Recently, especially with the development of technology, the number of membership sites that make it easier for people to access content has increased considerably. Of course, the fact that building membership sites has become simpler has supported this increase. Here are the basics of building a membership site and tips for building them without excessive effort.
What Is a Membership Site, and How Does It Work?
A membership website is one that provides members with access to material that is locked behind a paywall. After signing up, users may access special content by entering their login information. These member-only content will include:
- Online webinars,
- Newsletters,
- Videos,
- Templates,
- Podcasts, etc.
On such sites, users must subscribe to access limited content and there is a fee to pay to access exclusive material. Membership models can be graded or only offered in two tiers, free and paid. We will see these in detail in the next steps.
Advantages of Using a Membership Site
Membership sites make it easier to do operations such as editing member profiles, informing members about the updates and tracking new members and payments. The fact that it does all of this automatically saves people an incredible amount of time. In addition, the automatic execution of the processes by the system, not manually by human power, will reduce the margin of error. Not only that, by using a membership site, you can analyze your member’s requests and have the opportunity to grow your business even more.
How to Build a Membership Site
Membership sites can be built with technical and non-technical methods. But there are some basic steps to be followed on both paths:
1. Deciding which website platform to use:
There are many ways to set up a membership site, both requiring and not requiring technical software knowledge. WordPress is a site that can help you with this even if you do not have technical knowledge. It became a website platform that can now be used by almost everyone with a few hours of training videos and articles and is of great benefit to companies and people who want to set up a site. Here is a guide to use WordPress to build a membership site.
2. Determining the payment types/methods and membership levels:
As mentioned above, there are some membership models offered by membership sites to their customers. These models can be rated as monthly and annual subscriptions, or a model can be used where the amount of content that can be accessed increases as the amount paid increases. You should first determine which model you are going to use while giving access to member-only content.
If your contents are still in progress, be careful not to make ridiculous fees. You can start with low membership fees at first and increase this fee as you develop your site and content. In addition, if your members make longer-term promises to you, applying a discount to them will increase both the number of members and their loyalty to you.
3. Creating members-only content:
Now it’s time for the content you will present to the members on your membership site. You must first decide on the limited content that can be provided to members by only subscription. After providing this content, determine gated content that will enable them to increase their membership to the next level with a certain payment. These contents may be in the form of a continuation of the previous contents. For example, if you share a blog post, you can ask members to upgrade their membership to read the rest of this content. Do not forget to design the payment and membership upgrade page that will appear when they want to access this content.
4. Adding membership and agreement forms:
Of course, it is important to open membership and present the contract (agreement) forms in a ‘Join Us’ page. It will eliminate possible problems that may arise after the contract, which must be approved in the payment section. Thanks to these forms, members can easily renew, increase, and pay for their memberships. Do not forget to write the contact information of the site founder or company on the page where these forms will be.
After building your membership site you are ready to make the final touches. One of these steps would be to simplify the interface of the site, that is, to make the site more attractive to the visitor. You can check out this article that presents you with 10 steps to make your membership site more attractive.
You will then need to adapt the content to the SEO format in order to increase the visibility of the membership site. You can get help from many videos, blogs and courses for this, you can improve yourself in the field of SEO with the short course here.
Final Steps
If you work with an effective membership management software like Raklet, it will be easier to follow these steps and you will be able to get your work done in a much shorter time.
Raklet provides a powerful CRM to make your membership management procedures more efficient. You can use Raklet to obtain real-time updates from your members and let them import and update their data. Additionally, each member will receive a digital membership card that can be used to check them in for events or community gatherings and help them feel unique and like a part of the organization. To simplify your events and promote upcoming ones, you may send your members bulk emails and SMS messages.
You can check out our extensive features and our transparent pricing plans for more information!
Also, you can check out more articles on our blog about building and improving membership sites:
