#1 Pick a great niche market – Don’t sell what you want to sell, first make sure there are buyers and then build what those buyers want to see.

#2 Choose Easy Membership Site Software – This is critical.  You do not want to spend too much time on setting up the technical side of the membership site.

#3 Plan Your Content – Map out your information.  Keep it simple and easy to navigate.

#4 Know how you will market your membership site.  When you first decide on what membership site you will set up, start marketing it right away, even if people cannot sign up yet.  You can always use aWeber to start building a wait list for the membership site.

The first time I set up a membership site, I tried to do too much.  I had a glossary, certifications, video, audio, 20+ courses, etc.  I had to manually add people to the course after payment because I could not figure out how to integrate my Moodle membership site with a shopping cart.

After many different attempts, Membership sites went from hard to easy.  Now I use Wishlist Member and WordPress.  These two powerful tools make managing a simple membership site easy.  I also integrate Wishlist Member with 1ShoppingCart and  I easily process my membership dues and manage my membership site affiliate programs.

Critical to how easy my membership site became was realizing it was better to give less information and less features, but make the information in the site VERY good and very easy to find.

No, not in a bad way.  Just in a way that lets members know what is coming up next month.  You want it to be good enough that those people that are thinking about cancelling say to themselves, I will hang in there for one more month to get that.

And the next month maybe they will say it again.

The Membership site teaser is really about quality information and good copywriting with the teaser.  For example, you would not want to write a teaser for next month and then not deliver on it, as that is a sure way to get a flood of unsubscribes as soon as the information becomes available.

You’d be more likely to stay in a membership site if you wanted next months content, such as:

Next Month:  50 tips to make more money with membership sites in 10 minutes or less.

Next Month: 30 Weight Loss Tips you have NOT heard about already

You get the idea.  Just one sentence like that can increase the length of time you retain members in your membership site and increase your membership site profits.

First, what is wp wishlist plugin?

WP stands for WordPress.  WordPress is the top blogging software that is free, easy to set up and supports all kinds of free templates and free wordpress plugins.  Many of these things are great to set up your membership site.

Wishlist plugin, also called WP Wishlist Member plugin, is a premium plugin (membership software)  that you buy, download and drop into the plugin folder of WordPress.  (It really is that easy once you find the right folder)

Then you activate it and you have a very powerful membership site set up.

You can integrate wp wishlist plugin with paypal, 1ShoppingCart or many other payment processing gateways.

I looked at many different options, including using the free membership site wordpress plugin, but wp wishlist plugin was by far the best deal.  I puchased it once, I can use it on many sites and it nearly automated every part of my membership management.

I probably spent more than an hour watching their excellent videos and reading their website before buying.  They do the best job I have seen at helping you make a great decision to buy or not buy.  If anyone returns the product, it is only because they did not watch the videos first.  It really does work exactly like the wp wishlist plugin videos show.

Ultimately, I used WP Wishlist Member which is a premium WordPress Plugin for Managing Membership Websites.

The first thing I love about them is the extensive set of videos they post on their website.  You do not have to wonder if it is going to work for you or not.  They have many videos that show you exactly what WP Wishlist Member does.

Next, they offer a 30 day money back guarantee.  When I bought the premium membership management plugin, I fully intended to ask for my money back if it did not work.  Instead, I found the Membership Website Solution I’d been looking for over a six month period.

WP Wishlist Member was easier for me to use for several reasons.

1. I was already used to WordPress and it was easy for me to set up and customize.
2. WordPress is simpler than Moodle, Drupal, DotNetNuke and Joomla.  It is also more publishing oriented than Ning.  And yet it was far less expensive than things like aMember or other premium membership site solutions.

Don’t take my word for it.  Go watch the videos and then buy it and try it – and ask for your money back if it is not the best membership website plugin you have ever tried.

#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.

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.

First, they really do have great videos on their site that make it easy for anyone to add the Wishlist Plugin to WordPress.  It should not be a technology issue.  It does take time to configure and get working just the way you want, but that has more to do with your shopping cart and how you want your membership site to flow.

Wishlist Member Setup for WordPress

I offer our Membership Site Setup service not because it is my primary money steam, but because I have gotten better and better at doing this and I can save you time and hassle and put those membership site skills to use.

If you are thinking that there are people out there that will set WordPress and Wishlist Member up cheaper for you, you are right.  Have fun hunting them down and working with them, then firing them and finding another.

Personally, I would rather work with someone that feels like they better do a great job because they value you as a client.  But that is just me.

Remember, you can do Wishlist Member Setup for WordPress yourself.  It just depends on how much you value your time and if you want to work with a professional with experience working with Wishlist Member and WordPress.

• Are you looking for a Membership Website Script?
• Are you looking for Membership Website Software?
• Are you looking for Membership Website Plugin?
• Are you trying to find Membership Website SAAS?
• What about a Membership Website Widget?

All these different terms get used in different ways by people, making it hard to know what you are looking for.  Here is a quick guide to Membership Website Scripts and other terminology – just so you know what you are looking for.

Membership Website Script

The word script usually refers to a third party tool where you place a few lines of script (code) in the footer of your membership website.  Typically it is independent of whichever Membership Website Software System you have chosen.

Membership Website Software

Membership Website Software is usually a full content management system that may be specifically designed for membership websites or it may simply have the features to make it a good option for membership websites.  Examples are WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Moodle.

Membership Website Plugin

A plugin is much like a script, but it is designed for one particular platform.  So a WordPress membership website plugin will only work in WordPress.  The good thing about a plugin over a script is that it is designed to be easy to install and configure within your membership website software.

Membership Website SAAS

SAAS stands for Software as a Service.  This is a more expensive option because someone is doing the work, development, support and hosting of your membership site for you.  However, a good Membership Website SAAS will free you up to create great information and market the membership website.

Membership Website Widget

Membership Website Widgets are pieces of code nearly the same as a plug in.  Widgets have special properties that make them easier to set up and move around in your membership website software.  Not all membership site software supports widgets, but those that do make it much easier for non-tech people to customize the tools and interfaces.

There is a catch with open source software.  You need to be able to install it, upgrade it and customize it yourself – or hire someone to do it for you.  There are great forums and a lot of information on the web, but it is not easy.  Open Source means that the code is open and you can use it.  It does not mean that it is easy or will do what you want it to do.

Also, your open source free membership site software is free, but you have to put it in a place that people can find it.  That means you need to host it on a server (not your home computer) that is always on and is set up to serve webpages and run the kind of software you choose.  That costs a little money.

You will also need a domain name for your membership site.  That should cost you $10 or less per year.

I recommend Bluehost for an inexpensive place to host your open source membership site software.  I have short occasional outages and problems, and you will need to back up the site yourself, but overall it has been a great, low cost solution.  I have also had my own servers – and the cost is huge and the headaches are much higher.

Open Source Membership Site Software

If you use Bluehost, or many other hosting companies, you should get a Linex server (usually that is your only choice) and you should make sure they have a C-Panel, Fantastico and/or Simple Scripts.  (Simple scripts may be only a Blue host tool)

These tools make it easy for you to manage your website and set up the open source membership software.  Typically, you need to do things in this order.

1. Register Your Membership Site Domain - If you do not do it through your host, you will need to configure it to point to your hosts IP address or name server.  If you do not know what that means, just register it at your host and you will not need to know.
2. Using Simple Scripts (or Fantastico) Set Up Membership Site – With those tools, you just select the open source membership software you want and it will walk you through the install of the membership site software.
3. Customize your Membership Site - The hard part is learning the software and customizing it.

If you are not fairly technical, keep things simple.  You can spend months getting to know the open source software, trying out various plug-ins, uploading and changing various hemes, etc.  I really suggest you hire someone to do this part and keep it simple.  Your goal should be to launch a professional, stable membership site that makes money and has great content.  Don’t get lost in too many bells and whistles.

Review of Open Source Membership Site Software

The reason I went into so much detail above is that I am going to review open source membership site software that I have used on my Bluehost account.  There are other options out there, but the ones I am going to discuss are the most common, are easy membership sites to set up, and there are a lot of experts out there that can help you customize these open source membership site solutions.

1. WordPress – You may think of WordPress as just a blog, but with the right skills on setting up your WordPress Theme, your WordPress blog can be a great membership site.  This is the only solution I use now because I focus on valuable content and not too many tools and such.  I use Wishlist Member to easily automate the membership sign up and access.  I use 1Shopping Cart integrated with Wishlist Member to automate monthly billing and build my membership site affiliate program.

   WordPress is a good option if you want to focus on fresh, quality content each month and not get lost in the technology.  I also see that WordPress sites usually get the best search engine results out of the box.

2. Joomla – When it comes to these open source membership website software solutions that are open source, it really comes down to how much time you spend with them.  I really like Joomla and it does a great job of building a membership site.  However, I found customizing it more difficult and the resources for it were more scattered.  It is much better as a community tool if you want each member to have their own blog, communicate back and forth more, etc.  From my experience, most of those community features do not get used by the majority of the membership.
3. Drupal – I loved how quickly I could build a site in Drupal.  I did not love trying to customize it.  As with all the open source membership site solutions, if you spend enough time with it you can make it do almost anything you want.  With Drupal, I got frustrated after two days of trying to find how to change stuff so I stopped.  However, some tech people I know love it and my experience was over a year ago, so it may be much better now.
4. Moodle – The first open source product I used to build a free membership site was Moodle.  Moodle is the open source learning software that many universities use.  However, it was far too complex for what I wanted to achieve and it never looked nice to me.  I am fairly technical and I can use photoshop alright, but I spend days trying to make Moodle look good and it was just never to my standard.

   The reason you may want to try Moodle is that it has things organized in courses with quizes, threaded chat, etc. all integrated.  However, I found it to be very confusing and way too many options for a simple membership site.

The good news about all four of these free open source membership site software options is that they are free, can be set up in seconds and you can spend a couple of hours getting to know each one.  Then pick one and stick with it.  It is better to become really good at one of these membership site software options than to keep dabbling with all four.