I would like to switch focus onto membership sites today and do a mini- series on this very subject; so are Membership Sites a good alternative? I would say by the feedback that I get from the Big players are a resounding YES. A membership site transcends just about every area of interest that’s in demand from Fishing and Gardening to Training and mentoring courses. First off today I just want to draw attention to the different types of membership sites available and some of their appeal to the canny investor.

It’s like a money tree! Just one member paying $30.00 per month adds up to $360 a year; do the math, NICE.

Web 2.0 Websites

One type of membership website that you are very likely familiar with is the Web 2.0 sites like YouTube and MySpace. These are social networking sites that provide tools for an interactive network of friends and include user-submitted information as personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos.

Some of these social networking membership websites have come under fire recently because they have been shown to be play grounds for predators. Since these problems have arisen there is more scrutiny of members than there has been in the past. These sites are not likely to ‘go away’ any time soon in the future because they are hugely popular not to mention profitable.

Exclusivity Sites

Then there are paid exclusive sites like the UnselfishMarketer.com (an undisputed industry leader when it comes to delivering information products with PLR and Master Resell Rights), Golf sites (which are owned by professional golfers and offer instruction that isn’t readily available free on the Internet), and to many more to mention.

These exclusive membership websites are designed for specific people and appeal to a group of like-minded individuals who are seeking instruction or information that can only be had on exclusive membership websites.

They call the Internet the ‘information super highway’ but these exclusive membership websites really do make the information super and the information that is provided is far superior to just the regular stuff that everybody gets for free.

Getting Free Members – Building Lists

Not all membership websites are paid-for; apart from the Web 2.0 sites there is another kind of membership website that is free. One such site is PLRSecretsExposed.com. There is no charge for the membership to this site.

The objective of a free membership website is to acquire the names and email addresses of people who are interested in a specific topic in order to build an opt-in list. Still this is a membership website, and unless a visitor joins the site, they will not have access to some really good information that is not otherwise available.

Community-Driven Membership

This is yet another kind of membership website that is known as a “community site” or a Forum. Membership in a community site is usually free but depending on its area of interest can be a paid membership. magneticsponsoring.com is an example of a community membership website.

The idea of a community website is that there are a group of people who are all interested in the same basic topic but who go about accomplishing success in various ways. They get together at a community website and exchange information and ideas. Sometimes community websites will offer one-on-one training above and beyond the cost of membership in the community website.

What All Membership Sites Have in Common

Membership websites of all kinds have one thing in common. They allow for social and beneficial interaction between members. The old Web 1.0 was a one-way street but in this fast moving world, communication flows in both directions.

You will notice that on all of the various types of membership websites there is a blog or a forum that affords a place for members to communicate not only with the owner of the membership website but also with other members.

The communication opportunities afforded by membership sites is one of the biggest reasons that membership sites are so popular today and probably will be popular for a long time to come. People want to hear but they also want to be heard. They want to learn but they have information to share with others as well. Membership websites provide a place for the sharing of ideas and information.

So to conclude this first entry, there are many different kinds of membership sites and different people will take to many kinds of membership sites. If you are considering starting your own membership website, the good news is that there will be people who will like it and want to be members.

Membership websites are popular and membership websites are profitable. Recurring income is a powerful motivation to start one!

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

In today’s post I want to talk about Hosting and the cost; as opposed to the multitude of free services which are hosted on their own respective servers. The whole idea of the World Wide Web is to bring as many services to the public as possible which is without doubt a good thing. The big giants of the internet industry do have a stranglehold in this area and so make it very appealing to the masses especially the newbies or for people who don’t have the technical knowledge on how to upload files and instigate a number of other tasks only possible with self hosting.

At the moment there is huge interest in web 2.0 with its changing trends in particular with the use of social media. But web 2.0 goes much further in development with rapidly growing ranks of designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who are embracing the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies. So with all this new development comes new ways in which people from all walks of life can do a lot more with free or self hosted services.

(Side note) We mustn’t forget our privacy in all this excitement; these free services do come at a price, depending on your settings just about every spammer can grab your email details and a lot more.

There are many ways that we can use these free services to generate income, and depending which direction you want to take can be quite profitable. Let’s look at Blogger for instance, for a start Google allows you to benefit from placing its own ads in different formats (contextual ect”) but you will also be able to insert various other revenue based methods like Amazon or other affiliate programs. The process of integration is made very easy by drawing on the use of APIs so that the migration is smooth. So there is no doubt that you can do very nicely, and depending on your direction you can bring in earnings through a variety of ways.   As well as the established blog providers you also have the established social network platforms and a plethora of blog providers, but there are all different levels of what you can and what you can’t do with your blog; rules rules rules!

Hosting your own WordPress Blog has many benefits, the main one being the amount of extra plugins you can use. The list of plugins is endless but some of the more useful ones for example the all in one seo pack and the Google XML sitemap generator are indispensable; The beauty of   the whole system is that is completely automated with among others the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin, as an example this blog is only a month old and already has a respectable Alexa traffic rank and i dare say will have a Google rank in due course. There are many other plugins that extend your WordPress blogs functionality with all kinds of special effects. WordPress.org

I think advertisers take you more seriously if you have your own domain. On WordPress.com– you cannot run paid ads. If the blog is for business–also it helps with the overall promotion of your business site and attracts more visitors through search engines because of the dynamic nature of the blog. A dot com domain is the best thing a blog can have for branding purposes. People won’t remember “yourname.bloghost.com” - but they will remember” yourname.com”. This is the case with me - 15% of my visitors come directly to my site because its name is easily remembered and pretty unique.

The bottom line is you can do a whole lot more if you self host your blog, especially if you want to draw traffic and gain revenue from advertisers. What do you think? I bet there are some bloggers out there who use providers and are quite happy as opposed to self hosters who are deliriously happy with their blogs.