Start a Membership Site for Recurring Internet Income

If youre interested in creating an income online, then chances are youve been doing a little research and youve heard that the new type of website that is producing money and growing in popularity is the membership site. A membership site is one of the best ways to make money online.

It is a website like other sites but differs in that you specialize in a certain topic and have quality information regarding that particular topic and will let your website visitors have access to that topic for a certain membership fee or, in some cases, just for signing up and letting you send them information to their email.

These people pay you a recurring fee either on a monthly, bi monthly, bi-yearly, or yearly basis. If you continue to add valuable information to your membership site these people will remain members for a long time, thereby creating passive and recurring revenue for you. These same people may even promote your site, bringing in new members for you as well.

What Kind of Information Works on a Membership Site?

Whether you know it or not you are a specialist in some field, and when you have a wealth of knowledge in a certain area, you usually just tell your friends and maybe your family so they can be impressed over your accomplishments, or you can use your knowlege to help others and turn it into revenue. So if you are an expert in Karate, baking a cake or chocolate chip cookies, chauffeuring the kids around town, or even reading novels, you can make money with that knowledge by creating a membership site that caters to people that are looking for an expert in the field.

The problem is that when you start a membership site in your field of expertise and dont really understand the basics of internet marketing then you are setting yourself up for failure and you might as well not have even started in the first place. Thats why it is important to do your research and learn about internet marketing before embarking on your membership site.

The first thing you should do is find out everything you can about starting a membership site. Read about other successful membership sites and what they did to make their membership site a success.

After all you are already an expert in the area you are targeting and that is the most important part, but most people forget the second part to being a successful membership site owner, and that is to become an expert in the field and learn how to market yourself online. For example, did you know you can offer your members free eBooks they can download, or a free newsletter. Actually they are not really free because the member is paying his fee, plus you can market other affiliate products on the site, in the ebooks, or through the newsletter and companies will pay you a commission for selling their products.

Why are Membership Sites Hot?

Imagine if you charge $10 per month for each new member and you add 30 new members a month, thats one new member a day. This means you earn $300 the first month and $600 the second month and $900 the third month and your revenue just keeps increasing. Now imagine if you had two more membership sites?

You get the idea! This is why membership sites are so hot among Internet marketers. Plus you can add more profit on top by adding affiliate products, etc, etc.

People Love Membership Sites and Are Happy to Pay for Entry

Not only are membership sites hot with Internet marketers but regular people (consumers) like them as well. They get all the information they need on a particular topic without having to do endless searches on the Internet. It is much more convenient and far easier for them.

All in all membership sites are a winwin situation for everyone. You get the sales you need for the passive income you want, and your members get the information they need and want.

Win-win. How easy is that?

However, many people don't realize until they open their online businesses that succeeding at Internet marketing isn't nearly as easy as many gurus make it out to be. For one thing, you have to continuously make sales of the product or service you are selling in order to make profits and generate a sustained income. That is often not easy for new and inexperienced Internet marketers. It can often be a challenge for even the most seasoned Internet marketers.

Build Residual Income by Starting a Membership Site

That's exactly why so many online marketers, both new and experienced alike, have embraced the membership site business model.

This business model involves starting a membership site that is based on a specific topic and caters to a specific niche market. In return for continuous access, members pay a recurring fee (usually monthly). Owners, in turn, will continuously update the site with the latest, most useful content and products that pertain to that niche or industry.

For instance, there are membership sites that cater to other internet marketers – like those who use Private Label Rights (PLR) products in their businesses. A membership site like this would provide PLR ebooks, videos, and articles to its members. There are membership sites that cater to dog owners who need to know how to provide proper care to their dogs, such as feeding them and grooming them properly. There are membership sites that focus on certain hobbies, sports, even health issues.

This shows another benefit of membership sites – virtually any topic or niche that has a demand for help, information, products or content can lead to the creation of a membership site. And unlike an ebook or software title, you can get paid repeatedly for work that you essentially do just once (granted, you have to update the site regularly with the latest information and resources but even that can be automated, and you only have to build the actual membership site just once).

To create a successful membership site you'll need web hosting, your own domain, and membership site software – A membership site script that can keep track of new members to your site, current members who remain members, and members who cancel their subscriptions

One such membership site script is EZ Profit Member Sites. This membership site software is not only dirt-cheap affordable, it is feature rich and lock-tight secure. But perhaps what marketers and webmasters like MOST about this membership site script is how Fast and Easy it is to use. Literally, in two minutes flat even the newest of newbies can have a secure member's area set up and ready for business. It really IS that fast and easy.

In these difficult economic times, many Internet marketers are turning toward having their own membership sites in order to be able to create their own recurring income streams from customers who pay a monthly fee to access the products and resources inside their membership sites. By utilizing a secure, easy to use membership site script you can start profiting with your own membership site and enjoy recurring income stream(s) well into the future.

Selling online content in a password-protected Website is what membership sites are all about. They are also all about making revenues on a recurring basis. The start-up costs and running costs of a membership site are minimal if you know what you are doing. The reason online membership sites are so successful is that people are more than willing to part with money in order to gain valuable content. Many niches can convert into a successful membership site including business information, how to make money, personals, entertainment, sports coaching, marketing services, weight loss and dieting help.

Subscribers are will to part with anywhere from $9.95 a month to $19.95, and if the site is really unique and valuable as much as $200 a month.

There is plenty of stretching room in the world of membership sites as the current statistic states that only 9% of online users currently belong to a membership site. Because the WWW is an international marketplace anyone, anywhere can start and profit from a membership site.

Individuals wanting to start a membership site should understand that there are 4 key steps that they must take in order to start a successful membership site.

Step 1 – They need to target the correct market for their topic area.

Step 2 – The content should be unique and valuable. If the information is not found anywhere else online than you will be able to pull in subscribers without much effort other than advertising the fact that your content is unique.

Step 3 – You need to find subscribers by generating quality traffic such as getting good search engine positioning, using pay-per-click, using joint ventures, utilizing Ezines, affiliate programs and viral marketing.

Step 4 – You need to involve you membership in the learning process by adding tools and services such as software, ebooks, resources, and give-aways. When you provide tools and services along with your valuable content you are giving members everything they need in one place, which adds value to your site.

Do you have a special skill or interest that you can turn into a profitable membership site? Can you find unique, content that members would be willing to pay to receive?

Starting a profitable membership will be exciting, rewarding and fun. You will need to understand what is involved in setting up the site and how to maintain it. There are many things to plan for including auto-responders, automated sign-ups, credit card processing, automated cancellations and website content that is continuous.

You will not only profit monetarily from your membership site but you will also learn a lot too as you go through the process of setting up the site and running it. You too can run a successful membership site. Seek out as much information as you can about membership sites, what makes them successful, and how to run them before you dive in. The more knowledge you have the easier it will be for you to start your own membership site.

It can seem overwhelming when you first brave the waters of membership site ownership. Many individuals brave these waters because of the prospect of making excellent continuous revenue. The big bucks do not come without a lot of planning and hard work though. There are many things that you will need when first starting a membership site.

There are many benefits to owning a membership site including loyal and responsive customers, the opportunity to have all of your products in one place, having a profitable site that others (affiliates) will help promote for you, continuous weekly, monthly, or yearly income and also the opportunity to eventually sell your membership site business at a premium price.

If you have the right tools it isn't difficult to start your membership site. You do need to know though what market you are going after, and you have to have a steady supply of quality content, products and services as back-end sales, a forum, chat room, and customer support.

Having a membership site means that you don't have to have many business Websites to keep track of but only one site that you can have all of your products and services on.

Once you start and successfully run, one membership site, you can start additional sites for even greater profit.

To start your membership site you need to know what you need, how to build and how to manage the site. You will need to choose a theme or topic, decide on membership software and scripts, decide on which autoresponder you will use, decide on a membership model, decide what types of content you will use and what your source of content will be, is your membership going to be free or paid? What if any audio and video products will you are using? Are you going to be using an affiliate program to help promote your site if so, how will you manage your affiliate program? Will you become involved in Joint Ventures (JVs)? Decide on what help desk and forum scripts you will be using. Will you have a shopping cart on your membership site if so will it be on another server or on your server? What resources will you make available to your membership?

As you can see you have a lot of decisions to make and many things to plan before you can launch your membership site. Speaking of launching, that is another thing that you need to plan. Some individuals start doing things to make a smooth launch one to two years before they start the membership site such as building a responsive email list.

While in the planning stages of your membership site it is a good idea to get advice from those who have launched successful membership sites before you. You can locate these individuals by becoming a member of a business forum. Read threads about membership sites, ask questions and be open to the suggestions of others while keeping in mind the results of your own research. Seek out successful membership sites and explore them to see how they are set up and what tools they provide for their members. Not all sites are the same and a lot will depend on your topic and your financial resources. You can still get a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn't by looking around at successful membership sites.

Most individuals looking to start a membership site understand that they need to have a topic for the site. The site will be successful if the topic revolves around a niche that you have some knowledge or expertise at. The site will also be successful if the niche is one that lends itself to fresh content and one in which the members will need to keep coming back for more fresh information.

Niches not to choose for a membership site:

A niche that would not be good for a membership site that needs fresh content and a reason to return would be the topic of quitting smoking. The goal of someone who desires to quit the smoking habit is to be successful at quitting, and once they are successful there would be no further need for the member to return to the site would there?

Another bad idea for a niche would be one that is a "how to do" site in which once you have the information it would be difficult to provide fresh content. In order to avoid this problem your niche should not be too narrow. A membership site about how to make Snowmen would be hard pressed to come up with fresh monthly content but a membership site that revolves around the Winter holidays would indeed have fresh content every month because of all the possible content variations.

Good examples of niche membership sites that lend themselves easily to fresh, quality monthly content are: Earning online cash for the new internet user, or a membership site that revolves around investing in the stock market.

When doing research on niches for membership sites make a list of all the things that bring pain or sadness to an individual and then make a second list about all the things that bring pleasure or happiness to people. Brainstorm for a while on these two lists and you will soon have many good ideas that you can research.

One of the most valuable true statements about finding a niche for a membership site is that you have to know your market. An idea for a site may sound good, may even be one that you are interested in; but if the market demand is poor than it will be a dead site. You have to understand what your members need in the niche you are contemplating. Will you be able to provide enough fresh content each month to address the needs they will have in that niche?

One obvious point that must be made is that the niche you decide on must be one that can be served online, if you choose a niche that can only be done strictly offline you may not find enough interest.

When deciding on a niche look towards keywords to see if there are membership sites already in existence on the niche you are considering. Use keywords that people would actually use when searching for your topic.

Try doing a survey to gage the interest in your chosen niche. One useful tidbit I learned about in college was the fact that there is a site that helps you design surveys called SurveyMonkey.com You want to be able to gage if the niche you are thinking of using will actually be one that will bring in members in large enough numbers to allow for the success you envision for your membership site.

There are many things that the success of your membership site will hinge upon, one of them will be the tool you provide your membership.

One type of tool that is needed for a successful membership site is the tool for communication. The tools you choose to use to communicate with your members will depend on your target market and on your resources. Email marketing is the communication tool of choice. Your email list may be your main means of communicating with your members.

Front-end channels such as a blog, forum, pay per click advertising, social marketing or even offline advertising may be useful tools of communication when your membership site is first starting.

There are two types of tools that you will need, those that are for building and operating your membership site and those tools that you make available to your members to use.

What tools you will need for building or operating your membership site include a domain name and a hosting service and a topic for your membership site. You will also need a constant supply of fresh content for your membership site. The content can be articles, ebooks, software, CDs, DVDs, music, videos or physical products. The media you use on the site to communicate with your members are tools and may include audio, and video. The software you use to operate your membership site is also a tool. You will also need to have an autoresponder and a financial gateway to accept payments. You may require an HTML editor, a FTP client and a graphics editor.

Membership management has a lot of tools associated with it such as the software that automates the membership application, membership renewals, an online member portal, and member directory.

Communicate with your members using these tools: a blog, email or discussion forums. Maintain an up-to-date members list with a contact database.

Tools that your members may enjoy are a chat room and a forum for them to gel together as community and share information and stories, videos to view information about your topic, content can sometimes be a tool for your members if they can use the content. A good search box script can even be a tool for your members to find things more easily on your site.

Just about everyone on your membership site becomes a tool that the members can use to access the content that you have on the site or to communicate with you or other members. The online forms, the payment processing, the security measures that you take to ensure that the financial transactions your members make are secure are all tools. Even the catalog that you use to showcase your membership products becomes a tool.

Tools are all those things that make building, or operating your membership site possible as well as all the scripts, software and modules that are used to the many automated processes from membership application to commission payouts, to membership fee handling and content distribution are all tools that management and members utilize continuously as the membership site is used everyday.

The creation process can be a long one when a successful membership site is the goal. Using the right membership software can decrease the number of headaches you will experience and save you time. The right membership software will help you to run a more reliable membership platform, will allow for automated sign ups and payment plans.

One way to assure yourself that your choice of membership software was a good one is to test the customer service department before making the purchase. If you are not satisfied with the level of technical know-how or personal service than it is probably not a good idea to buy the software. When assessing the management software ask the following questions of the company: How long have they been in operation? What is their track record for reliable products in the past? Download any available user reviews and read them carefully to get an idea of what you might expect after you make your purchase.

Features are very important when it comes to buying the correct membership site software. Speak with the manufacturer of the software if you have any questions about the features. You probably won't use all of the features of the software but of those that you do use if you contact the manufacturer they can explain better what the benefits are and how implementing them can help your membership. Usually when you go for the more expensive membership software there will be a lot of bells and whistles regarding features that you will more than likely not use, so be careful to stay within your budget and only get the software that contains features that you will use.

Make sure that you are checking the compatibility of the software with your Website hosting account before making the purchase. Typically you will need a PHP server to host the management software for your site. Most management software will not run if the server is not PHP so check with your hosting company before buying the software to be sure that it is PHP. You can find out if it is PHP or not by checking your control panel (CPanel).

There are many tasks that a membership site owner must do that the membership software can make easier by being automated or at least being of good quality including answering member questions via email, sending alerts to the members concerning the status of the site, verifying IP addresses, approving and renewing memberships.

Check to see if your membership software is in an easy to use format that will not require you to know technical knowledge. Choose automated software over having to do tasks manually you will thank yourself when your site grows larger!

Besides seeking out management software reviews you can also ask other membership site owners which management software they use, most are glad to give recommendations unless they are in the same niche you are.

With the right management software, your set-up should be painless and your membership site should be up and running in no time.

Marketing your membership site is all about the perceived value of your site. Members will look at your content and your features to determine value. Members are willing to fork over a membership fee if the perceived value if equal to or higher than your fee. Content is critical when determining membership site value.

Decisions you make regarding your content will make or break your success. There are really only two decisions that you need to make regarding your content: What content will you deliver to your site membership and how will you deliver this content? When making these decisions regarding content keep in mind what your capabilities are and what your members will respond favorably to.

What kind of budget do you have to work with? Can you afford expensive multimedia equipment? Expensive equipment is not necessary. You can still produce quality content with amateur audio and video producers. Your content may differ from other membership sites depending on what your topic is and what your members are looking for in content. Some sites offer teleseminars, or e-lessons, phone consultations, or articles and ebooks. How capable do you feel about producing the above kind of content? Look at what you have previously produced to guide you. Can you provide private coaching? If you have a membership forum ask your members what questions they have on the topic of the site and then set up a teleconference where you answer their questions.

A forum is a great way of staying in touch with your membership so that you can understand their need for content. Make sure you have qualified moderators to answer member forum questions.

Use videos to do tutorials. Make the content personable.

You may also consider a physical product to offer your members such as a book, CD or DVD. Watch out for the expenses involved in producing and shipping physical products though. Physical products have a high-perceived value and you may do very well offering them. Not all of your members will learn in the same way so offer a variety of media such as audio, video, text and physical products.

When it comes to content you want to "over deliver" on the value in order to keep your members happy. In order to know if you are successfully over delivering you will need to have a feedback system in place.

Value and Pricing:

There is definitely a relationship between perceived value and the pricing you can command of the members of your membership site.

The fee you will be able to charge will be determined by the perceived value of your membership site. This can't be stressed enough!

When determining value think about your resources, how much work you intend to put into your site, and how much time you have to put into your site.

There is a broad range of membership site fees from the very low (under $10 a month) to the very high such as $50,000 a year!

In order to have a high perceived value you will also need to have a great offer that you market to your prospective members. You will want to spend a lot of time honing your marketing efforts especially your offer. If you are not a good writer, hire someone to craft your offer for you. Your offer is THAT important, do not skimp on creating your offer. The offer should sell the benefits of your membership.

If you have similar memberships out there being offered by others what type of content are they offering? Is your content of superior quality? What are they charging as a membership fee? What works for other similar membership sites? Do your market research and know what is and what isn't working before you launch your site. Do not undervalue your site's content. If you price your site too low others will perceive it as low value. Value is sometimes equated to financial investment. Charging more than you initially think may make your offer seem like a better value to your prospective members.

Know who your target audience is and tailor your offer to them.

When just starting out you may have to have an initial entry-level fee in order to bring people into your sales funnel and then provide a higher level of service at a higher price. You can always adjust the price as you go along. As you tweak your site you will eventually find the right pricing.

First things First

There are many things you should know about when you start a membership site. There are many things you need to consider that has to do with setting up the membership site, with gaining members, providing content and how to keep your site growing. Keep reading in order to find out some of the things that you may need for a successful site that you may not have thought of yet. This information will hopefully help you to be ready for a successful membership site.

When setting up a membership site you need to be able to choose the correct domain name and best hosting package for your membership site.

You need to discover the best fee to charge for your membership. Will you use a one-time fee, recurring monthly or annual fees?

How will you create and manage your private parts of your membership site? How will your protect these areas?

How will you update your site's content? Will it be easy to update content? Will it be easy to make administrative changes?

How can you increase your revenue? How can you maintain your membership loyalty so they won't jump ship and join a competitor's membership site?

How can you know for sure that you understand your membership's needs and that you are offering them valuable content, products and service?

How are you taking care of membership orders such as a shopping cart?

What are your payment services and are they secure?

Some things that you may need to know about before starting your membership site besides the basics of starting and maintaining the site is what features, layouts, fonts, and site colors will attract and keep the interest of your membership?

When choosing your topic how do you know which topics are hot for membership sites and what kind of research can you do to discover this?

What successful membership sites are out there that you can look at and learn from?

Do you have a business plan and a marketing plan to ensure your success?

Do you have a way to solicit feedback from your membership so that you can find out how to improve your membership site?

Do you know anything about marketing and how to promote your membership site?

Answering these questions can help you to get off on the right foot when it comes to being prepared for success.

The more knowledgeable and prepared you are for what can and will happen with your membership site the more capable you will be when it comes to handling what may come up with your site.

There are many pros and cons that can be mentioned for both the free membership site model and the paid one. Basically with the free site you will attract more members and have no recurring income but you can make money as you cross-sell to them. The paid membership will yield fewer members than the free one but you will have a recurring income through membership fees. The paid site will have a higher drop out rate than the free one and the paid site is more difficult to upsell to because they have already paid for content.

To understand fully which model is better for your particular membership site you have to analyze your content or service to see how valuable it is, know your market and know how well your backend products will sell. If you have weak backend products than the paid membership will be better. If you have a narrow niche than the free site won't work.

One solution is to use both models, the free and paid. You can entice the larger numbers to your membership site by offering a free 1st tier and then increase the content and tools for those who want to upgrade to the paid 2nd tier of membership. This way members can try out your site and get a feel for how valuable the content is and then when they learn to trust that what you have is consistent quality products or service they will be confident enough to pay for the 2nd tier of your membership site.

With a free membership site you can generate an income through ad revenue.

Look towards your closest competitors to see if they are paid or free. If you have a close competitor that is free and you come along, as a paid site unless you are offering superior content and can promote it well prospective members will probably opt for your competitor's free membership site.

You will need to test your market to discover what your prospects respond better to the free model or the paid one.

Your content will ultimately be key in determining if you can successfully have a paid membership site. High quality content that is fresh and consistent will mean real value to your customers and they won't mind paying the monthly fee.

Most successful membership sites have found that the best solution seems to be having a limited free option for members with a quality package of goodies for paying members. Whether you will do best with a limit on how many free members or if you will have a time frame limit for the free membership depends on your market, your content and your upsell products as well as your competitors.