How to build a membership website

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 allmost 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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Here are 4 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) Price your membership site low and make the money on selling your own or other peoples products on the backend.

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.

Combine these methods and you will have no problems getting all the membership subscribers you want.

Good luck with your new membership website!