Mistakes to avoid when starting a membership site

Starting a membership website is one of the best profit centers you can add to your business. Contrary to popular belief starting one doesn't have to be hard. But if you want to maximize the benefits of your site you must avoid these five common mistakes.

Starting the Wrong Kind of Membership Site

There are really two kinds of membership sites. The traditional one where you have people signup and they access the site through a password protected area where the site content is accessible. The problem with this type of site is that you have to continuously create new content. Usually 2-5 times per week!

Instead of starting a traditional type of site you should seriously consider an "Automatic Content" site. In short, this type of membership site is run on autopilot using an email autoresponder. You develop the content once and then the autoresponder takes care of the rest. These sites are easy to create and you can get them up and running very quickly.

Not Planning Ahead

No matter what kind of membership site you have another fatal mistake is not planning far enough ahead. You really need to plan your content at least three months in advance. If something new pops up its no problem. Just add it in. But most people struggle to keep customers active because their information gets stale. Plan ahead to avoid this mistake.

Providing Information That Can be Found Anywhere

Another major mistake membership site owners have is simply regurgitating the same information that can be found for free on other sites. Be sure to create unique information. The best way to do that is provide real world examples of how you solved the problem that you're trying to help your members solve. That way your information is always unique.

Not Giving Enough Unadvertised Bonuses

Even if you have the best membership site ever it is always a good idea to over deliver by providing unadvertised bonuses. Everyone loves a free gift. Especially when that gift is something they can use to better their current situation.

Not Driving Enough Traffic to Your Site

Website traffic is the key success factor to any profitable online business. However, many membership site owners put all the hard work in creating their sites and not enough in generating traffic to it. Remember there are only three ways to bring traffic to your site.

You can buy it, borrow it and build it. My two favorites are creating joint venture partners to send emails to their lists and article marketing. In fact, article marketing is my ultimate favorite because it builds long lasting, consistent traffic. You can have piece of mind that your site will always get traffic with article marketing.

If you put a little effort into avoiding these common mistakes you can be sure that your next membership website will be a success.