by Robert Plank May 15, 2011

Does My Membership Site Need A Forum?

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Extremely common question I hear is when I make a membership site should I add a forum to get people posting there, to have a community, and to keep members paying and coming back all the time. And you should think for a long time before adding a forum. You should make sure your site is established first and has content of your own before you start asking for content from other people. The reason for this is because it's too easy to have an empty forum.

If you set-up a forum or message board and no one is posting inside, then you have negative social proof. We've all seen on websites, on blogs especially, we can make posts, we can get people to visit, but it's very hard to get people to participate especially that first time and leave a post or leave a comment. That means that if you have a forum, you can have a lot of lurkers reading posts but not a lot of people posting and everyone believes that the forum is empty.

And if you can get your membership site filled up enough, you have the worse case and the best case. The worse case is that, no one posts on your forum at all and you just have an empty message board. This really sucks because you end up having to put in a bunch of time making posts of your own, maybe using fake names just to get people to look at what you have but they still wont post. In other words, it's a wasted area of your membership site. And the best case is that you have tons of activity on your forum which means you have to watch it everyday and moderate comments and delete troublemakers and basically make sure that everyone stays friendly towards one another.

I am not saying forums are all bad, I just highly recommend that you launch your membership site normally right now with posts and the ability to leave comments, and if the membership site becomes very popular, add a forum and you set as an excuse to launch again.

Make a very simple membership site right here at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank May 13, 2011

Organize Your Membership Site So That Your Buyers Will Use It

Question, when you set-up your membership site, do you take the time to think about what your visitors will be trying to get access to or do you simply pile in content with no thought towards usability?

If you haven't yet thought about how your membership site should be organized, this will help. What you want to do is, keep in mind that one single post can belong to multiple categories, that you should type and module your post as well. In WordPress you have posts and you have categories. A category can be a group of posts but a post can have multiple categories. For example, let's say you set-up categories like module 101 and module 102, and you also have categories, for example called video and called software. One single post in your WordPress membership site can belong to both the 101 module and to the video category. And that means when we look at the video category, we can list all posts that belong to the video category and we show the 101 category lists of posts laying to the 101 category. But it is very important to keep in mind that you are not limited to assigning one post to just one category, one post can have many categories.

But what kind of categories should you set-up?

I recommend two different kinds of categories. First set of categories for the different types of media in your site. One might be video, one might be audio, one might be reports, you might have assignments or check lists. These could be different categories. In that way someone can click on just the video category and list all the videos, just the check list category and see all the check lists. You should also type your categories according to module, in other words, what's the simple stuff, what's the hard stuff. What I like to do is name my modules 101, 102, 103 and so on and apply a post to one type category and one module category. That means if someone wants to just list the audios, they list the audio category, someone just wants to start out they list the 101 category and that makes sure that everything is organized and that your members can easily get to the information they need.

I will show you exactly how I organize my membership sites and how you can organize yours as well at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank May 11, 2011

What Is Drip Content And Why Do You Need It?

When you have membership sites, sometimes it just doesn't make sense for people to pay you on a recurring basis and be able to get all of the downloadable items all at once. I have been in a few membership sites where I pay a monthly fee but as soon as I joined I had access to the previous several years-worth of content, and what happened was I was overwhelmed, I was confused and I definitely did not consume everything inside of those membership sites.

But you can be different. You can structure your membership site with Drip Content and make it more like a course. Somebody pays you a monthly fee, they joined and they get access to the first week or two of content. If they stay in for another few weeks or another few months they get access to even more videos and downloadable items over time. In this way, when people join, they can see what's coming up, what was just delivered, and it's all hand-fed to them over a link of time so that it makes sense because the more they pay the more access they get to the information.

If you have a recurring payment plan kind of site where somebody might pay you once a month for five or six months and then stop, this makes sense as well because someone joins, they pay for just the first month, they get just the first month of content, when they pay for the second month, they also get the second month worth of content and so on all the way until they get to the end. And I have even used Drip Content on single payment membership sites. Someone can pay you one time, for example $50 and get access to a few videos but the longer they wait around the more videos they get at no extra charge. The bonuses are dripped out and they can make sense of the first few videos and when it's time to move on to the next step they get access to the next few videos. And that's all Drip Content really is. Someone joins your site now, they get some content, then after a few days or weeks they get more content whether they pay for it or don't pay for it depending on how you set it up.

Create your membership site and start taking orders with it today at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank May 9, 2011

What Is A Membership Site?

You might have become confused hearing different people's explanations of what a membership site is. A membership site doesn't necessarily mean a recurring or continuity income stream. It is just a protected download area.

A membership site is a more advanced version of a download page. Somebody sees your site, they choose to click on the payment button and pay you money, but after they check-out for their purchase, they are sent to a registration page where they can fill out their very own unique username and password. What this means is that every single person who buys from you has their own unique log-in details, their own unique username and password to get back to your membership site later. This means it is fully protected against people who try to find a download file. It means that if someone loses their details, they can use the lost, password functionality to get it back and best of all, if someone cancels or refunds from your membership site, then their account is locked and they can no longer get access to your site.

Another cool thing about membership sites is you can host different items for download in the same membership site. Somebody could purchase product number one, and log-in to your membership site, download it, then purchase product number two and log-in to the same site with the same details and now see both items they just paid for.

The thing to remember the most is that a membership site is not necessarily something where you collect a monthly fee. It can be a site where you take money one single time, or it can be a site that is completely free but it's just a protected download area that is only open to people who are supposed to get access to that download.

Set-up your membership site in just a few minutes at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank May 7, 2011

The Top Three Free Plug-ins To Use Inside Your Membership Site

The best membership software runs on top of the WordPress, but the problem with the WordPress is, it has thousands and thousands of plug-ins and it's difficult to choose which ones you should add to your site. That's why the top three plug-ins I use in my membership sites are the Subscribe to Comment plug-in, the Category Post plug-in, and the WP Audio Player plug-in.

First of all, the Subscribe to Comments plug-in is very useful because you can have posts in your membership site and people can come and leave comments under those posts to add to the discussion or ask questions, but the problem is, many people will log-in, leave a comment, and leave never to return, and if they do return, they have come back too late and the discussion is over. But, Subscribe to Comments changes that. If you leave a comment under someone's post, and another member comes back and replies to that comment, then you will receive an e-mail. Then if a third person comes in and leaves a comment, then both of you will receive e-mails, and so on. Basically, every person who has left a comment under a particular post gets updates anytime anyone leaves a comment under them. It's great for keeping the discussion on the membership site going without you having to do any extra work.

The Category Post Widget plug-in allows you to add a listing of all of the posts in a specific category on your side bar. What I'd like to do is add a section on my side bar for every category of my site and what that means is that every single post is listed on my side bar but they are all grouped by category. And that means that someone can see a listing of all the video posts, all the audio posts, all the beginner posts, all the advanced posts, and jump to any particular piece of content within the membership site.

And finally, the WP Audio Player plug-in makes it very easy to add audio to your website. For many people, video is too complicated or too scary, but audio is a good first step because audio doesn't require writing and doesn't require a lot of preparations. You simply start talking and that is your recording. And many people can get the majority of what you get in a video or an article with an audio, and you can still get the audio transcribed later. That's why I like the WP Audio Player plug-in, I'll record mp3 files as content for a membership site, upload it, and the player makes the audio available right there on the page.

So, the top plug-ins you should use in a membership site that you can get for free are the Subscribe to Comments plug-in for discussion, the Category Post plug-in for navigation, and the WP Audio Player plug-in for multi-media.

Watch me set-up many kinds of websites including a sales letter, download page, and a membership site at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank May 5, 2011

Do Not Market Yourself In The How To Make Money Niche

On the internet you have a choice of many different topics to market yourself under. You can teach marriages or pregnancy, BBQ cooking, football, betting, all kinds of topics, but one topic you definitely should stay far away from is the how to make money niche.

The reason is because there are too many 'fake it till you make it' marketers. There's too much hocus-pocus non specific selling and it's hard to improve and get people to the next step in the how to make money niche.

First of all if you're getting started and you don't make money why would you teach other people how to make money? The only way you could come across in any believable sense is to lie which is really not a good idea to lie about a system that doesn't work and to make money off something that you have never done. It's way easier to choose a topic that you're already very good at. It might be accounting or the stock markets or setting up a website, these are all more specific areas where you can easily show your expertise without trying to say you make a lot of money.

A big problem with the how to make money niche is that all of the ads for this can't really say anything. All they can say is I have a secret system, buy it and you will get a bunch of money. The problem with that is that there are a lot of refunds and very few successes with people who actually buy products like this. You don't want to be someone selling one of those solutions, that's why you should stick with something that you're good at, that you enjoy, that you can already show over and over again how good you are.

For example, are you good at outsourcing, that's a great alternative to the how to make money niche. Can you show people how to budget or save money, then the personal finance niche is way better for you. The number one reason for staying out of the how to make money niche is that if you lie and fake it now, what will you do if you actually start making money? Then you have to make the lie bigger and bigger. Whereas if you simply tell the truth, there's nothing to remember. If you can show me how you make money flipping houses in real estate, document what you do and your blog post, articles and products will practically write themselves.

Get your entire website set up in under 48 hours at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank May 3, 2011

Sales Letter Site Versus Ecommerce Site

When it comes to collecting money on the internet, there are pretty much two different types of websites. An ecommerce site, which is kind of like an Amazon.com storefront where there are many pages on the same site and many different products for sale, many different ways to buy and the other method is a sales letter which is where you have a single web page and just one thing to buy.

Which is right for you? It really depends on if you have a big inventory already or not. An ecommerce site means that you have lots of products for sale, you might already be an established offline business and you want people to come to your site and pick and choose exactly what they want. They might be able to buy multiple quantities of your products, for example, they might buy three flowerpots or five trading cards and they are educated enough to go thru the process of adding items to a cart, checking out and giving you their payment information. An ecommerce site is great if you are an offline store with an inventory that has things that can be shipped. The disadvantage to it is that it's a confusing experience to navigate, there are lots of links, it takes a while to set it up and get this entire product line on and get all the kinks out and it is hard to improve the conversion rate. In other words it's difficult to tell if making one change to your site really got more people to buy because they are so many links and pages on this site.

The alternative is a sales letter which is where you only have one thing for sale. This is great if you only have one product, if you have not made the product yet or if you want to focus on people getting one thing from you. A sales letter is pretty much the opposite of an ecommerce site. There's no shopping carts, there's no way to buy multiple quantities of anything, there's one web page to explain what it is you're offering, which could be a digital report, physical CD or a physical item, but there's one web page explaining one item and there is one single payment button. People hook on one button and they can buy just one thing. This has a very fast setup because you set up the sales letter and the payment button and it is easy to make changes and find out if those changes get you more sales. The disadvantage to a sales letter is that you can only offer one thing at a time.

Which is right for you, an ecommerce site with many pages or a sales letter with one page? If you already have a big inventory an ecommerce site is for you. But if you have just one thing to offer then definitely set up a sales letter as the front page of your website.

Robert Plank is an expert copywriter and computer programmer and wants to show you videos on how to set up not just your own sales letter but membership site, blog, opt-in page and auto responder at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank May 1, 2011

How To Choose The Perfect Domain Name After You Have Chosen Your Niche

Congratulations, you've decided what topic you want to create your product line about. Maybe it is a membership site about travel, maybe it's a software program, maybe it's a course about mobile marketing, maybe it's a community about cooking. Whatever it is, you've chosen your niche and now it's time to choose a domain name or a dot com name where people can type in a web address and end up on your site.

When you choose a domain name, make sure that it is a dot com name, that it contains the key word of your niche, that it is as short as possible, which means two or three words, and remember that you can always park domains later.

First of all make sure that your site is a dot com name, for example www.example.com. Don't end your web address in dot net or dot info because those do not appear as trustworthy as a dot com web address. Also make sure that your URL or your domain name contains the key word of the niche you have chosen to be in.

If you are in the public speaking niche, then make sure that whatever your dot com name is that the term public speaking is somewhere in that web address. Also make sure that it is not a super long name. We don't want to make the web address be something like publicspeakingfortotalbeginners.com because that is too much to remember and if you are being interviewed or telling someone what your address is or tabling it out on a form, whatever you're doing we don't want to have the name be super long because then it will be easy to forget or misunderstand.

There is good news and you can have the best of both worlds. You can park domains on top of your original domain which means that people can type in different dot com URLs and still end up on your site and that means that if you want to have your brand be a short domain name that contains the name of your niche plus one additional key word that's your brand but then to capture the search engine results or to get people to be able to type in a longer phrase, you can get this longer four or five word dot com name and set it so that it goes back to your site either way. This is called domain parking.

That's how you choose a domain name once you have already selected a niche. Find a dot com address that's available, make sure it contains your key words such as personal finance or stress management, keep it short because we want it to be easy to remember, but if you find a domain name that is longer, that is unregistered, you can park it or in other words forward it to your site at the same time.

Watch my step by step videos walking you thru the process of choosing a niche, choosing a domain name, registering it and setting it up for your very own website at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank April 29, 2011

Being In Many Niches At Once Versus Having A Pen Name

It's really easy to get ahead of yourself and not just decide on one niche or topic for your website but get crazy and think about five or 10 of these niches and even then you might be wondering should you do business under your real name in all five or 10 of these niches. Or should you have a fake name or a pen name depending on which niche you are in? I'm here to tell you that you need to just pick one niche, that way you don't have to worry about being a jack-of-all-trades and you don't have to worry about having a pen name either.

Keep it simple. Start with just one niche under your name. If you want to be the self-improvement expert then that is what your exact niche is. Don't worry about the next five products, the next two products, just what website are you creating today and on what topic and put all of your energy into that.

The reason for this is first of all it's easier to focus on one project and get it finished before moving on to the next thing but if you did have two different websites in two different niches under the same name, then that means somebody might find you as the self-improvement expert and when they search your name in Google they might find you also under the video poker expert and vice versa. Now the issue is are you really an expert in self-improvement if your name is also listed under video poker. That's why you should stick to one niche and partner with someone else if you branch out into other niches.

If you are an established expert in self-improvement and you want to get into teaching video poker then find someone who is established in that niche or who wants to become established in the niche and partner up with them and split the profits.

The alternative is to have a pen name or a fake name in the other niche. The problem with that is that if I'm about to buy your product about video poker and I investigate your company name or your address or your name which customers do every now and then, they will find that you don't exist or that you lied about who you are and now you have lost that trust. That is why you should stay away from multiple unrelated niches. Stay away from a pen name and focus on one single niche and establish yourself in that niche under your real name.

I want to show you how to set up all the websites you need for life, to keep making you money over and over again at www.newbiecrusher.com.

by Robert Plank April 27, 2011

You Might Not Choose The Right Niche The Very First Time

Stop holding back and stop overthinking for months at a time what your first website should be, because even though your website has to be centered around a specific niche such as computer programming or self improvement, your niche might get more specific or slightly change over time. It might take you a while to figure out what you enjoy that makes money and even if you do slightly change niches, there is a chance they can talk to each other.

My niche actually has changed over time. I began marketing in the computer programming niche, specifically the PHP niche, which the average person doesn't know what it is and many people who even know what it is are afraid of it and do not want to learn it. However, when a software program called WordPress came along, it suddenly became easier. WordPress is a blogging platform built on top of PHP where people can point and click to install plug-ins and they can make very simple changes that are not as scary as plain PHP. It took me releasing a few products in PHP to realise that the WordPress niche was more profitable and had a wider customer base and that is what happened. I released a few products in one niche until deciding what was better.

You might not only realize what's more profitable but what you enjoy more. I know that for me, it's more fun to make computer programs faster which I was able to do faster in WordPress than in PHP. There was also the factor of WordPress being more point and click than PHP which meant less customer support on my end. I can simply make a video saying click this, click that and it was a lot easier to explain these tutorials in WordPress than in PHP.

Finally, it is OK to change niches if they can still talk to each other. It's no fun throwing everything away and starting from scratch. That's why when I had my PHP products and somone bought those, I could then promote my WordPress products and vice versa. That means I did not have to give up on the PHP line of products, I could keep those out there and use them to funnel new customers into the WordPress area.

You might not choose the right niche the first time. It could change over time. You might figure out what makes more money, what you enjoy more but if your niches are similar enough where one can promote the other, then you will be OK.

Research the perfect niche and set up a site today in the next few minutes at www.newbiecrusher.com.

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