GRAPHIC DESIGN SOFTWARE FREE :Managing a membership website is one of the most exciting, rewarding and profitable 'jobs' you can do. However, like any business, you need to go into it with your eyes wide open.
101 Things You Should reconsider Before starting a Membership Website
Having watched hundreds of online publisher's launch their websites, I have recorded a few key observations which I hope you will find useful.
Choosing a Subject
o Passion! Passion! Passion! - If you are not passionate about the field you are writing about, you will struggle to succeed
o Go Niche - It is far easier to come to be the world leader in a small niche than in a broad field area
o Who Are Your Competitors? - It is so easy to find out who your competitors are using the crusade engines. Ask yourself "Can I do a great job than they are doing?" If the respond is 'no', pick another niche
o Where Do Your Audience Hang Out? - If you don't know how to reach your audience you will always struggle to build a prosperous membership website
o Build a List Of article Sources - Before you advance too far build a list of all the places you can source content. Is there adequate material to modernize your site everyday?
o A Name To Remember - Pick a domain name that is easy to remember, pass on my word of mouth and is relevant to your subject
o Build Authority - You're a guru if you know more about a field than the someone you are speaking to. You need to be perceived as an authority in your niche to come to be a leadership figure
o Is Your field favorable to Today's Environment? - Setting up a site today about how to come to be a asset developer might not sell!
o Think Global - One of the many benefits of the internet is you can reach a global audience at no additional cost. A niche field that is not viable within your country could reach a big adequate audience if it was global
Planning Your Business
o Write a company Plan - If you don't know where you are going, you will never get there
o Your company Plan: Where Am I Today? Where Do I Want To Be In One Year? What Do I Have To Do To Get There? - A company is naturally a series of small actions which add together to create something of value. Know what those small actions are before you take the first step
o Best Estimates - Work out how much your company will cost to setup and how long it will take to come to be profitable. If you doubled the costs and time would you still go ahead?
o Get A Book Keeper - The best venture you can make (unless you are an accountant) is to get a book keeper who can keep you completely up to date with how much money you are spending and making
o Hare and The Tortoise - construction any online company is a marathon not a sprint. Set your expectations at the outset that this is a long (but fun) journey and only those that keep going will succeed
o There are No Shortcuts - There are so many get rich quick schemes/scams on the Internet. Please let me know if you find one that works
o Membership Churn Rates - When planning, assume a churn rate of at least 30% after three months i.e. If nine citizen sign up today, assume three of them will leave within 90 days. It is great to be pessimistic when planning Your Website
o Blog For Starters - If you have no perceive of publishing online, setup a free blog on Blogger. Is it still fun after a month or so?
o Get someone Else To Do The Techie Stuff - If you are not technical, don't try to run the technical side of your online business; it will end in tears. Use a fully managed aid instead
o Be In Total operate Of article - You Must be able to add and edit article on your own website. If you have to rely on someone else, like your developer, your website will fail
o build Is important - You only get one chance to make a first impression. Make sure your website looks professional, particularly if you want citizen to pay to entrance your content
o Don't Give Your Designers Too Much freedom - Designers love to be creative and original, but that's not what you want! You want a site that is based on what has worked for others
o Buy An Existing Website - Think about buying a website that is up and running. Often you can buy sites for cheap amounts and this will give you a great head start
o Own and operate Your Domain Name - Never let someone else buy or conduct your domain name. One day it will be the most significant asset your company has
o Never Let Your Web Developer/Designer operate Your Domain Name - If you have a dispute, they can turn your site off and refuse to give you your domain name back
o Backup! Backup! Backup! - always keep a backup of your website files and article so you can speedily restore it if you have a catastrophe
o Future-Proof Platform - It is impossible to create a website which is completely future-proof, but if you use a well built platform from a reputable company it should grow with your needs
o You Need support - Make sure you can get ongoing support from whoever builds your website. If you don't you could spend hours or days sorting out small problems
Content
o Give article Away For Free - Even if you are construction a paid membership website you should give at least 20% of your article away for free. This will attract visitors via the crusade engines, start to build a association with prospects and give citizen a taste of what they are buying into
o create Your Own Voice - Give your site its own personality by developing your own unique style
o article Plan - Get a diary or spreadsheet and plan the article for your site for the first 90 days . . . And keep the plan rolling forward
o Remember the Heart Rule - Keep your article Honest, Exclusive, Accurate, Relevant and Timely
o For Sales Copy Remember Aida - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
o Understand What Your Members Read - Once you get your site up and running watch what articles your visitors read most and write more of them. You can categorically track pages with a good web stats aid (see below)
o Don't Steal article - Copying from one site is plagiarism, copying from two is research! But seriously, get ideas from other sites by all means, but turn them into your own former content
o Get Guest Writers - cut your writing burden by lively other writers to contribute articles. Make sure they are not just advertorials however
o Go Multimedia - One of the huge benefits of the web versus print media is the capability to have audio and video content. Go for it! It's surprisingly easy to create
o The Best Guest Writers are Your Customers
o Images supply Interest - Use images which are relevant to the content, not just eye candy. Get images from the micro stock image libraries like iStockPhoto.com and Fotolia.com
o blend data In Google Reader - There are about 100 websites that I follow. If I wanted to visit all of them daily I would have no time to do whatever else. By getting all the updates from these sites in Google Reader I can scan the whole lot in 30 minutes
o The Best Place To Learn How To Write Great Headlines - Go to a newsagent / newsstand and read the headlines on the covers on as a many magazines as you can
o The About Us Page is important - The About Us page is very important for construction trust. Write with care and include a photo of you smiling
o Grammar and Spelling Matter - Errors give the impression of sloppiness and carelessness
Marketing
o Marketing Snake Oil - A lot of what is written about Internet marketing is rubbish. Pick citizen with a great track record like Perry Marshall to effect and avoid jumping from one trend to another
o Marketing Is About One Thing - for online publishers there is only one thing that is categorically categorically important to get sustainable crusade machine traffic; create excellent content. If you focus on ordinarily updated, great article your website will get lots of free traffic
o Write Articles For Humans, Not crusade Engines - Keywords and keyword density are less important than well written articles
o Inbounds Links Are important - If you create great article citizen will link to it. Any way it can do no harm to proactively get inbound links. They will help drive traffic
o Seo is all You Do - Every bit of article you add, every link you get, every image you place, every directory you list in is Seo
o Many Seo Consultants Are Snake Oil Salesmen - Be very wary of buying Seo services. At best they deliver short term results; at worse they can get your site blacklisted!
o Tricking the crusade Engines Is categorically Foolish - There are lots of 'black hat' ways of tricking the crusade engines to get traffic, but if you get caught by Google or the other big crusade engines your site will be blacklisted. It's not worth it!
o Focus On Getting an Email Address - Your first marketing goal is to get a visitor's email address. Only if you get an email will you be able to continue the association after they have left your site
o Trial And Error - Even the online marketing experts don't know that much about all the separate ways to shop online. Use trial and error to see what works for you
o Test! Test! Test! - Don't guess what is working. Look at the web stats and conversion rates to make decisions based on facts
o You Don't Have a Homepage - If you have free article pages up to 80% of your visitors will find your site via pages that are not the homepage. Therefore treat every page as a homepage
o Don't Get Obsessed With Keywords - Keywords are important but don't get obsessed with them. If you do your article will come to be bland and repetitive
o Press Releases Still Work - There is a lot of rubbish written about press releases being dead. They still work. Use them
Making Money
o How Much Should You Charge? - Look at what magazines in your niche are charging and price approximately the same. You have more flexibility online because you can categorically have separate levels of subscription
o Don't Compete On Price - Once you have chosen a price that you think is fair, don't discount to get customers. Give extra value instead e.g. A free ebook for new members
o Three Choices - Give your customers three cost choices e.g. Monthly, quarterly or Annual. Make the middle selection the one you want most citizen to sign-up to and price accordingly
o every year For Cash Flow, Monthly For Longevity - Your every year members will give you lumps of cash upfront which categorically help cash flow, but you will get a much higher level of cancellation on renewal. Monthly subs are ordinarily small amounts every month but these members are likely to keep subscribing for longer
o many income Streams - Few article websites can make adequate money in the early days from a particular income stream. Think about text ads, classifieds, display ads, paid directory listings, a job board, affiliate partnerships, selling books, courses, software apps, promoting events, etc
o The Most important Statistic - The most important figures that you must track is the conversion rate. That is the amount of citizen who come to your site divided by the amount of citizen who come to be paying customers. Is this figure increasing or decreasing?
o Don't come to be Obsessed With Conversion Rates - although the conversion rate is the most important stat don't come to be obsessed with it. If you want an obsession make it the capability of your content
o profit = income - Costs - most entrepreneurs focus on increasing revenue, but it is just as important to keep your costs low
o Competitors Can Be Partners - Don't rule out partnering with competitors
o Use PayPal To Start, But Move To A Merchant list When You Can - Most citizen can get a PayPal list but a lot of citizen struggle to get a merchant services list from their bank. Any way a Merchant list is safer, economy and easier to deal with problems, so plan on getting one as soon as you can
o Adding Password protection - Don't underestimate how difficult it is to add fetch password protection to an existing website. It will probably be economy to move to a purpose built platform, than customize what you have
o Sell Digital Products - It is much easier to sell products that can be downloaded over the web than physical products you have to pack and post
o Most significant action - Make sure you highlight the action on each page, which will create the most income for you. Remove other distractions
o Offer 100% Money Back certify - The lower you make the risk, the more customers you will get
o reputation Card Images - Put reputation card images on the cost pages. This alone can increase the amount of transactions that are completed
Relationship
o No Community, No Loyalty - If your members don't feel part of a society they will leave. There are loads of ways of construction a society online, including email newsletters, Rss feeds, forums, member profiles, comments and webinars
o Get Rid Of Bad Customers - If a member takes up a lot of your time or is a negative force within your community, give them their money back and tell them to leave
o reputation Is All You Have - On the Internet your reputation is your most significant asset. Safe it at all costs, by being honest, responsive and totally trustworthy
o Track What citizen Are Saying About You - Use Google Alerts and if you can afford it Trackur to keep an eye on what citizen are saying about you and your site
o Don't Navel Gaze - Don't spend so much time on your own website that you lose touch with what is going on in the broader community. contribute to other forums, blogs and Twitter
o Use Other Services to Build Relationships - You should also have Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and MySpace accounts, to build relationships and drive traffic to your site
o Try Using The Phone - Call People. In this world of emails, messaging and Twitter its astounding how happy citizen are to get a phone call
o always respond Questions - If citizen take the time to email you have the courtesy to respond them
o Privacy policy - Explicitly tell citizen what you will and will not do with any data they give you
Software/Hardware
o Google Analytics - This free webstats package is a godsend for online publishers. The stats give you a astounding understanding into how many citizen are arrival to your site, who they are and where they are arrival from
o SnagIt - captures images, web pages, blocks of text so you can put them in articles. Worth every penny
o Camtasia - the easiest way to make screen capture videos for your site
o Flip Camcorder - The easiest way to produce 'to camera' video clips
o Audacity - free open source software for editing audio. Great for creating podcasts. Look on YouTube for good tutorial videos.
o Elance - Outsource activities you don't enjoy or don't understand
o Carbonite -One of the fastest ways to fail in company is to lose all of your information. Backup your hard drive every day. I use Carbonite
Work Space
o Two Monitors - Having two monitors will massively increase your productivity. Most graphics cards have two monitor plugs as standard
o Buy a Big, Good capability Monitor - You will spend so much of your life staring at your screen make it as easy on your eyes as possible
o Cheap Desk, expensive Chair - Any desk will do (provided it is the right height), but an uncomfortable chair will make working miserable. Treat yourself to a categorically good expensive office chair
o reward Wall - Have a wall you can see from your desk with photos of things you will buy or do when you have achieved your goals. Have interim rewards like a nice meal as well as big rewards like a 60ft yacht moored off Bermuda!
Work Effectively
o Five Most important Things - Every morning write down the five things that will have the biggest impact on your business. Do those five things
o Email deadness - Don't look at email all day; it will greatly cut your productivity. Set aside an hour in the morning and an hour at the end of the day. Be ruthless about what you look at
o Do What You're Good At, Outsource The Rest - We all do tasks we enjoy well and stuff we don't enjoy badly. Outsource the bits you don't like and you will come to be much more sufficient and successful
o Be true Of Outsourcing - Outsourcing is an significant part of construction a company today. Any way it is not an easy thing to do. Write detailed specs, agree milestones, negotiate penalties for slow delivery and hold payments in escrow
o Fire citizen Early - If your gut instinct tells you a association with a client, supplier, writer, employee or whatever else is not working, fire them quickly. It never gets easier!
o Use Mind Mapping - When planning whatever I use mind maps. It is so much more sufficient and sufficient than writing lists. You can use paper and pencil or try using software - MindManager (expensive but good). FreeMind (a bit clunky but free)
o Have Time Off - You will enjoy your company and work much more if you plan lots of time off
Final Thoughts
o Reap What You Sow - always think about what you can do for others on the web. If you give you will receive
o Plan Your company In A Way That It Will ultimately Run Without You - It should be every entrepreneur's goal to be able to step away from the company and it carries on running smoothly
o Enjoy Yourself - Life is a journey, not a destination
o Never, Never Give Up On Your Dreams
Conclusion
There will never be a perfect time to set up your own business; you just have to believe in yourself adequate to take the leap. If you are considered and focused you will succeed. It may take a few goes to get it right, but that is all part of the journey.
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