Membership Sites - How to get started

Membership sites are hot at the moment. Having researched them a lot in the recent month I now have a grip on the pro's and con's. I have built a test site to monitor and will report on the results. Here is the process i went through before setting this one up:

To research membership sites I did what I would normally do to build up my knowledge quickly. I opened up a fresh MindMap and started taking some notes from searches. I found Membership Site sites and observed the layout, styles, pricing models, trial memberships etc… Then I read the sales letter from membership Bootcamp and wrote down each point.

Through my contacts I sourced some nifty powerpoint slides from two or three of the worlds best membership operators and studied them and the recommended resources.

Next I headed over to the Warrior Forum and used the search function to investigate all the membership related threads. I noted down the key software items and points of interest. I then bought a few WSO's relating to membership sites. The Warrior special offer forum is a great place to spend between $5 - $27 to get a report that shortcuts your learning curve. (You can also buy PLR content here to fill your membership site with).

I then researched the major software items and then started mapping out the site navigation structure using the keyword lists I generated for my intended site.

Product creation and content was my next planning step and then I started building the new test site. In my web portfolio I currently have several membership sites, some are non-paid others are paid. I own BFM (Butterfly Marketing), WP Blog and XSitepro built ones.

So the new paid membership site went up two days ago and I am watching with interest. Already it has been profitable. This one I built for almost nothing as my joint venture partner and I want to document how to build a membership site from scratch on a budget even if you know nothing about memberships sites. The really interesting thing is my JV partner is 9 years old. I know nothing about this niche and I agreed with her to to provide the content, and she has already produced camtasia videos and blog posts. 

A Wordpress Blog is installed on the front end with full SEO capacity, and the back end of this site uses a matching blog incorporating the plugin paypal gateway from WPBoard.

More soon (and perhaps a video)…

Filed under Test, Joint Venture, Membership Sites, Websites by James Schramko

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