What You Need to Start a Paid Membership Website Business

Tired of spending days searching the web for the exact, specialized information you need? Tired of finding incomplete or poor quality information? A lot of people are. And many of these frustrated web surfers are willing to spend a little money to gain access to a single website that holds a variety of content targeted to their specific needs - content they can view and download as often as they want. That's why members-only websites have become so popular. Setting up a membership website doesn't take much more effort than setting up any other e-commerce website, but there are a few differences and a few pointers you'll want to keep in mind.

At a minimum, your membership website will need to include a protected area accessible to only those who have paid for a username and password. This is achieved by having one or more protected folders (directories) on your website. Any web hosting service that includes a membership option or package will set up such a folder structure for your site.

Your membership area needs to be able to hold all of the different types of content that work for your business model. That means at the minimum the required protected area of your site has to have the ability to display viewable content, such as a blog or web pages that display online documents. That's a relatively easy requirement to meet. If your website is driven by a website builder (more technically referred to as a content management system, or CMS), then it already provides you with an easy way to add, update and edit basic web pages. The only difference between membership area web pages and web pages that don't belong to a membership area is the folder in which these web pages are held on the server which hosts your website - the membership area web pages reside in a more secure folder.

To keep your members satisfied with your service you'll want a large amount of content, and a variety of content. That means your membership area should be able to display videos to watch and audio files to listen to - if either of those features supply useful content to your paying members. Video or audio interviews of experts in your field of interest and short training or "How To" videos are examples of interesting and useful multimedia content that will make a membership to your website more appealing. Your site will of course need to include a way to easily add this video or audio content to the members-only area. That simply means that the system you use to upload text and images to your site (again, usually a CMS) also has the power to allow you to upload a variety of multimedia files.

In addition to allowing members to view special content such as a blog, "Top Ten" lists, daily or monthly tips and techniques, and videos, your members area should include files that members can freely download. If someone pays for content, they are likely to be most satisfied if they can not only view information, but also download and own formatted information such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat PDF files. That means your site needs functionality that allows you to upload digital files and, of course, functionality that allows members to download those same files. Members have already paid for access to your site, so you don't need any complicated download system - a member should be able to simply click a button located by a file name and description, and the download begins.

With your membership area set up and populated with content, you're ready to start registering members. You'll typically want to provide a few registration options, such as monthly, quarterly, and yearly memberships, with a price break for longer-term subscriptions to entice visitors to pay you more money now, up-front. This means you'll need a shopping cart and payment system so visitors to your site can select a registration option, pay by credit card, debit card, or PayPal, and so those funds go directly in your own merchant account or PayPal account. If you already have a website that sells products, you can most likely use whatever payment system you are already using. If you're starting from scratch, many web hosting businesses provide an e-commerce option that can take care of payment processing.

Your efforts will be in creating and obtaining content to place in your membership area. You don't want your efforts to go into constantly monitoring when a registration has taken place and then emailing the subscriber membership access information. That part of the business should be automated. When a visitor registers and pays, the payment system should be able to generate a unique username and password and automatically email this information to the new member to provide that member with instant access.

A membership website isn't difficult to create, and it can be a great source of extra revenue. If you're well-versed in a topic - whether through your profession or a hobby - you'd be wise to consider distributing your knowledge by way of a members-only site.