Free membership sites can help in many ways and they are relatively easy and inexpensive to set up.
Here is a short guide to completing these steps.
Building a free membership site is basically like building any other kind of website with a few additions.
1. Choose the topic for your free membership site.
This topic should be one that will attract the specific group of people in which you want to market your products or services. In most cases, you would be advised to narrow your topic but in the case of building a free membership site, it is better to make your topic a bit broader.
2. The next step is to register a domain name that reflects the subject of your free membership site. It is recommended to keep your domain name under 20 characters if possible. Here are two of the top registers to register your domain name:
Cheap Names – http://www.namecheap.com
GoDaddy – http://www.godaddy.com
Find a domain name that is available and secure it for two years.
3. When registering your domain name, you will also need a web hosting service. You will need a web host that will allow you to have as many domains as you want on the same server. Here are a few to consider:
HostGator – http://www.hostgator.com
NetHost – http://www.nethost.ws
4. You will need a membership script for your free membership site. You can find one at the following sites:
LaunchFormulaMarketing – http://www.launchformulamarketing.com
ButterflyMarketing – http://www.butterflymarketing.com
A member – http://www.amember.com
5. You may also want to add a “Refer A Friend” button. Here are two sites where you can get this program:
http://www.sendtofriends.com
6. You might also want to include a helpdesk option on your free membership site. This is optional but the site to get this program is http://www.perldesk.com
7. You will need content for your free membership site.
The most important part of any website including free membership sites is content. There are many ways to obtain content for your membership site. You can use reprint articles from article directories or join a PLR website and get articles that you can edit and call your own. This will help you to avoid the duplicate content problem.
Other options for your membership content is writing it yourself or hiring a ghost writer to write them for you. Here are a few sites that you can hire a ghost writer:
Elance – http://www.elance.com
Guru.com – http://www.guru.com
The above information and tools needed to build a free membership site (or a paid membership site for that matter). Now you can either build your site or have someone else build it for you.
As with any other type of website the most important part to making it successful is to market it.
Here are a few ways to get you started:
– Writing articles with a link back to your membership site in the resource box. Then submitting your articles to articles directories such as:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articlecity.com
– Post to comments to related blogs and forums, again including your resource box or signature file with a link back to your membership site.
These are just a few ways to promote your membership site for free. There are many other free and paid ways to generate traffic to your membership site.
