Membership Sites – Great Way For Recurring Online Income
Membership sites is not a new concept. It’s something that has been around for quite sometime and those who are having a membership site are making huge online profits. However, it is also one niche that is not used a lot. Only a few % of webmasters actually think of venturing in this area. Why?
Simply because they are under the impression that membership sites are a pain to maintain, promote and update. However, you’ll see (after reading this blog post) that it is quite the contrary and how one can make money online buidling a membership site.
Here are some tips which will help you in buidling a membership site for recurring online income
Starting Up
Attractive Sales Letter
Most of the membership sites revolve around the Make Money Online niche. The point is… there’s more than enough information on that niche available for free. You or I dont really need to pay someone $xx per month to get advice on making money online. A little bit of reading and adding your own creativity to it can help you make money online. What YOUR membership site should offer, is something that can actually benefit the subscriber.
Which leads me to talk about “What should I offer them?“. One example would be a membership site, where the members can download pre-made niche sites/blogs. Download them, upload them to their host, use a domain and they have a perfectly functional website.
The point here is, you’re actually giving your subscribers something they can put to immediate use and benefit from. And all you have to do, is make sure you update your database with new niche sites every month. Simply add 15-20 new sites each month and all your members should be happy. They’ll have a reason to keep subscribing back to your service every month. And you just have to maintain everything once, instead of doing it over and over for each member.
Promoting A Membership Site
The starting point should be to promote them everywhere. In all the webmaster forums, all the blogs you’re subscribed to. You can also buy advertisements on popular blogs. And not just any blog, but strictly limit your advertisements to webmaster related niche blogs or forums. What you want is other webmasters like you. Webmasters who are too lazy to create mini sites themselves. You do the hard work for them and they pay you $xx every month so they can get more new sites and updates every month.
You’re happy because you’re getting paid and making decent profits. They’re happy because they get ready made websites every month and the collection grows! It’s a win-win situation!
Scalability
As your membership site grows, you can always outsource the work you do. That allows you to expand the core features of the membership site and dedicate more time to helping your members with their queries. Doing so gives them the assurance that you are not only interested in their $$ but also in helping them succeed. And nothing helps promote customer loyalty as much as good after-sales service 
Conclusion
The basic idea is that as long as your membership site has something of value to offer (apart from assurances of making money) then you can be successful. All it takes is thinking different and living up to the expectations of your subscribers. Of course, you should also be creative and expand in every way you can!
NOTE: This article was published on a request by a blog reader.
Article written by Typhoon
Yo! I am Typhoon a.k.a Sushant, a 16 yrs. old blogger from India and the owner of SmartBloggerz. Here I try to share useful Blogging related articles which would help a blogger to succeed. You can connect to me on Twitter.
Typhoon has written 316 superb article(s) on this blog
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22 Comments Add yours
Twitter: @PressDist
January 17, 2010
5:45 pm
Membership websites are a great way of making a recurring income.
David Hobson´s last blog ..How to Make Money Online With 404 Error Pages
Twitter: @gregee
January 17, 2010
8:08 pm
It seemed like everyone and their mother started a membership site last year. You did give a lot of great information in your post. Greg Ellison
Greg Ellison´s last blog ..You should be generous to your fellow neighbor
Twitter: @affiliatehat
January 17, 2010
8:36 pm
True but Im not sure there are a lot of people really benefiting from having a membership site. Having a membership requires a lot of hardwork and dedication and I just cant see myself doing one in the future
AffiliateHat´s last blog ..Key Tip for Online Success, Stop Reading Blogs!
Twitter: @shirleyszone
January 17, 2010
9:13 pm
Yup, you are right, Sushant, membership sites are a great way to make money, money on recurring basis to be precise. But as you said not much people take advantage of it.
Great tips, Sushant
.
Shirley´s last blog ..The OnlineProfits.com iPod Nano Contest, Win An 8G iPod Nano!
Twitter: @myblog2day
January 17, 2010
9:22 pm
There are many well known membership site on the web, it’s really difficult to compete each other in the same industry. You need to have some outstanding and unique idea for the membership site, you need to stand out from the similar membership site, otherwise that would be another “failure” membership site on the web.
Anyway, nice post Sushant!
Cheers,
Lee
Twitter: @teenbloggerkid
January 18, 2010
3:57 am
Great post.
Membership sites are a great way to make money. If you have a good service or product I think the best way is to make a membership site and get peoplempaying every month.
Very effective way.
Twitter: @make_affiliate
January 18, 2010
6:28 am
As you said the membership site is good but I am thinking that if we do so many thing online, how can we manage time and maintain that membership site.
I know a person who does so many things all togather but it is very hard to maintain and keep it updated all time. The person is maintaining plenty blogs and now he started few membership forums in some blog but I don’t how he maintains that…
But thanks for sharing it..
January 18, 2010
7:51 am
This is a great idea. I’ll try it for my business.Thanks .
Twitter: @bloggerspassion
January 18, 2010
6:23 pm
this is a new concept for me…i never heard of it….can u tell me about some membership sites please
January 18, 2010
6:39 pm
Membership sites are great at generating a recurring revenue stream. You need a decent systme to manage subscriptions effectively though!
PowerPoint Templates´s last blog ..Homestead PowerPoint Template
January 18, 2010
8:25 pm
Could someone please define what exactly a membership site is? Whenever I read that, I always think of dating websites where you have to pay to get a report on people who are a good match for you.
Twitter: @smartbloggerz
January 20, 2010
5:25 pm
A membership site is a web site of such value to a niche market that its members pay a modest monthly fee to have access to gain premium access to the content/products they are offering.
Twitter: @Dennis Edell
January 18, 2010
9:03 pm
The best model in my mind is free/paid sections, and then levels on the paid; ex: bronze silver gold.
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Blog Move Is Immanent! I’m Looking For Launch Partners…
Twitter: @thechembrain
January 18, 2010
11:47 pm
Excellent information I’ll try to implement something like this for my site
January 19, 2010
12:16 am
I personally was never interested in starting a membership site – it seemed that whatever niche I considered the competition was too fierce. A lot of work is necessary if you want to be the top in the niche and be able to earn well. That being said, I suppose a sub-niche membership site could perform quite well if marketing and promotion is a high priority.
Twitter: @PaysonWeb
January 19, 2010
9:35 am
This idea sounds good but it’s kind of scary. If a blogger were to have something exclusive to give away with membership would that qualify me? Does it really take a lot to maintain?
dick@paysonweb´s last blog ..RT @thebizguy Award Nominations: Calling All Women Entrepreneurs! http://bit.ly/5fNYmY
Twitter: @dragonblogger
January 21, 2010
8:57 pm
I echo Lee’s comment and opinion here, unless you are offering information completely unique or outstanding the competition is too fierce to truly gain much from a membership site, look at online newspapers who are desperate for revenue and converting to membership subscription plans, they are losing readers as readers switch to Google News and other sources that don’t require membership to get their news.
Also, if you do have exclusive information your information can be subject to poaching. I think membership sites are in similar category the the “eBook” craze, everyone trying to sell the same “How to SEO, or build a blog and make money” eBooks and very few are actually making enough money to justify their time.
Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..Tips for Leaving Blog Comments
January 22, 2010
7:08 am
The recurring income is a excellent way to to really step up to the next level aside from blogging and affiliate marketing, although these are great money makers to Subscription sites are some of the best money earners
shaz@Make Money Online News´s last blog ..PTV Partner Review
Twitter: @imstrategies
January 23, 2010
12:21 am
I think the key to these sites is that they be started by someone who really knows their stuff, otherwise it can be a real disaster.
JR @ Internet Marketing´s last blog ..List of 128 Comment Luv Blogs by Niche
Twitter: @lomak1985
January 26, 2010
9:30 am
I always have problems trying to keep the person to stay in the membership. They usually quit after the first month or at least when their trial is over.
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Twitter: @Earnathometips
January 27, 2010
7:58 am
Great points membership sites sound pretty lucrative I might have to check into them further.
jason´s last blog ..Affiliate Lesson – How To Earn Money Writing Articles
February 2, 2010
1:13 pm
Creativity…always key in any kind of marketing/advertising scheme. Seems like a great way to earn if you can keep obviously keep your members interested.
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