In my previous post 'The Pros and Cons of Starting a Paid Membership site to Make Money Online', I have written a number of advantages and drawbacks of starting a membership business to help you decide whether membership business is right for you.
In this blog post, you will find details about the steps you need to take in order to get your
membership website up and running. Setting up a membership website is much like setting up a general website with just a few of additions.
Step 1: Choose a Theme or Topic for Your Membership Site
You need to decide a specific topic or subject that your membership site will be focusing on. You should make sure that there will be a target group of people interested on the topic use started.
Step 2: Choose a Domain Name and Web Hosting Package for Your Website
Your domain name will be the name for your membership site. It is best to keep your domain name not more than 20 letters. It should be easy to remember and describe the objective of your site.
Once you have decided what domain name to use, you may go to a web hosting site to register a domain name and purchase a web hosting package to publish your membership site on the Internet. Godaddy.com and Bluehost.com are two of the reliable web host you can use.
Step 3: Get a Membership Management Script
You need to install a membership management script on your web server to get your membership site up. Here are two sites offer membership management script:
http://www.amember.com - The package is $179.95
http://www.launchformulamarketing.com - The package costs $297.00
There are cheaper membership scripts you can find on the Internet. Just go to Google and do some searches.
Step 4: Set up a Help Desk on Your Membership Site
This step is optional. You can choose not to include a helpdesk option but it will make your members more easier to communicate with you. If you do want a help desk, this site, http://www.perldesk.com will help you setting up one.
Step 5: Add Content to Your Site
Content is the key the success for all types of membership sites except those that are offering a service. There are several ways of getting content for your membership site. You can write them by yourself if you have good writing skill or you may hire some freelance writers to create content for you. You can also think about including audio and video content to make your site more interesting. But whatever content you are adding, make sure they are relevant to the topic of your site.
Step 6: Set Up a Payment Processor
If you are running a free membership site, you can skip this step. But if you plan to charge a fee to anyone want to become a member of your site, then you are going to need to set up a payment processor to accept payment. Two of the good payment services you can use are Paypal.com and Clickbank.com.In case you haven't read part 1 of this article, please click here.
How to Make Money Online with Membership Site?
Idea #1: Charge a Subscription Fee
This will be the main and steady source of income to those who choose to run a paid membership website.
Charging a subscription on a monthly basis is a great idea, but you must be able to maintain your membership site well in order to encourage your members to renew their memberships.
Since membership renewals will be your first concern, you will need to keep on adding valuable content for your members to meet their expectation. Renewals will keep a site alive and generate ongoing income for the owner.
Idea #2: Sell Advertising Space
Whether your membership site is paid or free, you can sell advertising space on your site to companies or sellers that sell products relevant to the topic of your website. You may contact these companies directly to offer you ad space or through an advertising network.
Idea #3: Sell Your Own Product
Some people build a membership site specifically to sell their products or services. You too can use this method. The products you are offering to your members have to be related to the subject of your membership site. For example, if you site topic is about guitar, then you may offer products like guitar lesson, guitar equipments, etc.
Idea #4: Sell Affiliate Product
The idea is to insert your affiliate links and banner ads into your membership site so that every member can see them and click on them. Any sale results from your affiliate ID will earn you an affiliate commission. Like idea #3, the affiliate products you are promoting must be related to the theme of your site.
Promote Your Membership Site to Get Members
Like any other types of websites, you need to drive targeted visitors or traffic to your membership site. The number of members you can get and the amount of money you can make will depend on the amount of traffic you are getting. The more traffic you get the better the result.
There are plenty of Internet marketing techniques you can use to promote your site and generate traffic. Here a short list of them:
In this blog post, you will find details about the steps you need to take in order to get your
membership website up and running. Setting up a membership website is much like setting up a general website with just a few of additions.Step 1: Choose a Theme or Topic for Your Membership Site
You need to decide a specific topic or subject that your membership site will be focusing on. You should make sure that there will be a target group of people interested on the topic use started.
Step 2: Choose a Domain Name and Web Hosting Package for Your Website
Your domain name will be the name for your membership site. It is best to keep your domain name not more than 20 letters. It should be easy to remember and describe the objective of your site.
Once you have decided what domain name to use, you may go to a web hosting site to register a domain name and purchase a web hosting package to publish your membership site on the Internet. Godaddy.com and Bluehost.com are two of the reliable web host you can use.
Step 3: Get a Membership Management Script
You need to install a membership management script on your web server to get your membership site up. Here are two sites offer membership management script:
http://www.amember.com - The package is $179.95
http://www.launchformulamarketing.com - The package costs $297.00
There are cheaper membership scripts you can find on the Internet. Just go to Google and do some searches.
Step 4: Set up a Help Desk on Your Membership Site
This step is optional. You can choose not to include a helpdesk option but it will make your members more easier to communicate with you. If you do want a help desk, this site, http://www.perldesk.com will help you setting up one.
Step 5: Add Content to Your Site
Content is the key the success for all types of membership sites except those that are offering a service. There are several ways of getting content for your membership site. You can write them by yourself if you have good writing skill or you may hire some freelance writers to create content for you. You can also think about including audio and video content to make your site more interesting. But whatever content you are adding, make sure they are relevant to the topic of your site.
Step 6: Set Up a Payment Processor
If you are running a free membership site, you can skip this step. But if you plan to charge a fee to anyone want to become a member of your site, then you are going to need to set up a payment processor to accept payment. Two of the good payment services you can use are Paypal.com and Clickbank.com.In case you haven't read part 1 of this article, please click here.
How to Make Money Online with Membership Site?
Idea #1: Charge a Subscription Fee
This will be the main and steady source of income to those who choose to run a paid membership website.
Charging a subscription on a monthly basis is a great idea, but you must be able to maintain your membership site well in order to encourage your members to renew their memberships.
Since membership renewals will be your first concern, you will need to keep on adding valuable content for your members to meet their expectation. Renewals will keep a site alive and generate ongoing income for the owner.
Idea #2: Sell Advertising Space
Whether your membership site is paid or free, you can sell advertising space on your site to companies or sellers that sell products relevant to the topic of your website. You may contact these companies directly to offer you ad space or through an advertising network.
Idea #3: Sell Your Own Product
Some people build a membership site specifically to sell their products or services. You too can use this method. The products you are offering to your members have to be related to the subject of your membership site. For example, if you site topic is about guitar, then you may offer products like guitar lesson, guitar equipments, etc.
Idea #4: Sell Affiliate Product
The idea is to insert your affiliate links and banner ads into your membership site so that every member can see them and click on them. Any sale results from your affiliate ID will earn you an affiliate commission. Like idea #3, the affiliate products you are promoting must be related to the theme of your site.
Promote Your Membership Site to Get Members
Like any other types of websites, you need to drive targeted visitors or traffic to your membership site. The number of members you can get and the amount of money you can make will depend on the amount of traffic you are getting. The more traffic you get the better the result.
There are plenty of Internet marketing techniques you can use to promote your site and generate traffic. Here a short list of them:
- Pay per click (PPC) advertising
- Article marketing
- Blog and forum marketing
- Press release
- Viral marketing
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Social bookmarking and networking
- Buy text link
- Banner advertising
- Ezine advertising
Free lessons on the above online marketing techniques are every where on the Internet. Just do some searches on Google or visit Internet marketing forums and you will find free tutorials, guide, courses and content about these topics.
Apply what you learn to market and promote your website. Work hard to use some of these techniques to generate traffic. Take time to test and experiment these techniques to see which one are effective and which one are not helpful. Choose those effective techniques and use them repeatedly to generate consistent traffic to build your membership site.
Apply what you learn to market and promote your website. Work hard to use some of these techniques to generate traffic. Take time to test and experiment these techniques to see which one are effective and which one are not helpful. Choose those effective techniques and use them repeatedly to generate consistent traffic to build your membership site.
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