You Should Consider WordPress Or Joomla As An Inexpensive And Easy-To-Use Platform When Trying To Build Membership Sites.

This is not meant to be a tutorial on how to build a membership site. It is meant to give you information on platforms such as Joomla and WordPress that can easily be used to create membership sites.

It is also meant to give you information on components, plugins, and custom themes that you can use to accomplish the task with minimal cost and effort.

First of all though, why would you even want to have a membership site? The answer, of course, is that owning memberships sites can earn you a recurring monthly income. That means money in your bank account…..month after month after month.

Some reasons to start a membership site…..

• You have a book or ebook with some really great content that people would be interested in. Rather than try to sell the book or ebook as a one-time sale, break it up into sections and put it on a membership site, giving members access to one chapter or section each month. So, rather than sell 100 copies at $37 each and making $3700, charge 100 people $9.95 per month and give them a chapter each month for 12 months. Do the math on that and see what you come up with.




• You don’t really feel that you could sit down and spend several months, or years, writing a complete book or ebook and put it up for sale, but you could sit down each month and write a really good article to put on your membership site. That approach takes less time initally, and gives you a recurring income each month right off the bat.




• You want a site that gives you a captive audience that you can sell other products to each month. Affiliate products, other ebooks you own, adsense ads, all are opportunities to make even more money from your membership site members.




• You have knowledge or expertise in a subject or area that other people are interested in. People are willing to pay to belong to a group of like-minded people. Membership sites have been started on subjects such as:




• Cabin Enthusiasts,




• Fly Fishing Enthusiasts,




• Wedding Professionals,




• Cruise Ship Workers,




• Magic Enthusiasts,




• Acupuncture Professionals,




• Digital Photo and Video Enthusiasts,




• Travel Lovers,




• Golden Retriever Owners,




• Ferret Owners,




• Gambling Information Seekers,




• Religious Groups,




• Philosophy Lovers,




• Art Lovers,




• Home Builders,




• Dress Makers,




• Car Salespeople ,




• Cross-Stitch Enthusiasts,




• and on-and-on….

Trouble is though, building a membership site from scratch can be intimidating, even impossible, for a lot of people.

However, with the right instructions and a helping hand, you can easily do it using either Joomla or WordPress as the platform.

Since both are free applications, and components and plugins are readily available for both, you can do it for very low cost.

Video tutorials are available that will show you step by step how to setup your own membership site. You may choose to use free components or plugins to create a basic membership site. You also may choose to create a more advanced membership site using components or plugins that are available at very reasonable prices considering the advanced features they offer.

Detailed step by step video tutorials can show anyone, regardless of experience level, how to create a membership site that can possibly produce an ongoing and sizable income .

You can learn how to install your choice of Joomla or WordPress, and then be shown how to install and configure the necessary components or plugins to convert it into a paid membership site.

Creating a recurring monthly income is an established method that really does work. It is used extensively by many successful and savvy marketers.

Still not sure you can do it, even with detailed instructions? Don’t worry – it is easier than you think.

Picture this scenario – you make ten sales today for $47.00. OK, you made $470.00. Not bad at all. Now imagine that you have a membership site and you make those same ten sales, and they sign up for your monthly membership. You made the same $470 today, plus you rake in $47 per month, per member, for as long as your customers remain members. If they only remain members for four months, you just made $1810 over the four months for the same amount of effort on your part. Meanwhile you continue to make daily sales and your recurring monthly income grows and grows and grows. You are now well on your way to creating a sizable and dependable monthly income.

So, what are the problems you will need to overcome in order to accomplish this?

First…..how do you keep track of your customer activity? You have customers joining every day and some of them unsubscribe from time to time. Keeping track of this can be a big job if you don’t know how to do it the easy way.

Second…..collecting payments can be difficult. You need a choice of ways for your customers to pay for their membership. Without that you limit your chances for success. The solution sounds simple – buy some software to do it all for you. The big problem with that is that software that runs membership sites can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. That is a big problem for a lot of people just starting out.

So…..what is the solution that will allow a person to build a membership site at a reasonable cost, possibly even free?


Let’s Consider Joomla First…..

There is a video tutorial available showing How To Create A Membership Site Using Joomla 1.5 and at a very reasonable cost and it will show you exactly, step by step, how to install Joomla 1.5 and then configure it to be a paid membership site. The components you will need to accomplish this task are either free or very reasonably priced, so you will be able to have a membership site up and running at very low cost.

If you want to go first class and use a professionally designed Joomla template that will make your site stand out above the rest, then take a look at the Joomla templates available at RocketTheme.com.

As mentioned, the components are free or reasonably priced, but that doesn’t mean a lack of features. Look at what you can do using Joomla and the membership software (generally known as components in Joomla).

* Integrated Subscription Handling using the following payment processors: Paycom. CCBill, Paypal, Paypal Subscriptions, epsNetpay, 2Checkout, Authorize.net, Paysgnet, Allopas, Alertpay, Viaklx and more.

* Up To Four Membership Levels. You have the means to offer several different levels of membership to your clients thus increasing your possible profits.

* Integrated Document And File Handling. No worries. Your subscribers can only access the files they paid for and are entitled to receive.

* Integrated Forum. Create your own member forum so your subscribers can talk over items of interest with each other.

* Trial Memberships. Set up trial memberships so your members can take a test drive before they buy.

The above mentioned video tutorial is a seven part video series based on the new Joomla 1.5 series, and it takes you step by step through the whole process. It takes you from knowing nothing about Joomla or putting together a membership site to being somewhat of an authority at it.

And For You WordPress Enthusiasts…..

If you just want a good basic membership site built using WordPress, then there is a video tutorial that will show you How To Build A Membership Site Using WordPress And Free Plugins.

If you want a more advanced and full-featured membership site, then you will want to consider using either YourMember WordPress Membership Site Plugin or Digital Access Pass which works with WordPress as well as regular HTML web sites, and is loaded with features to power a full-blown membership site.

As with Joomla, there are custom templates available for WordPress.

You can purchase templates custom designed to create a professional quality web site themed to almost any type business you can imagine, from real estate to grunge to ecommerce to news sites, you name it and it is probably available to make your site stand above the rest. Check out what’s available in WordPress Custom Themes And Templates

So whether you prefer using Joomla or you prefer using WordPress, there is step by step training available, and there is a choice of components and plugins and templates available to allow you to build a great looking membership site at a very reasonable cost, possibly even free.