So you want to create a membership site?

2. If you've somehow missed it, membership
websites are hot on the Internet right now.
You can easily start creating your own
membership website today and have your
members paying you each and every month.

3. Membership sites are great. In fact probably it's the most ideal business because it's:
1. Monthly residual income (you have only sell once and you get paid over and over again.) It
is so much better than having a great month and starting it over again on the 1st day of the
next month.
2. Passive cash-flow. After you work hard for one time you get paid later time and time again.
3. Very high customer value. You only need a few members to make a lot. You only need a
few customers paying you $37 membership fee to make a very nice income each month.
4. You can outsource nearly 100% of this business. Once your membership site is up and
running you can outsource all most all of the work to other people.
5. You don't need to be an expert. You can act just like a publisher and you don't have to be
an expert. You may not know a much about dog breeding, but you may know someone who
does and that's all that you need.
6. Membership sites are very sellable businesses. So that means you will have a big payday
one day if you decide to start something else.

4. Here are some things you need to consider before
starting your first membership website:
- What is it about?
- Are you passionate about the subject?
- Who is your target audience?
- Who is going to create fresh content for your
members?

5. These are the 3 things you'll need in order to get
your Membership Site started off the right way:
1) Get the Software
2) Create the Content
3) Find the Customers
I'll discuss each of these points in detail below.

6. 
The first thing you need to do is to get some good software to
create the membership site.
The most simple, best and cheapest (in relative terms) that I know
of is WishList Member. You can buy it right now for just $97.
The great thing is that even if you're running your website using
Wordpress you can you the same piece of software that will help
you turn your Wordpress blog into a membership site.
You might be able to find cheaper membership software
elsewhere but please make sure that you buy it from a reputable
company.
If you don't have the money for that you could also create a
website using a html editor such as Coffee Cup free html editor or
a similar program. Then you could add a payment option using
PayPal if you have the skills for that or you could ask a friend to
help you with this.

7. The second thing that needs to be done is to create the content for the site, and make it so
good that very few members will ever want to stop paying you their monthly fees.
You have two options here: Either do it yourself or just find an expert in your membership's
niche, and ask him or her to write something for a fee.
Depending on what the membership site is based around you could also hire someone on
Elance.com or one of the other freelance websites to write a bunch of relevant articles that will
help your members.
But first you need to figure out what your membership site topic is going to be about. You
can sit down and do a brain storm session with yourself to find potential ideas. The
important thing here is not to discard any ideas right away because they sound silly or you
don't think you have the expertise to write about it. If you have a hard time coming up with
an idea you could try this:
LOOK AT YOUR OWN BUYING HABITS. That's right, look at what you have purchased or
wanted to purchase in the last 6 months and write it down on your list. There are 3 distinct
advantages to this method:
1) You understand the market and how they think because you're one of them
2) You undertstand their language, terms and motivation
3) You know where to find the buyers
Hopefully these tips will help you find your favorite topic for your membership site.

8. A membership site can be many things. Probably the 3 most common ones
are:
The E-mail Autoresponder Membership
This type is probably the easiest to create. You sign up with an autoresponder
provider such as Aweber and then you create text content that is sent out to
your paying members on a monthly or weekly basis.
Single Payment Membership
In this model your members pay once and get access to all your current and
future info, software ect. When you add some new content you send out an
email to your members to let them know about the updates.
Recurring Membership
Here your members pay month after month for access to your membership
site.
This is where you'll probably need to get some software that handles the
payment and other more advanced things.

9. Here are 5 ways to get massive amounts of traffic to your paid membership site quickly.
1) Setup an affiliate program. By using sites like Paydotcom.com, you can setup as many membership sites
with affiliate programs as you want.
2) Give away free trial subscriptions. Paydotcom.com allows you to use the trial subscription mode in your
membership site. This means you can charge $0 for 30 days access to your membership site to get members
in the door. Then you can rebill them for the second month at your normal price.
3) eBay. Go ahead and list your membership site on eBay. First you need to think of some keywords that are
related to your membership topic and see if there are some bids on them. If there are then list your product
under these keywords.
4) Let other people sell your membership site for you. If you go to one of the popular marketing forums like
warriorforum.com you'll find people who will help you. It is a great place to make connections and letting
other people promote the membership site for you.
5) Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
You can set up a PPC campaign using Google Adwords ( http://adwords.google.com) or Bing
Ads(https://secure.bingads.microsoft.com/)
Combine these methods and you will have no problems getting all the membership subscribers you want.
Good luck with your new membership website!