sure you have back ups handy.

PS:  This blog is hosted on the very bluehost account I am talking about.

iLearningGlobal

iLearningGlobal is the top membership site available to today’s professionals.  iLearningGlobal is also an MLM that allows everyone to market it and earn income.

If you are looking for a quality membership site that will take care of everything and all you have to do it market it, then iLearningGlobal is the product for you.

iLearningGlobal has taught me a lot about how to market membership sites.  One of the first things I did when I signed up to sell iLearningGlobal was to use the Wordpress Wishlist plugin to set up a private, membership marketing membership site that is only for my downline.  You can see the public blog and parts of the private training at my ilearningGlobal site.

If you are starting your own membership site, it is a good idea to also seriously consider iLearningGlobal – purchase it here.  Here are the reasons you should join iLearningGlobal.

1. The information in iLearningGlobal will give you ideas for your own membership site.
2. You will see what is being done in top-of-the-line membership sites.
3. You can develop an additional income stream with iLearningGlobal.
4. You can hone your membership marketing skills by aggressively growing your iLearningGlobal downline.
5. Some people you meet via iLearningGlobal may become your affiliates or partners.
6. You will be working with and learning from some of the greatest minds in business.

To find out about how to join iLearningGlobal you should visit:  Join iLearning Global and read all about it.

Membership Professional Website

Just about anyone can put up a membership website.  What is the difference between a membership professional website and a membership website that people do not take seriously?

A professional membership website does not mean you had to spend a lot on it.  It does mean that you need to have some technical know-how or hire someone to help you.  If you want a membership professional website, you are going to need some core features.

#1 Integrated Account Building – When someone signs up for your membership site – it will not seem professional unless you give them instant access.  If you send them a message that it will take a day to set up thier account, you are in not going to look professional.  Use Wordpress Wishlist with 1ShoppingCart to achieve this.

#2 Choose a Great Theme – You need to carefully consider your membership site theme for your membership professional website.  If you choose the Middle Earth theme, don’t expect most lawyers to want to join your professional membership site.

#3 Updates – Your membership professional website will not seem very good if it shows no activity.  Make sure it has updates and new information regularly.

#4 Professional Offer – If you want your membership professional website to seem as professional as possible, be sure to add a guarantee, lists of associations, and anything else to give it a stronger appeal.

#5 Professional Testimonials - Solicit testimonials from professional have used your membership site and benefited from it.  Publish them on the membership professional website.

Lastly, if you expect professionals to join your membership site, you need to have the highest value information that will help your members professionally.

Membership Site Marketing

Membership Site Marketing Tip #2

If you are using Wordpress and the Wishlist Membership Plugin, you can do a very clever thing with your membership website.

When you are in the Wordpress WYSIWYG Editor, you can choose to add the more market (It is a button that looks like two pages that are broken.)

If your page is protected for members only, the part before the more marketer will show up and then when someone chooses to continue reading they will get sent to the join page instead of get to finish the article.

Now with some creative writing you can take a normal article and make it into an extrordinary membership site marketing effort.

For example, if you were running a membership site for Halo (a video game) and you were telling people cheats for the game, you could put the more tag just before a very juicy piece of information.

The same goes for any topic.  Consider if I have an article about 10 tips to build your membership site and in the intro I said, “…and number 4 will save you thousands of dollars alone…”  Then I put the more tag right after number 3.

In that situation, people are already skipping one, two and three and looking for #4 – and they have to join for $27 to find out how to save thousands.  Seems like a good deal.

Good luck marketing your membership site.