Membership Site with Wordpress

You might not consider a wordpress blog as a good membership site solution initially.  Even though I am  something of a wordpress expert, I still tried out other options for membership website management before I finally decided to use Wishlist Member with Wordpress to create my membership websites. 

Why does Wordpress work well?

Well, by itself it has some difficulties because of weak membership management.  But if you buy a plugin to take care of that issue, then you will end up with a very good system because wordpress is great for managing information and structuring your information.

If you are good at using Wordpress blogs to build websites, then you will love using  a membership plugin to build a wordpress membership site.

Online Income with Wishlist Member

Can you really create a serious online income with Wordpress?

Yes, if you use the Wishlist Member Plugin.  Visit Wishlist Member Videos to find out more.

The hardest part initially for me was to find the right technology for a membership site.  However, once I bought and got comfortable with Wishlist Membership I was then able to meet the next challenge.  That challenge is to create quality content that people will pay for.

If you are on the fence about buying Wishlist Member, let me just say that you should buy it and then focus on creating great content and learning how to market the community.  Those are the two more challenging areas that will take up more time.  If you spend too much time on the technology, you are just delaying ever building a real membership website income steam.

6 Tips to Build a Successful Membership Site

With just a few steps, it’s possible to build a membership website that generates lots of money. However, the Internet is awash with so many dubious  opportunities such that people generally put every online venture “under the microscope”. This includes membership websites, whether it’s a  fee based membership site or  free membership site.
If you want to start a membership based website, then the  steps I have outlined below will prove vital for the overall success of your endeavor.

1)Pick  Niche Market
If you want to build a membership website that will succeed, you will want to choose your target market carefully. Avoid going for generic markets like weight-loss which already has thousands of membership sites. Instead, focus on a niche market that appeals to a specific category of people. For instance, you can start a membership site for 50+ year olds that want to loose weight. Of course, it’s paramount that you have knowledge in the market you are targeting. For instance, you can’t not start a health related membership site if your profession is computing. It doesn’t make sense.

2)Gauge The Market:
Snoop in  various social network sites like Facebook and MySpace to connect with users who may be interested in your niche market. In fact, you can also get new ideas from there. Look for rare information which  people and yet it’s not easily available online and start a membership which provides what rare information. Soon, you will be having thousands of visitors.

3)Draw  A Plan
It’s paramount that you understand what your members will want  if you want your site to last long. Are they want videos or authoritative information. Remember that a membership website should be built around people’s needs so it’s vital that you conduct thorough research to want your members will want.

4)Implement your plan.

Getting started is usually the hardest part in any online adventure. Your ideas may be good but if you don’t act on them, some one will do it before you and you will loose out. Make sure that you have all the articles, videos and audio if need be. They will be critical when  promoting your website.

5)Choose  the right Technology
There are practically hundreds of  membership website programs which you can use to start a membership site. Unfortunately, the majority of people need  membership site setup assistance  to get started. That’s why  our site provides useful  resources  for those individuals  who  would like to have help setting up their Membership Website.

6)Market Your Membership Website

In order to attract members, you will have to market  your membership website. There are various ways to market your website like article marketing,  social networking and paid advertising.

If you Build a membership site, you will soon discover that  running and maintaining a membership website is not hard as it seems.

Tips for Choosing Membership Site Software

From experience,it can be very difficult to start a successful membership site without using membership website software. This can be rather frustrating for tech dummies like authors, trainers and speakers who would want to start their own membership sites and yet lack the technical know-how.

Every software has it’s own flaws,that’s why it’s vital that you choose website membership software with all the features you will need. Below, I have pointed out some of the vital features that you will want to look out for when selecting the right membership website software to use.

Before you look at the software features,find out the reliability of the software or company. You can do this by looking for reviews from people who have used the software before. Not only should the software be reliable, but the company which is supplying the software should be reliable as well. Make sure that the company offers excellent customer support. Try emailing the company and if you don’t get a response within 24 hours, then try your luck elsewhere.

Obviously, the next vital thing to look at are the true features of the software. List down everything you expect of your membership site and make sure that the software you intend to use has those features that will support your plans. Whereas the majority of companies list features of their software on their websites, there are no guarantees. It’s always good to e-mail the company to get more detailed information.

It won’t make any sense to use software that is incompatible with your web hosting account. For instance, a particular software may need PHP to be installed on your server,thus it won’t do any good to install it on an ASP server since it won’t work. From experience, most membership websites are run with software which require servers running PHP.

Lastly,it’s always good to consider the cost of of the Membership website software you intent to purchase. You should take this seriously because the old adage that “you get what you pay for” applies in software as well. Of course, there are some cheap software with great features but it most cases, cheap of free software have few features.

Click here for more free tips for starting a membership based website.

Three Easy Steps on How to Promote your Membership Site

After building your membership website, the next step is learning how to promote your membership site properly, in order to bring in paying customers. There are different ways of promoting your membership site. The key to promoting the membership site is to not get bogged down attempting to apply all of the different marketing strategies at once or jump from one strategy to another without focus.

Focus on not more than three tasks at a time. Plan, act on it, and evaluate the results. Continue to do things that work, eliminate those that don’t and add a new way to market your site, and then repeat the same process.

Here are three ways to generate lots of paying customers to membership sites.

Joint Ventures. This is the fastest way to get a large number of traffic to your site. You can convince joint venture partners to work with you in the promotion of your membership site by contacting list owners in your market or non-competing market and providing them a strong “what’s in it for me” value statement. Create the promotional material in advance for them to just plug into their marketing. People will be more willing to do business with you if they find you easy to work with.

Article Marketing. The best way to promote your membership site is through the use of article marketing. You can generate a large number of traffic to your site by writing short, useful articles that can help people solve problems and by posting it on various article
directories. You will create reliable and steady traffic to your site if the article marketing is done on a consistent basis.

Leaving sensible blog and form posts. Simple comments on other people’s blogs and forums can create a lot of traffic; granted that the blogs and forums chosen are in the related market. The traffic doesn’t come overnight but with consistency in valuable commenting, people view you as someone who is knowledgeable and causing them to click on your link to get more information.

Teaching Sells and Membership Software

When I first got started creating membership sites, it was because I took a course called Teaching Sells.  You can see the teaching sells video here.

The one thing I did not love about Teaching Sells is that it suggested using Moodle as your membership site software.  After using 6 different membership site software solutions, I found Wishlist Member and once I made that change I was able to create new, profitable niche membership websites in MUCH less time.

That said, the training I got from Teaching Sells was very helpful.  Thinking through how to structure your content and what kind of tools you can add to your membership site is very important and will help you minimize your expenses (by avoiding costly mistakes) and maximize profitability.

Go take a look at Teaching Sells and get the free membership website report.

Micro Membership Websites

I recently watched a video about Micro Membership Websites and I have to say that it makes a lot of sense.

More is not always better – and there are only a few things that make a membership site hard to be successful with.

1. Content – Building a micro membership course with a limit to how long it runs is better because it is quicker, allows you to focus on the best content and has an end, which in the long run may keep people in your program longer.
2. Marketing – If you spend 6 months trying to build the perfect membership site, you will have lost 6 months of trying to get your marketing going.  Nothing is worse than spending too much time on the membership site and too little time on the marketing.
3. Updates – The beauty of these micro membership sites is that you do not have to update them every month.  This is truly a cash machine instead of work once you launch it.

You can use Wishlist Member to quickly set up a series of courses that become available each month – this software is fantastic if you are used to using wordpress and want to launch a full membership site or a micro membership site.

Membership Sites and Email

A critical part of running a membership website is the use of email to remind people of the site and to keep your members updated.  If they do not feel like they are getting an excellent value, they will leave your membership site.

You need to have a great email system – ideally an autoresponder – so you can automate the follow up with your members.

Read my review:  AWeber Review

I consider aWeber the best tool for making money online and keeping your members updated/

Easy Membership Site

First, let me say that I do not believe there is anything easy about setting up a membership site.

Membership site software is easy.  But creating content and keeping up with your schedule, along with marketing your membership website all both not easy things to do.

If you are setting up your first membership site, here is some advice.

1. Keep it simple and low cost.  Even if you only make a few hundered dollars the first time out, that is better than most people do and it will teach you a lot.
2. Use Wishlist Member to auto schedule content to be released after each month.  That way it is more like an autoresponder and less like a course that needs fresh content each month.
3. If you use 1ShoppingCart because you dream of a big affiliate team, just be ready for a lot of work.  Building a good affiliate group is a long and difficult journey.
4. Start a blog on the site where your membership site will be and start writing to it long before the membership site is ready.  This will help you rank better in search engines and get better future results when you are ready to really start marketing that membership site.

That is all practical advice I wish someone would have given me when I was first starting out.

Wordpress Membership Promotion

Even if you decide to go with Moodle, Drupal or Joomla for your membership website, still consider installing Wordpress on the root of the website as the promotional tool of your Membership site.

Wordpress gets great seach engine results and it will help you keep your paid area and your members only website separate.

This will allow you to post parts of articles, videos and more to your promotional membership marketing materials.

Personally, I think that Wordpress with Wishlist Member is the best solution for you to run your membership site and manage things.  However, if you already have experience with Drupal for Membership sites or Moodle for Membership sites – I understand that might be a better option for you.

Just don’t assume one is exclusive of the other.