Building A Membership Site – Step-by-Step
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Building a membership website is very similar to building any other kind of website with just a couple of additions. Depending on the specific combinations of software tools you choose, it can be as simple as adding one extra step to install the programs that secure the area on your server where the member only resources are located. Other solutions may integrate the membership management features with a content management system that runs the entire site – but these expensive and complex options are not required to get started building and running a successful site.
Here are the basic steps to creating a membership website:
- Choose a topic for your free membership site.
This topic should be one that will attract the specific group of people to whom you want to market your products or services. In most cases you are advised to narrow your topic but in the case of building a free membership website, it is better to make your topic a bit broader so you have room to grow. - The next step is to register a domain name that reflects the subject of your free member ship website.
It is best to keep your domain under 20 characters if you can. Go to either Name Cheap or Godaddy. Many web hosting companies, like 1 and 1 Internet, Inc. , also offer domain registration as part of their services. This site is hosted with 1 and 1 Internet, Inc. and uses them to register domains. Find a domain name that is available and secure it for yourself. - Get a Web Hosting Account.
Very often web hosting comes with a domain name but you need a web host that offers more services. Make sure your web host will allow you to have as many domains as you want on the same server. I suggest either HostGator or 1 and 1 Internet, Inc. This site is hosted with 1and 1 Internet, Inc. Sign up for one of their hosting packages which allows you to have multiple sites on the same account. - You will need a membership script for your free membership site.
Go to one of these three sites and buy the script: Amember, LaunchFormulaMarketing, Butterflymarketing, or download Instant Membership Site Creator (an extremely simple and inexpensive option.) - Add Payment System for Recurring Monthly Payments (Paid Sites Only)
PayPal and ClickBank are two of the most popular and trusted companies for processing recurring membership payments. Clickbank has a built-in affiliate system which will allow you to recruit others to promote your site to new members. It is also possible to use a 3rd party system like PayDotCom to manage an affiliate program. - You might also want to include a helpdesk option on your free membership website.
This is strictly optional but the site to get the program is PerlDesk. http://www.perldesk.com/. - You need content for your free membership website.
The name of the game for free membership websites, as for all websites, is content, content, content. There are many ways to obtain website content. You can download and reprint articles from article banks or you can join a PLR website and get articles that are much better. In either of these cases, you will need to do some rewrite on the articles to avoid the duplicate content problem.If you have the ability you can write your own articles or you can hire a ghost writer to write them for you. One good ghost writing service can be found at http://wwwlwritingandtransciptionservices.com
That’s it. Pretty simple, right? Now you either build your site or have someone build it for you. Your web host service will have features that will provide for you to set up a blog or forum on your website and you will need install those programs inside the members only area of your website. Additionally, there are other features that will likely be included in your web hosting service such as polls or complex content management systems that you might also want to include in your website. For your first site, keep it simple and focus on quality content – you are building your reputation as an expert and not a web programmer.
