How A Membership Site Can Change Your Life

By Kevin J Wise

A membership website is one of the most profitable online business models which also allows you to follow your passion. If you have a hobby or interest that you are passionate about then what better way than to spend your career immersed in your favourite subject!

You can literally be working, doing something you love and earn a very good living from it. Is there any better way to spend your life? Work wouldn't feel like work - in fact - it would be strange to call it work if you love what your doing!

Just imagine waking up each day to go and do what you love doing. Think about what your life could be like.

Your life could be like this with a membership website.

So, how do you get started with a membership site?

Well if there are many people that are interested in the same thing as you then you already have your niche market. It could be photography, camping, cooking, scrap booking, fishing or any other niche.

Now lets say your niche is fishing. Your particular passion in the fishing niche could be fly fishing or sea fishing. You could start a membership website on these more specific areas as there are always people that prefer a certain type of fishing.

If you started a site on just fishing then it may be too generic and people that do a certain type of fishing will be more willing to pay money for something that focuses on that one type.

Just having a handful of subscribers with your membership site could make you a very healthy income.

Advantages Of A Membership Site

1. A Regular Income

Unlike traditional businesses you can pretty much estimate just how much money will go into your bank account each month without having to make additional sales.

With a traditional business you make as many sales as you can one month and then have to start fresh the next month and keep generating sales.

2. Authority

It gives you an authority position in the market and people will see it as THE place to go for good solid information on your chosen topic.

3. Relationship

It creates a great relationship between you, your customers and other members. They will also get to know you and trust you over time and will buy your products from you or your recommended products.

Disadvantages

1. It takes longer to set up than a normal internet business where you just promote products.

2. You need to find good software to run your site, billing program and discussion forum program.

3. You need to have content on your site straight away before you launch you website.

What Software Should You Use?

There are many free software programs and word press plug-ins. Two word press plug-ins are:

Easy Member Pro

Wish list Member

Also just type in membership site script into Google and you will find hundreds of sites!

However, free membership software is unlikely to have any technical support and if you are wanting to run a site that brings in a really good monthly income for you then you should invest money into a good reliable software program with full technical support.

As for taking payment on your site and you don't have a merchant account then you can use Click bank or PayPal.

How Much Content Should You Have Before Launch?

As a general rule, I would recommend around 50 pieces of content. These can include:

Written

Audio

Video

Check lists

Summary pages

You can start with a bit more or a bit less. I recommend that once you've launched your site that you run a charter membership where you use a heavily discounted price to encourage people to join.

Also let them know that this is because there is not a huge amount of content on the site yet but more will be added each week.

You can also get feedback from your members and can find out what kind of things that they would like to see on your site.

A membership site will need constant updating with new content so it is not something that you can just set and forget.

Main tasks will include:

Writing new articles

Adding videos

Answer member questions on the discussion forum and support area

Marketing

It sounds like quite a lot of work but it you love the topic your involved with then you will love doing the work!

Now lets say that you site has 100 members and you charge £10 a month. That's £1000 a month for doing something you love. Now imagine having 500 members at £10 a month. That would make you bank balance very healthy wouldn't it!

But what if you could charge £37 a month with 500 members? That's a whopping £18,500 a month coming into your account. I'm sure you can see the potential!

So have a think about what you would love to be more involved in and imagine running a membership site on that topic. Just think what your life could be like!

Visit http://www.yourinternetbusinessadvisor.com for more information on getting started and growing your own online business.

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