7 Ways to Get Your Membership Site in Front of More People
By Guest Blogger
May 29, 2018
As a membership site owner wanting to earn revenue from your content, it's important that your Internet strategy focuses strongly on delivering your content to the maximum number of eyeballs. In this age of social media and with the dominance of sites such as Facebook and Twitter, building a community around your website has grown to become one of the most important ways to drive traffic and keep visitors coming back time and time again.By engaging with users via the use of comments, forums, polls and multimedia you can increase exposure and the loyalty of your visitors. Here are some tips that will come in handy in driving visitors to your community:
1. Write For Others
Writing for other websites provides a great opportunity to spread your message to a much larger audience than would otherwise be possible.Look for other websites and blogs that are aimed at a similar niche or audience to your own and offer to write for them. Remember that your audience will visit plenty of other websites, so try and reach these people by submitting articles to the website they read. Remember to include an author biography that links back to your own membership website, but avoid any shameless self-promotion.
2. Get Mobile
Accessing of the web by mobile users is quickly overtaking access by desktop users. As traditional websites often fail to work or are hard to use on mobile devices, it is best to treat the mobile Web as a separate entity or 'channel'.Example ways of delivering content on the mobile Web include:- Create a simple mobile membership site of your own or look at getting/syndicating your content onto already popular mobile portals- Use text messaging to send users your most important updates e.g. 'article of the day', with a link to your membership site or mobile siteDelivering your content to mobile devices is ideal if your target audience is either often away from their computer or indeed don't have a computer.
3. Start Tweeting
Twitter can provide a unique and exciting opportunity to reach and interact with a larger audience. Some companies or organizations use Twitter as a broadcast tool, using it as an alternative to an RSS feed. An example of this is the likes of the rolling news channels or newspapers, which provide breaking news updates via the service.However, using Twitter just as a broadcast tool misses its true power, which is to use it as a highly effective way to engage with your followers.
4. Use Facebook
Another option well worth exploring for expanding your reach is Facebook. Do not be fooled into thinking that Facebook is the exclusive domain of younger Internet users. Over the last year, the number of users between 35 and 54 has jumped by 276%, to over 6 million people.So, how do you reach your audience on Facebook? Here are a couple of pointers:- Create your own group. Groups are ideal for engaging with those people who are already interested in your niche, product or service. You can invite people to participate in your group and those people in turn can invite others. This makes Facebook groups ideally suited to viral marketing.- Create a fan page. Fan pages are basically public profiles for companies and organizations or indeed website entities, rather than individuals. Unlike groups, pages can be seen by non-Facebook users and are indexed by search engines. Fan pages are perfect for building long-term awareness and for reaching people both inside and outside of Facebook.While Facebook is not the only social network, it does have enormous reach and a good demographic spread, as well as providing some great tools for reaching and engaging with its users.
5. Use Video
These day, content can comprise of not just the written word, what with the widespread use of video content across blogs and websites. Handheld digital camcorders such as the Flip, platforms such as YouTube and applications like Microsoft Movie Maker make recording, editing and hosting incredibly easy.However, creating popular content is harder than it first appears. If you think that by simply uploading a Powerpoint presentation with a voiceover to YouTube you will generate millions of views, you are sadly mistaken.Great content has to be engaging, if people are going to watch it and recommend it. With so many thousands of videos uploaded every single day, standing out from the crowd is vital! Be professional and have something to say that others will find informative or enjoyable or even eye opening. Have a look at the most popular videos in your niche to get ideas.
6. Get Streaming
Free services such as Ustream and Qik are all jostling to dominate the streaming space, as it grows to offer an ever more popular alternative or addition to prerecorded video content. This makes the barrier to entry extremely low or non-existant.The live format has the added benefit of allowing viewers to engage with the presenter (and the presenter with his/her community) in real-time, via chat. This is considerably more powerful that showing pre-recorded video, with static comments enabled.Finally, live streaming is a great medium for providing online training, either for using your product or for a more general workshop. With live streaming your users can both hear and see what you are doing as well as ask you questions.
7. Last But Not Least... Email
With everything i've listed above, it's very easy to forget the ways in which we have always been able to reach beyond the confines of our blogs and websites. Email should be a key tool for getting your content in front of your users. If users can subscribe to your content via your RSS feed, then they should be able to also do it via email.By using services such as Constant Contact, Mailchimp or AWeber this is relatively easy. By you implementing one of these services, users can subscribe to your newsletter in seconds. Use your newsletter to send out links to your articles, post offers or ask your users to take part in surveys.
Conclusion
Once upon a time your website was enough. Now, your membership site needs to be just one small part of your overall Web strategy. Expecting users to come to you is naive. Instead, take your content to them!
Hire our design service
Ready to transform your knowledge into an online business with a membership website but don’t have the time or skill to build it yourself? Our design service could be the solution.
Never underestimate the impact of a well-crafted teaser on a reader or website visitor. This brief yet informative text can be the deciding factor that compels a reader to fully engage with your content.
Creating a membership website homepage is more than just designing a visually appealing page; it’s about crafting an experience that guides visitors seamlessly toward becoming subscribers. Membership homepages need content designed to introduce, inform, build trust, peak interest and prompt the subscription of a visitor. And they also need to be optimised with keywords to be found by search engines.
Getting your first 100 paying customers for a membership website is always the hardest part. But once you reach that number, it becomes much easier to attract new members.
We've put together a 90-day plan for you to get your first 100 paying customers.
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This article will list the steps you need to take to start building your membership website.
1. Identify your target audience
Growing an audience of paying users requires creating content tailored to their needs.
It may seem counter-intuitive but by focusing on a specific niche subject you'll be able to more effectively create content that appeals to your target audience.
Knowing the customer persona of your target audience, enables you to identify and create impactful content specific to their needs along with effective marketing strategies to reach and engage them.
A narrow audience allows you to craft targeted marketing messages that will resonate with potential members resulting in successful marketing campaigns.
2. Determine your membership model
Once you identify your audience, you need to decide the content that you plan to offer, how it will be delivered and the sales model. Employing multiple revenue streams will maximise your ability to monetise your content. For example, by providing a visitor, who doesn't intend to sign-up to a membership, the opportunity to purchase a course, digital download or pay-per-view product means you still capture revenue. The SubHub platform gives you the ability to create multiple revenue streams.
Offering membership tiers which unlock more content and perks depending on the level is another upsell option to employ. But remember, too many choices can have a negative impact. According to Hick’s Law, the more choices you present to a user can prolong their decision making process. So limit the membership levels to no more than four.
Membership fees can be set up as a one-time payments or on a recurring basis. Recurring fees have the advantage of providing a steady and reliable income flow. For members that might need a nudge, including free trial days can entice them to sign up.
3. Choosing the best membership platform for your needs
These days there are a wealth of membership models to choose from. They include WordPress, where you can build your site's functionality with plugins, to all-in-one SaaS solutions. Which you select will depend on your budget, tech skills, membership objectives and the content you want to sell.
WordPress offers the most flexibility when it comes to the design and functionality you can achieve with your website. However, those benefits also come with costs and disadvantages. Unless you have technical skills or the budget to hire a developer, a WordPress site can be out of your price range.
The other major downside with WordPress is plug-in maintenance. When you build a website based on the interaction of multiple plugins, you must insure they are all compatible. One incompatible plugin, can break your whole site. This often happens when a plugin needs to be updated. And when it does, you'll need to hire a developer to fix it.
Alternatively, a SaaS solution (Software as a Service) is a complete service that provides you not only with the website but hosting, maintenance and customer support. Popular SaaS examples are Wix, Shopify, Teachable and SubHub. A SaaS solution reduces the stress of running an online knowledge business. If something breaks, you just need to submit a support ticket. And SaaS companies are always working to improve their product offerings.
You'll want to select a platform you can grow with. The design, functionality, and scalability should be flexible enough to modify to meet your target audience’s changing needs.
Many SaaS solutions specialise in the delivery of specific types of content. If you plan to only sell online courses, you might select an eLearning platform like Teachable. If your focus is website membership, but also want the additional revenue stream of selling courses then the SubHub platform is the answer.
Lastly, choose a platform that provides dedicated customer support. When you run a membership website, there will be issues. Read client reviews support by people who really understand both technology and online publishing is vital.
4. Building your website
If you've selected a SaaS solution, you can start right away creating your site with that solution's website builder. Most SaaS solutions are intended to be intuitive enough for a non-techie to easily use.
Your homepage will be the most important page on your site as it will influence whether or not a visitor becomes a member. Be sure to carefully craft the copy of your banner and body text so that it informs and engages with your potential members. Clearly define, the benefits of your membership proposition.
Your homepage must also be SEO optimised with keywords so that your site is found in search results.
Include a testimonial section as client reviews can have a persuasive impact by showing visitors that others value your product, it’s a vote of confidence in your product.
Pay attention to page speed as a slow loading page will cause visitors to bounce.
These are just a few tips to create a converting homepage.
5. Upload initial content
Before launching, you'll need to have uploaded enough content to satisfy your first members. This could be in the form of blog posts, courses, downloads, videos etc. Then you'll need to stay committed to a regular schedule of adding new content.
Make sure your content is meaningful and is of value to your audience.
6. Follow SEO best practices
Just launching a website isn't enough to get found. From the start, be sure to follow SEO best practices when creating your site and adding content. This will improve your chance of getting found in search results. Using keywords, the proper heading format, internal links and requesting backlinks are all necessary to insure that when Google and other search engines index your site that they understand what your site is about, how content relates to each other.
The same focus keyword needs to be present in your meta title, article headline, first sentence and a few times in the article body.
Once you create an article, submit it to Google search so that it is indexed within 24 hours.
Use the proper heading (H1, H2, H3...) format on your pages. H1 must only be used ONCE on any page. Proper headings inform search engines about the structure of your site and the hierarchy of your content.
Internal links are created when you include links of similarly-themed content to each other. Again, this help search engines understand the content on your site and how it relates to each other.
When a site links to your site, this is a backlink. It proves to search engines that your content is relevant and trustworthy.
7. Grow a community on social media
Drive traffic to your website using your social media channels. It's best to select a single social media platform and then dedicate all your efforts to building an audience. Choose the platform where your prospective members will be hanging out.
Conclusion
Membership is one of the most exciting business opportunities on the internet today. It is established enough that you will not have to reinvent the wheel. Everything you need to be successful is available and accessible to novices and experts alike.
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