What is a "blog"?

Can I use a "blog" to build a membership site?

What is the best "blogging" platform to use?

Good questions that may seem to have obvious answers to the "seasoned internet user", but maybe not so obvious to the ones just starting out on their internet journeys.

"Blog" is an abbreviated version of "weblog," which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing supply of information and news.

A blog is a frequently updated personal (or business) website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles and/or other web sites.

Blogs range from the personal to the political, the sublime to the ridiculous, and they can focus on one narrow subject or a whole wide range of subjects.

Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as health, dating, dog training, web design, politics, sports, or mobile technology.

Some are more into just presenting links to all manner of other sites.

And others are more like personal journals or diaries, presenting the author's daily life and thoughts.

Whatever they are used for, blogs are ideally suited to building membership sites.

Wordpress is probably the most popular and most powerful and versatile blogging software, and when I talk about blogging, I'm talking about using Wordpress as the platform.

As far as using Wordpress to build membership sites, I can say that it is definitely a very good way to get started. It is also a very low cost way to get started.

Membership sites are one of the hottest money makers on the web right now, and more and more people are creating an extra monthly pay check by building their own membership sites.

If you have a passion for a particular subject, almost any subject, chances are that a lot of other people have the same passion. Create a membership site where all of those people can mingle online with other like-minded people, and you are set to go.

If you have an expertise in a field, create a membership site, charge a monthly fee for others in the field to access your information, and you have money coming in every month, month after month.

Take a look at this Wordpress Membership Site if you want to see an example of using Wordpress for membership sites.

Installing Wordpress for the first time and getting it configured correctly can be a little intimidating, so watching a video tutorial on using Wordpress to build membership sites can really give you a jump start on getting a membership site up and running.

In conclusion, if you want to build a membership site that costs almost no money, is easy to update and manage, and brings in a monthly recurring income, then I suggest you give Wordpress a really close look.

Best of luck,

Texas Tutor

Creating Membership Web Sites Using Joomla Content Management System

Using Joomla to create membership sites that provide you with a recurring monthly income is one of the best ways to get started making money on the internet.

What is Joomla, you might ask, because a lot of people may have never heard of Joomla.

Joomla is an award-winning Content Management System (CMS) that will help you build websites and other powerful online applications, and of course membership sites, which is what we are primarily interested in here.

Best of all, and especially for your pocketbook, Joomla is an open source solution that is freely available to everybody. You can download it for free and install and use it for free. Can't beat that!

Joomla is used all over the world to power everything from simple, personal web sites & home pages to complex corporate web applications, and, of course, membership sites.

The possibilities are limitless.

Here are just a few of the many ways people use Joomla:

* Corporate websites or portals
* Online commerce
* Small business websites
* Non-profit and organizational websites
* Government applications
* Corporate intranets and extranets
* School and church websites
* Personal or family homepages
* Community-based portals
* Magazines and newspapers
* Membership Sites
* And there are many, many more...

I personally know that some of the "big guns" in the membership site business use Joomla to manage their sites.

Joomla can be used to easily manage every aspect of your website, from adding content and images to updating a product catalog or taking online reservations.

The basic Joomla package is designed to be easy to install, even for non-programmers and beginner internet marketers. Most people have no trouble
getting the software up and running, and there is plenty of support available for newbies.

There are numerous forums available, and forum members can usually answer most near any questions you might have.

To give you a real jump-start on getting Joomla installed and configured on your web site as quickly and as easily as possible, a tutorial on how to install & configure Joomla Content Management System. might be just the ticket.

Once Joomla is installed and running, it is very simple for even non-technical users to add or edit content, update images, and to manage the critical data that makes your membership site go.

Anybody with basic word processing skills can easily learn to manage a Joomla site. It is the ideal solution for managing a successful membership site.

If you want to get your Joomla based membership site up and running as quickly and as easily as possible, and save yourself a lot of frustration, you may be interested in a tutorial on how to build a membership site using Joomla. This can really shorten your learning curve.

Using a simple, browser-based interface you will be able to easily add new press releases or news items, add member content and downloads, product images, and create an unlimited amount of sections or content pages on your site.

Out of the box, Joomla does a great job of managing the content needed to make your website something special. But for many people, the true power of Joomla lies in the application framework that makes it possible for thousands of developers around the world to create powerful add-ons and extensions.

Here are just some examples of the hundreds of available extensions:

* Dynamic form builders
* Business or organizational directories
* Document management
* image and multimedia galleries
* E-commerce and shopping cart engines
* Forums and chat software
* Calendars
* Blogging software
* Directory services
* Email newsletters
* Data collection and reporting tools
* Banner advertising systems
* Subscription services
* and many, many more%u2026

Learn more about Joomla features at: http://www.joomla.org/

Another great thing about Joomla is that there are literally thousands of really professional looking templates available. You can have a great looking site with professional graphics and all of the "bells and whistles" in just a matter of minutes.Take a look at some of the professional grade templates available at:
http://www.rockettheme.com

So what's the catch to using Joomla?

There is no catch. Joomla! is free, open, and available to all under the GPL license.

Membership sites are one of the fastest and easiest ways to create a recurring monthly pay check. If you have a passion for a subject, a hobby, or an expertise in almost any field, then there is probably a demand for a membership site.

Give it a go, you may be surprised at the results.

Good luck,

Texas Tutor

Membership sites are all the rage on the internet right now. If you want recurring monthly income, then having your own membership site is the way to go.

If you listen to all of the "gurus" on the internet right now, then you know that nearly all of them are preaching the message that you need to have your own membership site.

Creating and maintaining a membership site used to be a job for expert programmers, database administrators, and web developers, and the average "little guy" internet marketer was left out in the cold.  Most could not afford to hire these experts and therefore owning a membership site was out of the question.

Those days are gone forever.  Anyone now can afford to have their own membership site.  You can easily learn what you need to know to create your own site quickly, easily, and at very low cost.

You can purchase a video tutorial at very low cost that shows you step-by-step how to create a membership site using Wordpress (which is free), and a plugin, which varies from a free one to one that costs around $50, that will handle Paypal billing and keep up with your membership.

Some of the "big guys" in membership site ownership use Joomla content management system to manage their membership sites.  Again, there are low cost videos available that will teach you how to install and configure Joomla and use it to manage a membership site.  Joomla is a powerful content management system.  There is a large selection of professionally created templates available, so you can get the exact look and feel that you want for your site.

Instead of selling your products one at a time, why not consider putting them in a membership site?  If you have a hobby, a passion for some subject, an expertise in some field, put it in a membership site.  Imagine getting 10 people a month paying you $19.95 per month, month after month!  What if you had 100 people paying you $19.95 per month?  What if you had 500 or 1000 people paying you $19.95 per month?

Yes, membership sites are the way to go, and with the training and software now available, anyone can build their own membership site and have it up, running, and bringing in a monthly income in no time at all!

My very first membership site took me a total of about 4 days to build, and at a cost of less than $100.00.  I knew exactly nothing when I started, so anyone can do it.

Give it a try, I think you will find it enjoyable and rewarding.

Texas Tutor

When the bills pile up, people often search for ways of making extra money. This can be complicated if you already have a full time job and a family at home. There isn't always time to go out and get a part time job to make ends meet, and that option isn't desirable to say the least.

Now that the Internet has become so popular, there are many ways a person can go about making extra money without leaving the comforts of home.

When it comes to money making opportunities on the Internet, or anywhere else for that matter, you have to watch out. There are some legitimate opportunities for making extra money, but there are also a ton of scams out there that you need to avoid. Many of these scams offer huge profits for little or no work. Many times people will ask you for money in order to make money. You have to read the fine print and use common sense. If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

If you have a computer with email and Internet access, you probably have seen hundreds of advertisements on "How to make millions of dollars with no investment and no work, while sitting at home in your underwear!"

Well, let me tell you, it ain't gonna happen. I tried it and it didn't make me even 1 penny. I tried it in my underwear, I tried it in my pajamas, I even tried it with all of my clothes on, and it just flat out did not work.

I tried buying ebooks (which I never got around to reading), I subscribed to every newsletter of every guru, I spent thousands on software, seminars, training programs, etc., etc., etc.

Still did not make a penny!

I studied everything I could get my hands on about affiliate marketing, PPC advertising (Google adwords), Clickbank, and on and on and on. I paid a ton of money to Google trying to sell other peoples products, and I found that with all of the competition for keywords, and so many people trying to sell the exact same products, that I was spending around a dollar to make fifty cents. I'm no math whiz, but that doesn't sound very good for the bottom line to me.

I tried buying ebooks and selling them on my web site, and found that I couldn't give them away because ten thousand other people bought the exact same ebooks and they were trying to sell them also.

I tried creating hundreds of mini-sites and putting Adsense ads on them. Made enough money to buy a few cups of coffee (McDonalds, not Starbucks).

So what is the answer to making money on the Internet?

Many people have turned to eBay. They can sell used or new items there, and many make a living doing so. In order for this to work for you, you have to be serious about it, and you have to put a lot of work into it. If you wish to go this route, do some research before you begin. There are many sources for advice online that will help you be more successful when selling on eBay.

If you are a freelance writer, the Internet is a great place for making extra money. You can find many websites and businesses that are looking for writers, but again, watch out for the scams. It may take you a while to break into content writing for online sites, but once you get rolling, you will find you can make some decent money if you set your mind to it.

Other people go about making extra money by having their own websites. They have these sites set up to sell any number of goods or services, known as affiliate marketing, or they rely on web content to earn money through the Google Adsense program. These sites tend to come and go, but if you do your research and invest a little time and money, this can be a great way to go about making extra money online.

As far as affiliate marketing goes, the big guns are Clickbank, Commission Junction, and Linkshare. There are hundreds of others that offer products that you can sell and earn affiliate commissions.

Membership Sites

Right now, one of the hottest and most profitable ways to make money on the Internet is membership sites. There are thousands of membership sites, on almost any topic you can imagine, that charge their members anywhere from $5 per month up to $1000's of dollars per month. This is recurring monthly income, so once you get one going and get a decent numbers of members subscribed, it can create a very nice income, month after month after month.

You may be thinking "wait a minute, I don't know the first thing about creating and running a membership site!".

Well, neither did I, but I found out that it's not that hard with a little bit of the proper training. It's also not expensive at all to create a professional looking, easy to manage membership site, if you know the right steps to take.

I found two systems that work very well, they are not difficult to learn and use, and not expensive at all to get started.

One way is to use a Wordpress blog, which is completely free to install, and a plugin, whose price can vary from free up to around $50, to manage Paypal payment and members. You can find some excellent training videos on how to create a membership site using Wordpress.

The second way is to use Joomla, which is one of the premier content management systems, and it also is free to install. You can find step-by-step video tutorials on how to use Joomla content management system to build a membership site.

Remember that no matter what you choose to do, there are scammers out there waiting for you to fall for their sales pitch. Never give money to someone when you aren't clear about what you are getting in return. You won't make 2,000 dollars a day typing from home, and you can't expect to earn 10,000 dollars a month from a program that doesn't clearly state how you are going to make that money.

Good luck in whichever route you take, and remember, if you do not try, you will not succeed.

Texas Tutor