Why should you use WordPress (blogging software) to create your membership site?
In a sentence, WordPress is the simplest, best supported, SEO friendliest, most easily extendable, standards compliant CMS available on the planet.
Many top internet marketers (the ones who create hundreds of minisites, and have multiple business ventures in full swing at any given time) know that you can take an afternoon and create an easy WordPress that will look great, will be easy to maintain, and will suck in search engines like crazy.
There are a number of excellent, time-saving, hassle-avoiding, traffic boosting reasons to build your membership website with WordPress:
*WordPress provides the user with a full Content Management System (plus many other features) which makes adding and maintaining content a cinch.
*WordPress sites traditionally fare better with Google rankings and Search Engines since they tend to be chock full of content and they are so highly optimized. *Excellent, standards-based themes are available that allow you to create an eye-catching, professional-looking WordPress website in just minutes.
Another huge WordPress advantage is its modularity. First of all, WordPress natively supports “Widgets' to instantly allow you to perform complex functions, such as searching your site, logging in with passwords, and displaying an active calendar.
Then, there are the plugins – program modules that add all types of functionality to your WordPress website. For example, there are plugins for:
*high-level search engine optimization
*for adding forums and chat rooms
*supporting Google Analytics (the appropriate tracking code is automatically added to every page on the site)
*adding event calendars and “who is online” information
*integrating your website subscribers with your AWeber mailing list
*integrating Flash video into your website
But, the most compelling reason is that all of these quality features and time-saving functions are available for FREE! WordPress is open source and is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Most of the themes and templates are free as well.
The problem with using WordPress for membership sites has been that there wasn't
really a good, low-cost plugin available to handle all of the membership site requirements like:
*sign-ups
*payments
*multiple membership levels
*protecting content
*integrating with payment processors
All of the available plugins were pretty expensive – until Micro-Membership.
Micro-Membership is a basic, easy to use WordPress plugin that adds “membership” functionality to your WordPress blog. The real benefit of this plugin is that it seemlessly integrates PayPal or ClickBank payment processing into your blog allowing you to charge for contact and automatically collect payments from your users.
Micro-Membership features include:
*A Fully Automated Membership System - Micro-Membership fully automates your membership system from the user registration to confirmation of payment and account activation.
*Fast Installation & Activation - Micro-Membership installs just like any other WordPress plugin.
*Three (3) Membership Levels
*Flexible Subscription Intervals - to automatically collect payments in any interval from 1 day to 9999 years.
*Content Teasers and Content Protection
*Full affiliate support – through ClickBank
*Gradual Content Delivery – also called “content dripping”, this feature protects you from subscribers whole sign in, grab all your content, and take off.
Setting up Micro-Membership is easy. Since it's a fully integrated WordPress plugin, the setup, administration, and maintenance are done through WordPress using WordPress features and functions. Where necessary, Micro-Membership does add additional screens, but these screens are accessed from the WordPress menus and follow the WordPress look and feel.
I've included the Micro-Membership Overview and Quick Start Guide so you can see the actual steps required to get the software up and running.
Additional WordPress Plugins
These are all plugins that I have used to enhance my membership sites. Most work just fine “out of the box”. Some I've had to tweak a bit, but they all do a great job. In no particular order:
*All-in-One-SEO Pack – A super plugin for enhancing the search engine friendliness of your membership site
*BM Custom Login or WP Custom Login – Both of these plugins overwrite the standard, WordPress functon and let you add a bit of customization to your membership site's login and registration screens.
*Hana FLV Player – Although it's rough around the edges, this plugin makes adding video to your website a breeze.
*Drain Hole – This neat little plugin protects your downloadable content so that you can restrict access to only logged in users. Non-members won't be able to “steal” your content even if they get access to a download link.
*Amazon S3 URL Generator – If you're using Amazon S3 to store your content (and it's a great place to put video and audio content) you may have read that you should give “Read Only” access to the “All Users” group. If you do that, anyone that gets a hold of your link can grab your content.
*Amazon S3 URL Generator is a simple plugin that creates a time-limited link to your S3 content.
*AWeber Registration Integration – Wouldn't it be nice if you could automatically add your membership site subscribers to one of your AWeber mailing lists? The author of this plugin thought so too... and created a very nice plugin that doesn't violate AWeber's Terms of Service. FAQ-Tastic – Adds a Frequently Asked Questions section to your membership site. FAQ-Tastic Lite is free and works great.
*FAQ-Tastic Pro is in the neighborhood of $50 USD and adds some very worthwhile features.
*Simple:Press – a superb forum plugin that does just about everything you'd want to do on a forum. WordPress has it's own forum software called bbPress – but it's not a plugin which means that it's not as deeply integrated into your WordPress site as Simple:Press is. Nicely done piece of code!
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
Friday, 26 March 2010
Setting Up Your Membership Site
Website Setup
Wow!
We've got a hungry market, we've got a winning concept, and we've got sizzling content. Now we need to get our website up and running.
This article is not a tutorial on how to setup a website or even how to install WordPress. I assume you know how to do that.
If you don't it's not tough to learn and there are plenty of tutorials available on the internet – in fact, I've included one as a resource to this article.
I will, however, provide a checklist – just to keep things moving forward this hour.
Step #1: Choose a name for your website.
Here you need to make a list of several different names that would describe what the main objective of your website and its theme is. Put the ones that have fewer than 20 letters in them at the top of your list.
Step#2: Find out what names are available.
Go to Godaddy.com or NameCheap.com and do a search beginning with the names you have chosen that have the fewest number of letters in them. Search until you find a suitable domain name.
Step #3: Register the domain name.
Godaddy.com or NameCheap.com are the two best. I use Godaddy.com but only because I've used them for years – starting when they were the unchallenged leader.
Step #4: Get a web hosting account.
Again, I use Godaddy because of my long relationship with them. But, HostGator.com is probably the industry leader for low-cost, quality hosting.
Step #5: Install WordPress on the web server.
You're going to use WordPress 'cause it is the simplest, most cost effective solution available.
Step #6: Set up payment processing.
Unless you have reason to do otherwise, go with Paypal or ClickBank. You need this
whether you are selling memberships, merchandise or both.
PayPal, of course, is free and all you really need to do is setup a Premium or Business account. ClickBank costs money ($49 for the first product) and requires you to setup products with product pages and “Thank You” pages. ClickBank, though, helps you recruit affiliates – which can greatly increase sales.
Wow!
We've got a hungry market, we've got a winning concept, and we've got sizzling content. Now we need to get our website up and running.
This article is not a tutorial on how to setup a website or even how to install WordPress. I assume you know how to do that.
If you don't it's not tough to learn and there are plenty of tutorials available on the internet – in fact, I've included one as a resource to this article.
I will, however, provide a checklist – just to keep things moving forward this hour.
Step #1: Choose a name for your website.
Here you need to make a list of several different names that would describe what the main objective of your website and its theme is. Put the ones that have fewer than 20 letters in them at the top of your list.
Step#2: Find out what names are available.
Go to Godaddy.com or NameCheap.com and do a search beginning with the names you have chosen that have the fewest number of letters in them. Search until you find a suitable domain name.
Step #3: Register the domain name.
Godaddy.com or NameCheap.com are the two best. I use Godaddy.com but only because I've used them for years – starting when they were the unchallenged leader.
Step #4: Get a web hosting account.
Again, I use Godaddy because of my long relationship with them. But, HostGator.com is probably the industry leader for low-cost, quality hosting.
Step #5: Install WordPress on the web server.
You're going to use WordPress 'cause it is the simplest, most cost effective solution available.
Step #6: Set up payment processing.
Unless you have reason to do otherwise, go with Paypal or ClickBank. You need this
whether you are selling memberships, merchandise or both.
PayPal, of course, is free and all you really need to do is setup a Premium or Business account. ClickBank costs money ($49 for the first product) and requires you to setup products with product pages and “Thank You” pages. ClickBank, though, helps you recruit affiliates – which can greatly increase sales.
Monday, 22 March 2010
Creating Your Content
Do it! Create Reports, Record Audio, Record Video(s)
There's not much for me to say here – it's time to just do it.
You're going to create your membership site content but you're also going to create videos to use in your promotional efforts.
Read through the free ebook from Joy Anderson that I've included in the resources area. In there she details a nifty marketing process using a squeeze page and a “free plus shipping offer”. This works great for promoting your website and you can record the videos for this process in 30 minutes or less.
Once you're done with that, you'll create your membership site content.
And in case you've forgotten, in these four hours you only need to finish the first module of content.
But, feel free to do more if you have time.
And, most importantly...
Have fun!
There's not much for me to say here – it's time to just do it.
You're going to create your membership site content but you're also going to create videos to use in your promotional efforts.
Read through the free ebook from Joy Anderson that I've included in the resources area. In there she details a nifty marketing process using a squeeze page and a “free plus shipping offer”. This works great for promoting your website and you can record the videos for this process in 30 minutes or less.
Once you're done with that, you'll create your membership site content.
And in case you've forgotten, in these four hours you only need to finish the first module of content.
But, feel free to do more if you have time.
And, most importantly...
Have fun!
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