Welcome back!

Earlier this year, Wired Magazine ran a piece on Google’s algorithm. That piece focused on the manner in which the algorithm has evolved since the late 1990s. In the early years, major algo changes were deployed once a month (roughly). These days, changes occur much more frequently. According to Matt Cutts, one of the most prolific Google engineers, hundreds of changes happened in 2009 alone.

Recently, Google unleashed their Mayday update. This is a big one. Cutts has publicly stated it’s going to stick for the long run. Today, I’ll explain exactly what the Mayday update means for your search positions (and traffic!), and three things you should start doing as soon as possible.

Driving Search Traffic Through The Long Tail

If you’re doing SEO, there’s a good chance you’re pulling organic search traffic by ranking for long tails. For example, rather than building a page for “dog food,” you may be optimizing it for “dog food for active puppies.” The individual long-tail keywords attract small trickles of targeted traffic. Together, the trickles add up to a stream. Convert the stream and you can make thousands of dollars each month with affiliate sales, Adsense sites, or your own information products.

The Mayday update affects the long tail of search. For this reason, it’s bound to hit a lot of internet marketers where it hurts the most: their organic traffic.

First, a quick clarification. Mayday is a change to Google’s ranking algorithm, not the algorithms used for crawling and indexing your pages. In Cutts’s own words, Mayday is “an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries.”

So, what does “higher quality” mean? Google has always been upfront in showing their preference for content-heavy sites (e.g. About.com). But it’s worth noting the thematic portion of their ranking algorithm is not the main lever they use to determine quality. They use inbound links from authoritative – or credible – sites.

This has been the case for years, but the Mayday update has thrust this to the forefront of ranking your long-tail pages. If you have recently noticed your long-tail traffic dropping, it’s time to make some changes.

3 Actions You Should Take Today

Typically, whenever Google deploys a major update (for example, Caffeine), it’s a good idea to watch the results before making a move. This is because they test, tweak, and make changes before rolling out to all of their datacenters. Occasionally, they even back out large pieces of the update. Mayday is different. The changes we’re seeing in the results today are likely to stick or become more pronounced. With that in mind, here are the three steps to take today…

#1 – Expand Your Content

If you have 200 words on a page, you’re going to need much more if you hope to rank in the future. If you’re building database sites or product-focused ecommerce sites (e.g. Amazon.com), make sure your individual pages are loaded with plenty of thematic, high-quality content.

Here’s the litmus test: ask yourself whether a visitor is better off for visiting and reading your page. If not, consider adding heft to your content.

#2 – Build Links To Your Internal Pages

Inbound links to your site’s internal pages have been important as a ranking factor for years. However, the Mayday update increases the priority. Whether you’re using social media sites, article directories, blogs, or press releases to build links, make sure you include “deep links” to your site’s pages. This is a major facet in how Google determines quality.

You should read Here my post on Getting Backlinks to your site.

#3 – Watch The Top Search Positions

Assuming you’re watching your traffic numbers (and if you’re not, you should be), you may have noticed some of your long-tail pages’ positions dropping due to Mayday. Take a look at the pages in the search results that have overtaken your rankings. Chances are, they have more inbound links from sites that Google considers credible. If you intend to reclaim your positions, this is the place to start.

The Mayday update is opening the door for a lot of internet marketers. For every page that plummets in the rankings, another climbs to take its spot. Focus on high-quality content; build deep links to internal pages; and watch the search results for your targeted long tails. Months from now, you’ll look at your organic traffic stats and be glad you took these steps.

P.S.  If  you are looking for a a great starter source into Search Engine Marketing then you should Read My Seo Skills Manual. A great starter guide into Seo.  Click Here For my Seo Book!

This is something we should have addressed earlier in the year. But better late than never.

If you have been involved in online marketing for more than a couple of years, you’re familiar with how quickly things change. Marketing strategies that burst onto the scene a few years ago are less effective today. Search engine   optimization tactics that worked phenomenally well in 2008 barely have an impact these days.

If you’re not evolving with these changes, you’ll be left behind.

Today, I’m going to reveal the top 5 online marketing trends for 2010. Can you make money online while ignoring them? Of course. But if you keep the following trends in mind, you’ll make more money while attracting a growing legion of happier customers and affiliates.

#1 – ROI Takes Center Stage

ROI has always been more important than traffic. Bringing 5,000 visitors to your site each day means very little unless they’re buying something or clicking an ad. Likewise, if you’re using PPC to drive traffic, your backend must be able to monetize that traffic over your click costs.

Over the last few years, marketers have realized that traffic does not necessarily mean profit. This trend is going to escalate further as marketers begin to refine their strategies. We’ll see this happening in email, search marketing, social media, and every other channel.

#2 – Local Search Continues To Grow

Local SEO started to gather steam a few years ago. At the time, a lot of the old school search experts ignored it, thinking it was a waste. They’re paying attention now. And so are their clients.

If you’re targeting a location-based niche or you’re doing SEO work for clients, you’ll need to master local search. Many of the same strategies you use to rank your sites in Google’s broad index can be used for their local index. But there are also a host of other tactics exclusive to local SEO. This area is going to heat up.

#3 – Online Marketing Drills Into Micro-Niches

Niches are much easier to serve than trying to appeal to the masses. They’re also easier to target and approach. For example, the weight loss space is more difficult to penetrate than the “losing pregnancy weight after having a baby” niche.

Get ready for your niches to shrink. Tight niches will become tighter. Small niches will contract to micro size. Start thinking about where your market spends its time and create your strategy for reaching them.

This is an exciting trend. Targeting a wide niche is like being a small fish in a large pond. Controlling a micro-niche is like having a small pond to yourself. There’s a lot of money to made there.

Rosalind Gardner offers excellent information on niche marketing and making a income online with her Super Affiliate Handbook  Click Here to Read More About it.

#4 – Site Buying And Selling Accelerates

In a recent post, I mentioned that you can buy your way into the top search positions by purchasing aged, authoritative sites. This happens more frequently than a lot of online marketers realize. In fact, marketplace sites like Flippa.com are attracting more attention than ever.

Even though this buying and selling activity has been going on for several years, most of it has been under the radar. That’s already changing. You’re going to witness a flood of people rushing to pick up sites. However, rather than merely buying old sites for quick search positions, marketers will begin picking them up as cash-generating properties (similar to real estate).

For more information on selling see my post on how to Flip Sites for Money.

#5 – Social Media Focuses On Metrics

When social media marketing first launched out of the gates, everyone with a Facebook account seemed to be an expert. At the time, nobody had the numbers to prove what they were saying, so there was very little accountability.

This too, has begun to change. Social media is maturing and the focus has shifted to the metrics. This means the field of “experts” will begin thinning out as true professionals in the space emerge. They’re the ones to watch.

Online marketing has been evolving from the beginning. But its evolution is about to be thrown into high gear. Keep your eyes on the trends in today’s post and find a way to integrate them into your marketing plan. As I said earlier, there’s a lot of money to be made.

P.S. – You Should read my Review of Socialnomics By Erik Qualman and for more information on niche marketing see the Niche Affiliate Marketing Workshop

Hopefully, you’re already blogging. I’ve includes plenty of tutorials that will give you a jumpstart toward launching your own blog, attracting readers, and making money from your effort. As I’ve mentioned before, the linchpin to thriving as a blogger is to provide your readers with a continuous stream of high-value content. But, what if you could recycle, repackage, and update that content, and sell it through information products and membership sites?

While they don’t actively promote the fact, this is exactly what many of the top marketers do to build their information empires.

Building an online business that generates income through info-products and membership sites involves a lot of different skills. Writing, video production, marketing, search engine optimization, affiliate promotions, payment processing, upsells and cross-sells… there’s a lot to consider. Today, we’ll focus on two small areas: price points and affiliates. You’re about to discover why the top online marketers gravitate toward selling information.

Low Versus High Price Points

Here’s a rule of thumb that is seldom proven wrong: you’ll make more money by charging higher prices for your information. You’ll also experience fewer customer service issues.

For example, suppose you create a membership site for dog owners and charge $5 a month. Further suppose that you build a relatively stable base of 600 members. You’re grossing $3,000 a month from a single site. Not bad. The problem is, at that revenue level, you’re likely running the site (i.e. creating content, handling customer service issues, etc.) on your own. You’re not netting enough to hire a staff. That’s a lot of effort with very slim margins.

Let’s take a look at a model that uses a higher price point.

Suppose you charge $27 a month for access to your membership site. At that price point, you would only need 111 members to generate $3,000 each month. And it wouldn’t take much effort to double that revenue base and hire others to handle the daily operations. Moreover, you’ll find that higher prices tend to attract customers and members who require less support.

But, there’s something else to think about…

It is extremely difficult to establish yourself as an authority in your field when you’re only charging $5 a month. And if you can’t establish your “preeminence,” (a concept Jay Abraham uses), you’ll have a hard time cross-selling information products and consulting services.

To sum it up, the more you charge for your info-products and access to your membership sites…

1. the more money you’ll make

2. the fewer support issues you’ll have

3. the easier you’ll find it to establish your authority in your field.

Affiliates: The Key To Growing Your Information Business

Affiliates are the key to nearly all types of online businesses, but they’re indispensable when you’re promoting your info-products and membership sites. A lot of online info-marketers are loath to give up commissions because they’re afraid that doing so will lower their profits.

In reality, the reverse is true.

Imagine the traction you would gain if the top dog-related sites and bloggers regularly promoted your information products and membership sites. You would enjoy a continuous stream of traffic. That means more customers and members (not to mention opt-ins). The only way that will happen is if you cultivate an affiliate base and offer a healthy commission.

The alternative is to promote your information business on your own. That not only limits your profit, but it exposes you to volatility. While your search engine optimization efforts will bear fruit, a single change in the ranking algorithm can cut off your traffic. What’s more, if you’re using PPC to drive people to your sales pages, an increase in bid prices can likewise affect your traffic.

There will always be an insatiable appetite for high-value content. That lays the foundation for building an information empire with info-products and membership sites. The two things you should take away from today’s post are…

1. charge higher prices

2. attract affiliates

If you do both of the above, you’ll find there are few limits to the amount of money you can make with your content. And that gives you the freedom that makes being an internet marketer so rewarding.

P.S. Dont forget to check out Jimmys Report here on to make money with small reports for maximum profit!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exploring dozens of sales websites to keep track of what other internet marketers are doing to promote their products. I was surprised. Most of the sites I stumbled across seemed to be long-form sales letters. In a lot of cases, there were a few articles sprinkled on the domains, but otherwise, content was sparse.

From reading this blog, you know I take a slightly contrarian view of online marketing. While single-page long form sales copy is extremely effective in a few tight niches, creating a truly successful sales website requires a finer touch. A lot of the $100,000-a-month Clickbank bestsellers move volume on the efforts of affiliates. Today, I’ll give you a roadmap for building a sales site that gains momentum over the long run, with or without affiliates.

Personal Site Versus A Separate Sales Site

I’ve seen two types of sites promoting products: personal and sales sites. Neither are new. Most of the personal sites are blogs that include links for products that lead to exclusive landing pages on the same domain. For example, a marketer might promote her ebook on myblog.com/buy-my-ebook.html.

Most of the sales sites seem to be one long page of copy with blurbs, testimonials, and bonuses strewn throughout. At the bottom of the sales page, there might be a link to a few free articles, which are actually pre-sells for the product.

So, which is better?

I recommend using both approaches – with a few changes. You should have a blog through which you connect with your audience, and a site devoted to promoting your product. If you have multiple products, get a new domain for each one.

Here’s the important part: you need to link these sites together. The folks who read your blog should be able to click out to your sales site while visitors to your sales site should be able to click out to your blog. Your sites should converge into a cohesive network.

For example, take a look at marksdailyapple.com. Mark runs his blog from that domain and moves his readers to a landing page on the same domain that pre-sells his book, “The Primal Blueprint.” However, if you visit that landing page, you’ll notice he sends people to a separate sales site (primalblueprint.com) to buy the book. That sales site links back to his blog.

Tim Ferris does something similar with his bestseller, “The 4-Hour Workweek.” However, in his case, he’s running his blog on his sales site (fourhourworkweek.com) and sending his readers to Amazon.com to buy his book.

You’ll also notice that Jimmy Brown uses his blog (jimmybrown.com) as a hub with links to separate sales sites for each of his products. The one thing that’s missing from Jimmy’s network is a link back to his blog from each of his sales sites.

Open The Floodgates By Providing Value

Let’s suppose you have a blog and you’ve created a separate sales website to promote your product. You’ve connected the two in your growing network. Here’s where a lot of online marketers stumble. They fail to provide real value to their readers and visitors.

For example, every blog post is a thinly veiled promotion for their product. Or, the articles on their sales site are written to sell rather than engage the reader. This may work for awhile, but it’s a doomed strategy over the long run. Here’s why:

One of the most dependable tenets of online marketing is that people are distracted very easily. If you fail to give your blog readers something they find valuable (i.e. informative, entertaining, insightful, etc.), they will go elsewhere. That means sales of your product will decline unless you funnel new readers into your blog on a continuous basis.

Take another look at marksdailyapple.com. Notice the value Mark is giving to his readers. They come back because he engages them and gives them something of value. It’s a safe bet plenty of those folks have gone to his sales site to buy his book. Moreover, because of the value he gives them on his blog, they’re likely telling others about him through their social networks.

For more information on providing please read:  Keys to Successful Blogging!

Sales websites that stand alone, disconnected from a personal voice that offers value, cannot match those that are part of a cohesive network. If you haven’t already done so, launch your blog. Promote your product on a separate domain. Then, connect them and start giving your visitors something that will encourage them to return and tell others about you.

P.S.  Learning to create sites that sell and convert can take time but it does not have to, learn the steps implement and wash and repeat.

Secrets About Membership Sites

Today, let’s continue talking about how you can make money with membership sites. You’ve probably noticed that membership sites and continuity programs have exploded in popularity. Sometimes, it seems as if marketer has one. There’s a good reason: they can drive a reliable income stream, month after month.

The problem is, very few marketers know how to truly maximize the revenue they generate from their membership sites. Driving people to your landing page and converting them to paid subscribers is one thing. And to be sure, the income stream can be very healthy if you do it correctly. But, there are secrets to dramatically increasing that income that are seldom talked about.

I’ll share three of them with you below.

#1 – Charge Higher Prices

Most membership site owners are shy about raising their subscription prices. They often convince themselves that if they charge more, their current subscribers will drop away while fewer visitors will come aboard. In reality, the more you charge, the greater value people will place on your content. There is a price ceiling, of course, based on your market. Options traders will pay far more than gardeners.

The key is to realize that people will nearly always pay more than you think for something they consider valuable. If you’re charging $7 a month for access to your membership site, subscribers will likely pay $17. If you’re charging $17, they’ll usually pay $27.

You’ll need to test the price level at which you’re generating the most revenue. Charging higher subscription rates may reduce the number of subscribers while catapulting your income. If you’re already operating a membership site, raise your prices for new subscribers while keeping rates level for your current subscribers. That will give you a great testing platform.

Membership Residual is awesome platform to teach you how to create your own membership site. -  click here to see it.

#2 – Email More Frequently

If you don’t have an email list for potential subscribers, you should start one. If you already have a list, there’s a good chance you should be emailing it more frequently.

A lot of membership site owners are loathe to email their lists because they’re afraid subscribers will complain or unsubscribe. First, some might. That’s okay. There are a lot of people that would unsubscribe even if you emailed winning lottery numbers to them. Let them go.

Second, frequent emails will give subscribers a higher level of familiarity with you, your knowledge, and the value of your membership site. The more familiar they are, the more likely they will be to join your site.

Keep in mind that not every email needs to be a sales job. A quick tip or link to a related piece of content may be plenty. The key is to build the relationship. There’s nothing wrong with emailing your list every day, especially if you’re offering something of value. Those who don’t want to receive the emails will unsubscribe.

#3 – Give Them A Reason To Take Action

This is a copywriting rule that should be aggressively applied to your membership site. Regardless of how valuable your paid content is, you’ll need to give people an urgent reason to join. You could be offering the secret recipe to KFC’s special herbs and spices and many people will still refuse to budge without urgency.

There are several ways you can motivate your visitors and email subscribers to take action. You can use time-sensitive discounts (for example, “join in the next 48 hours for 30% off the normal monthly rate”). You can also offer a Special Report or similar product for a limited time. Another strategy is to open your membership site to new subscribers for a short window. Those who don’t act quickly enough are forced to wait until the next window.

Your prospects will always be tempted to procrastinate before joining. Giving them a sense of urgency solves that problem.

Creating your membership site and filling it with high-quality content is the easy part. Motivating people to join and maximizing your income stream is a little more difficult. There is such enormous potential to make money with membership sites that we’ll return to them again in the future.

P.S. Memberships sites are not that hard to create and I am making one as we speak,  be sure to click here to learn how to create your own —– Start A Membership Site.

Set The Price Of Your Membership Site

Back in February, I gave you a 5-step blueprint that explained the basics of how to make money with membership sites. One of the steps is to create your pricing structure. Today, we’re going to explore this area in more detail.

Let me clarify one important point before we get started…

People will always be willing to pay for something they believe to hold value for their lives. It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to miss a few key implications. First, the ceiling price you can charge for access to your membership site will depend heavily on how others perceive the value of your information.

Second, your sales copy has a major influence on that perceived value – and by extension, the price you can charge.

Third, your price point is a reflection of your revenue model. Some membership site owners rely solely on monthly subscription fees for revenue. Others promote products to their members.

See My Post here on Reasons why you should create a continuity program.

On that note, let’s start with the decision to charge a fee, offer free access, or use a combination of the two.

Fee, Free, Or Both?

Offering free access may seem counter intuitive. But, there’s a good reason to do so: the majority of people who visit your landing page will not pay to subscribe to your site. That’s true with any product. People need to gain a level of comfort with the information you’re offering to them. They need to develop a sense of its perceived value for their lives. By providing them with limited, free access to your membership site, you can gradually entice them to upgrade to a paid subscription.

This is the same concept that is behind free special reports, ebooks, webinars, and podcasts. The idea is to encourage people to think, “Wow! I get all of this for free? Imagine what I’ll get when I join!”

I recommend that you create a pricing structure that offers multiple levels of access (free and fee). That allows you to perpetually promote your paid subscription levels to your free-access members. Many of them will eventually upgrade.

You should See Jimmy D Browns Information here on  Creating Your Own Membership Site in 48 hours!

Offer Multiple Payment Plans

A lot of membership site owners only offer a monthly payment plan. That’s a mistake. You should offer quarterly and annual subscriptions, too. First, every membership site experiences attrition within their subscriber base. If you charge your members’ credit cards (or their Paypal accounts) monthly, they’ll have more opportunities to reconsider their subscription. If you charge quarterly or annually, you remove those opportunities.

Second, people enjoy having options – it’s hardwired into us. Given the choice between three payment plans, most people will choose the middle plan. For example, suppose your pricing structure looks like the following…

Monthly = $19.95
Quarterly = $49.95
Annually = $169.95

You’ll find that a lot of people will choose the Quarterly plan. And not necessarily because it makes the most sense for their personal circumstances. They’ll choose it because they’re psychologically “wired” to think it’s the best deal.

As you know, most internet marketing strategies are based on psychology. This is a good example.

Why You Should Avoid Offering Lifetime Access

Years ago, a lot of membership site owners were using a “pay once for lifetime access” pricing model. That’s a bad idea. Unless your membership site is merely a façade to build an email list, giving lifetime access severely limits your long-term revenue stream. The initial surge in subscription fees may seem attractive, but you’ll be forced to seed your site with valuable content over the long run.

The only way this pricing model can work is if you’re driving a continuous torrent of traffic that pays the initial fee. Otherwise, you’ll be working just as hard down the road after your revenue stream has dried up. Like I said, it’s a bad idea.

Test Relentlessly

Every element of your membership site’s pricing model must be tested. That is the only way you’ll know whether you’re generating as much revenue as possible. Test your price points, subscription levels, discounts, and incentives. You’ll want to identify their effects on your conversion rate, retention rate, and overall revenue.

For example, suppose that changing your monthly price from $19.95 to $14.95 lifts your average retention rate from 4 months to 7 months. As long as your conversion rate stays the same, you’ll generate more revenue.

Setting the price for your membership site isn’t simple. But, if you start from the right place and continue to test everything, you’ll find that pricing plays a key role in your site’s profitability.

P.S.

Click here for Part One of why you Should Create a Continuity Program for your Business

Click here for Part Two of Making Money With Membership Sites.

I would love to hear your thoughts below with a comment if this is something you are thinking about doing.

I want to work with you to show you step by step how to make Every Day you Saturday!

Yes, I recently got back from a seminar held here in my hometown in Orlando, FL and I got to hear and meet some people amazing people.

Some of the people I met was Lynn terry, Nicole Dean, and Bob the Teacher. I also got to catch up with some old friends like Brian Mcelroy and Willie Crawford!

But one new Person I got to meet and hear speak was Sam Crowley! When I say this man is genius he is Freaken Brilliant!!!!!!

Click here and See For Yourself!  Six Days To Saturday

A man that came from nothing and turned his whole life all around all off a couple of words from his daughter. A true motivational speaker indeed. Now this guy practices what he preaches and lives and breathes every word of it. I was so touched by his speaking that I made him a video testimonial about Six Days to Saturday!

That is way I want to share with you all that he shared with us for free, which is something I paid for!

Go here now and learn as I did how you get moving on the road to success and be shown step by step how to make every day your Saturday!

Click here and See For Yourself! Six Days To Saturday Here.

To much Success.

Would you be willing to help me out with my Internet Marketing survey, it would be greatly appreciated.

I will be using the information to better serve you the reader.

Thank you

How To Harness The Power Of Internet Viral Marketing with Article Marketing.

Article marketing has been one of the most popular free internet marketing strategies for years. Originally, it was used to gain exposure to target audiences through email newsletters. The strategy has changed significantly since then.

Today, article marketing can be used to build your brand, gain powerful incoming links to your websites, and ultimately, drive targeted traffic. Unfortunately, most marketers are failing to harness its true power.

Today, I’m going to explain how you can use internet viral marketing with article marketing to build a growing funnel of free, targeted, traffic to your website. I’ll describe some of the best ways to use the strategy and why its potential is largely underestimated.

Getting More Exposure

People look online for information; their appetite is insatiable. They’ll search Google for anything that is related to their problem or passion. If they find an article that you’ve written which informs or entertains them, they’ll remember your name. If they stumble upon several articles that you’ve written, their memory will continue to build. Before long, they’ll begin searching Google specifically for your content.

This is the point at which most article marketers allow the opportunity to slip through their fingers. They focus solely upon submitting their content to article directories. You can increase your exposure tenfold by distributing your content elsewhere.

For example, popular blogs in your market might accept guest blog posts. Associations that are related to your website’s topic might accept articles on their site. Online stores are often starved for well-written content. Each of these websites are an opportunity for you to spread your name wider for more exposure.

Building Incoming Links

It’s impossible to ignore the value of article marketing in building inbound links to your site. It’s one of the most effective search engine optimization strategies that you can leverage. But, once again, most marketers fail to use their content to its greatest potential. After submitting their article to as many directories as they can find, they shelve its distribution.

That’s an enormous mistake.

The search engines look at your website’s link profile in order to judge its value compared to other sites in your market. The greater the number of related websites that link to your own, the more valuable they consider your site. Article marketing, when used properly, leverages this factor in the search engines’ algorithm. By distributing your content across many different types of properties (as opposed to only article directories), the breadth of your link profile grows.

Closing The Circle

There is one critical piece that can sabotage your article marketing campaigns: poorly-written content. For years, thousands of marketers have shoved millions of badly-crafted articles onto the internet. The popularity of blogging has worsened the problem since anyone with a keyboard can participate. The result has been a growing lack of confidence among readers.

You can use this to your advantage.

Imagine feeling exhausted and frustrated after a fruitless search for compelling content about your passion. Suddenly, you uncover a well-written article that you enjoy reading. Chances are, you’ll remember the author’s name and visit her website.

You can be that author. And when you’re taking the time to distribute well-written content to a variety of popular sites and blogs, you’ll gain a loyal following. Exposure, links, and targeted traffic… that’s how you harness the true power of internet viral marketing with article marketing.

There’s another element that you can add to in order unleash the potential of your content. We’ll cover that soon.

5 Steps To Making Money With Membership Sites

There are several ways in which you can make money online. The goal of this post is to introduce you to proven and innovative marketing strategies that will generate income. Today, we’re going to explore how you can make money with membership sites.

There are a number of powerful advantages to operating one or more membership sites. You can enjoy a predictable income, devote yourself to your paid membership base, and promote related products to an audience who trusts you.

Plus, through smart outsourcing, you can build a portfolio of subscription-based sites, scaling your income in the process. In today’s post, I’ll give you a 5-step blueprint for making money with your own membership site.

Step 1: Developing Your Reputation

The most common mistake I’ve observed others making is launching their membership site without first building their reputation as an expert. Even though you can attract members solely through PPC and search engine optimization strategies, your success will be limited. If you can develop a loyal fan base through a blog, forum participation, or even a weekly newsletter, you can launch far more successfully.

Step 2: Marketing Through The Funnel

You’ve likely heard of the sales funnel. It’s a proven internet marketing strategy that is used to qualify your audience and motivate them through the sales cycle. One of the most effective ways to use it in marketing your membership site is through an email list. By focusing the content of your emails on topics that interest your prospective members, you can disqualify those who aren’t interested while pushing others further through the funnel toward joining.

Step 3: Lining Up Your Tools

You’ll need software to build your membership site, a payment processor that can handle recurring payments, and a few other tools, depending upon your plans for content creation.

There are a number of robust software solutions that you can choose to build your site, such as aMember and MemberGate. You can also find free scripts online, but you’re better off using a proven application with reliable tech support.

Next, select a payment processor. You can use PayPal, ClickBank, 2Checkout, or your own merchant account. In my opinion, PayPal is a fantastic choice because it’s cost-effective and fits seamlessly with most high-quality membership site management software.

Finally, you’ll need to determine how you intend to deliver content to your members. You might choose a forum (for example, vBulletin), video production, or weekly webinars. The key is finding the tools you’ll need ahead of time so that you’re not scrambling when you launch your site.

Step 4: Creating Your Price Structure

The subscription price that you charge your members will depend upon several factors. First, realize upfront that a lot of your members will cancel their memberships. Most of the high-profile membership sites build retention rates into their pricing formula. Also, your price structure should represent the perceived value of the content you provide for your members.

You’ll also need to consider your market (some markets are willing to pay more than others) and the amount of income you’d like to generate. Obviously, charging $2.95 a month with only 500 members won’t generate much income (unless you’re operating a dozen such membership sites).

Step 5: Launching Your Membership Site

Finally, the launch. To truly explode out of the gate with hundreds of members, you should treat the launch of your membership site as you would any product launch. That includes building anticipation in your space as well as attracting affiliates and keeping them excited. We’ve touched on product launches before and we’ll do so again in the future. The important thing to remember is that launching your membership site properly will not only generate more income, but it will also provide valuable conversion data on your sales page.

I’ve given you a proven 5-step blueprint for making money with membership sites. We’ll cover the above steps in more detail in future posts. For now, understand that subscription-based sites have the potential for generating a high level of reliable income.