Selling digital PDF downloads and printables has become a highly popular and profitable online opportunity for individuals and businesses. Whether you're an educator, subject matter expert, coach, or crafter, creating and selling digital products can be an excellent way to generate passive income.

Launching a membership website is an exciting way to generate recurring income while building a loyal community around your content, expertise, or services. Whether you're offering online courses, coaching, or a private community, this step-by-step guide will help you get started.

In the world of membership sites, attracting new members is only half the battle—the real challenge lies in keeping them engaged and subscribed. Consistent, relevant content of course underpins success in membership businesses. But why? That's where understanding the psychology behind why people stay subscribed can help you craft a better, more loyalty-producing experience.

Operating a successful membership website doesn't end with recruiting new members. You need to ensure they keep coming back with engaging and timely content. But if you aren't strategic about it, that content will become a jumble of ideas in your brain -- and will look like exactly that on your site.

The covid pandemic has taught many yoga studios the value of having not just a simple website but one that allows them to generate an ongoing income stream.

Offering live or recorded yoga classes online can transform your yoga business by providing exposure to students around the world, increasing your income and providing the ability to upsell other products like retreats, courses or products.

Of course building a website can seem an overwhelming task at first. But, these days there are a wealth of affordable and easy-to-use tools for beginners that can make creating a website a weekend project.

SubHub’s membership website builder is a platform that provides everything you need to build and launch a website, accept payment and manage the members who are paying to access your yoga content. It's easy to expand your yoga practice with a membership website.

With our beginner-friendly platform, there’s no reason to feel intimidated. We take care of the tech and offer ongoing, hands-on support for when you need it.

So let’s outline the first steps to building, launching and getting members for your your website.

1. Identify Your Customer Profile

Before you start, take some time to identify your ‘Customer Profile’ and your ‘Market Niche’.

Don’t try to appeal to everyone. Instead refine your focus so you can target a specific audience. This makes appealing to and reaching an audience all the more easier.

For example, you may just want to focus on yoga for pregnancy or morning meditation or 5 minute sessions or chair yoga.

It might sound counterintuitive to be limiting your potential audience reach but focusing on a niche allows you to craft content specific to that audience’s needs. 

By narrowing your focus, you can strengthen your online content offering because success comes from meeting the needs of an audience.

This also allows you to refine and tailor the keywords you use in your titles and copy making it easier for people to find your site via search engines.

Read more about marketing strategies.

2. Select a Yoga Template

You can easily jump-start the design process by selecting one of SubHub’s ready-to-use yoga-themed templates.

Each template layout features sections designed to inform and convert visitors to members. But you can also customise your homepages with new layouts from the section library.

What do you need to start designing your website

1. Engaging messaging.
3. High quality images.
5. Example videos.
7. Initial content.

After selecting a template, start customising it by replacing the sample text and images with your own content.

It’s important to remember that visitors ‘scan’ rather than read web pages. So when writing the copy for your homepage be as succinct as possible.

Always introduce sections with descriptive headings because while a user might not read the body copy, they will skim a heading.

Read more about crafting a homepage.

3. Create Content

You should have a minimum amount of content available to members. I would suggest at least 14 pieces of content which could be a mix of blog posts and videos. Then regularly post new content to build your inventory and show commitment to your members.

You can also repurpose content into courses which can be sold individually or included in a membership. Sometimes it’s how you package and present content that can attract a subscriber. For example, a course that organises specifically themed content into a collection can provide a user with an easy to follow path into daily yoga practice.

Where to find high quality free use images, icons and graphics

There are plenty of sites where you can get free use, high quality yoga-themed images and video to make your site visually appealing. Pexels, Unsplash are my favorites and Canva is a superb free, all-round graphic software for creating media posts and more.

4. Get Organised

Your site’s organisation is very important. Your members need to easily find the content they are looking for. Spend time mapping out your navigation and assembling content into easily accessible categories. Think about the user experience. Users should be able to find the content they want in just a click or two.

Your SubHub website comes with an advanced search filter.

This filter allows members to search for content that meets their specific criteria. The filter is particularly useful for searches that include multiple practice variables that you can define - such as duration, style and focus.

5. Build Your Audience

The best promoter of your website is yourself! 

Using social media platforms to promote and drive traffic to your membership website is a must. The platform you chose varies according to where your audience naturally hangs out.

This might mean doing YouTube videos, Instagram Stories, TikTok LIVEs and expanding your practice from the studio into the digital landscape.

Use keywords in your titles that match what people are searching for so they can find your content. 

An important part of any marketing strategy is consistently showing up. This is all part of the process of building trust with your audience. By witnessing your commitment, you'll create loyal followers.

6. Grow and Nurture Your Email List

In order to market successfully, you need to capture a visitor’s email address with an opt-in lead magnet.

This is easily done by offering something free in exchange for their email. It could be something as simple as a checklist. Of course, the offer needs to be relevant and of value to your prospective audience.

Then you must nurture this email list with a followup email sequence.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of free yoga content out there but users will join a membership website for the personal experience, connection and authenticity.

Your website doesn’t need to be perfect before you launch but it should be professional looking and provide value. But keep in mind that as with any experience, it is a continuing process that will improve as you learn and grow.

Read how Cheri of InspireEncourageEmpower and Deborah Stanley of ThriveYoga created their yoga websites on SubHub.

Start creating your online yoga website today with a SubHub free 14-day trial.

Creating a pricing page that converts isn’t just about listing numbers. It’s about making it clear, transparent, and easy to compare. When customers understand exactly what 

Your website homepage is your brand’s first impression, and creating an engaging experience is crucial for keeping visitors interested and encouraging them to take action. Whether you’re selling a product

Repurposing your video content allows you to maximize its reach and impact across different platforms. Here are 10 ways to repurpose your YouTube videos to market your membership website:

YouTube is one of the most effective platforms for attracting, engaging, and converting potential members to your membership website. With billions of users and an ever-growing appetite for video content, leveraging YouTube can help you build brand authority, drive traffic, and grow your membership.

Kate Faulkner, founder of PropertyChecklists.co.uk, has created a valuable resource for aspiring property developers and professionals. By offering an array of detailed checklists, expert advice and access to a trusted network of service

Tony Eyers launched his membership website to offer online harmonica lessons to share his passion for music while providing value to both beginners and seasoned players. By offering a combination of free content

Using a membership website to sell your online learning materials allows you to support teachers with fresh resources while generating recurring revenue and showcasing your expertise.

The principles of promoting a membership website haven’t changed much over the years. It  requires innovative strategies that attract and retain paying members. What does change are the tools and tactics. In this article, we’ll talk about how to leverage the latest cutting-edge tools and trends to maximize visibility and engagement in 2025.

SubHub’s membership website builder allows you to easily build and launch your own online knowledge business and earn an ongoing income from it. 

Users love all the built-in functionality, intuitive editor and 5-star customer support they receive.

The SubHub platform includes everything you need, all-in-one place, to create a website that can accept payments from users who subscribe to gain access to your member-only content. It delivers all the functionality to succeed in creating any type of membership website. Get started building your site with our free 14-day trial.

Easily customise your homepages to convert visitors to members

After selecting one of our ready-made homepage templates, you can easily customise it to suit your brand and content. You can delete any unsuitable section from any template and replace it with one relevant to your design. A large selection of layout options can be found in the section’s library.

Build custom pages using the landing page editor

Our new landing page editor lets you create specific marketing pages. Depending on your hosting plan, you can create from 5 to 30 additional pages using the robust design capabilities of the landing page editor. But there’s need to be limited to using this editor just to create landing pages. You can also create highly styled content pages too.

Create unlimited membership plans and multiple levels

With SubHub, you can create unlimited subscription plans and membership levels to effectively segment your audience and the content they can access. Your members will only be able to access the content they are paying for.

Accept secure payments with trusted payment gateways

SubHub’s seamless integration with the trusted payment gateways, Stripe and PayPal, lets you securely accept recurring and one-off payments from members for subscriptions and course and store purchases. SubHub does not take any percentage of your sales. You can offer discounts, free trials and set up automatic renewals.

Easy to use content management system

Easily create and organise your content using the CMS. Your pages can contain images, audio, videos, PDFs and more. It can be published to be viewed publicly or access can be restricted to members only and even members who purchased specific subscription plans.

Create and sell unlimited online courses

Selling online courses are all the rage. With SubHub’s course editor, you can quickly create courses to sell as individual products or to include as part of a paid membership plan. Start transforming your knowledge into an income stream!

Check out the course sales page design on STEMsmart which lists all their educational courses for preschoolers.

Sell store products for an additional revenue stream

The built-in store lets you sell physical products and digital downloads. With the pay-per-view functionality, you can sell access to one off member-only content.

LovePrayTeach uses their store to earn additional income by also selling their member content as individual downloadable lessons.

Grow and nurture your online community

Grow your community engagement with features that promote communication. SubHub’s built-in member forums, commenting, event calendar and member profiles help to foster member participation.

Translate your website labels into your language

The language settings menu allows you to translate any hard coded English word into the language of your choice. Alternatively, you can replace a word with your own alternative.

Our advanced search filter lets students find the perfect fitness class

SubHub's advanced search filter lets your students customise their search experience so they can find the most suitable fitness or yoga class that meets their specific criteria at any moment.

The advanced search filter is available with every SubHub website. You just need to enable it in the control panel.

A 5-star support team that always exceeds expectations

Our team delivers personalised support and always goes above and beyond client expectations. We don’t send scripted replies but thoughtful information along with screenshots and bespoke video tutorials so you always feel comfortable and confident using the SubHub platform. Our support team never receives anything less than 5-star reviews.

Take a tour of SubHub's membership website solution - see everything that's possible and more

Need help building your website? Our design service could be the solution for you!

Your member homepage is one of the most important pages on your site. It's where members land each time they log in, and it should be designed to keep them engaged, help them easily navigate your content, and encourage them to remain active subscribers.