Are You Making Any of These Membership Website Mistakes 

2013 seems to be the year that everyone is interested in membership websites. It’s no surprise, because when they are correctly done, they can be an ongoing source of revenue for you. However, when done wrong the results can be devastating. So, are you making any of these membership website mistakes? If you are now is the time to make those changes. 

1. Too much content or too little content –What does this mean? It means you have to find a happy middle. If you give your readers too much content, they will become overwhelmed and leave your website. If you give your readers too little content they will become frustrated and quickly leave, so take the time to find a nice middle ground that keeps your visitors coming back and your membership growing. 
2. Your membership website has the wrong format – Before you start to build your website, consider who your targeted market is. Then build a site that is appropriate to that market. For example, if you have a high tech membership site it would look much different from a membership site that is geared to seniors. 
3. Charging too much or too little – Determine what a fair membership fee is based on similar websites that are already successful. If you charge too much potential subscribers won’t pay it, and if you charge too little they will assume the site is bad because it’s cheap. So you can see why it’ is important to determine a good price.
4. Inadequate market access – There’s an old myth that says ‘if you build it they will come.’ That’s simply not true, because if they can’t find you they can’t come. This means you are going to have to put some effort into marketing your website. How you do that is up to you. There are many different ways to cross promote your site, there are many advertising opportunities, and of course, you will want to make sure you get yourself placed well in the search engines.
5. Not working with a business model – Building the members website is the easy part, but if you don’t have a business model that you are working from you will likely fail. You need to have a plan of action about who your customers are, what you are going to offer, how you are different from the competition and what you’ll charge – and that’s just a start.

If you find yourself making one or more of these mistakes, it is time to make a change.


