The topics for successful member only websites are as varied today as…short people, tall people, buying websites, unusual business ideas, selling stocks, paint ball, 2nd wives clubs, financial, dating, fitness, marketing and countless mentoring and coaching sites on almost every topic imaginable and probably a few you can’t imagine or wouldn’t want to imagine.

It takes some work and certainly the right tools to set up a members-only website but the rewards (monetary as well as personal satisfaction) can be huge.  Whatever you are passionately interested in or very adept at can be the topic of a members-only website today.

One of the first types of membership sties on the Internet was the online dating site. In the beginning, they were mostly populated with nerds, weirdoes and perverts but as the Internet matured the sites became popular among people from all walks of life. They have even progressed so far as to offer pre-screening of members. Most porn sites are membership only sites.

There are membership sites today that cover just about every area of human interests. Some offer informational or teaching material that is only able to be accessed by site members. Some membership sites are able to be viewed by non members but non-members are not allowed to participate in the activities or post to the message boards on the site.  Sites that provide information to find work-at-home jobs, for example, can see the listing of jobs but cannot apply for the jobs unless they are members of the membership site.

There are membership sites that provide instruction is such things as how to play a guitar. The lessons are accessible only to members of the site, although those who are not members can view what subjects are being taught in the lessons.

Membership sites usually accept payment for membership fees by credit card or by personal check.

You can sell subscriptions for online content with your own membership site? Selling online content by way of a password protected website has become big business. Not only is it fast to set up, but the start-up and running costs are minimal. Work from home entrepreneurs and big businesses alike are tapping into this new-found revenue source.

Less than nine percent of online users currently pay for online content. This means the market is wide open for the savvy entrepreneur. Paying for content in 2004 was more than 5 times what it was in 2005. That’s a whopping 500% growth! Those who capture the market first in their niche will have the obvious advantage and it’s an international market, so anyone can play.

One of the great things about starting a membership site is you can take your hobby, specialized knowledge or profession and turn it into a profitable business. Your challenge will be finding exclusive content. You can start it part time but it will likely develop into a full time business.

Planning for and setting your site up for auto-responders, automated sign-ups, credit card processing, automated cancellations, etc is all part of a successful membership website. Starting and running a membership site can be a lot of fun and very exciting, however you need to know what’s involved in setting one up, and then managing it effectively.

This whole process can seem a bit daunting. However, as complex as this seems, many companies offer a low cost, easy-to-use software solution. This makes it possible for almost anyone to start and market a membership site at a very low cost.

You can, of course, buy a domain, set up a website and not charge for memberships but choose who to admit and who not to admit. This is done when the profit is intended to come from sales to members after they join the site. There are free network sites that might be used for your purposes.  Two examples of free membership sites are Group sites on MSN and groups on Yahoo. It costs nothing to set these sites up and there is no charge at all for a person to join. There are no paid administrators or moderators.

Each site sets its own rules for how to join and the code of conduct for the site. The site topics are many and varied. There are many “support” sites for those with health problems or concerns and for those who have suffered the loss of loved ones. There are sites for those who are passionate about crafts like quilting or woodworking. There are sites for those who love to travel. There are sites for different age groups from teens to seniors. The sites include chat software and a limited amount of space for posting pictures, documents and links per member.  The free sites do not have such things as access to specialized data or lists. They don’t give access to such things as music lessons.

Paid for membership sites are set up by businesses or individuals with the objective of making money by supplying hard to find information, access to specialized data or lists, or instruction in various fields. Membership sites are owned and operated by people who either own the sites or who are hired by the site owners to monitor and administer them. The topics for paid for membership sites are even more varied than the free sites and certainly more specialized.

You can, of course, buy a domain, set up a website and not charge for memberships but choose who to admit and who not to admit. Or you can just set up a site on an already established network.  Two examples of free membership sites are Group sites on MSN and groups on Yahoo. It costs nothing to set these sites up and there is no charge at all for a person to join.

There are no paid administrators or moderators. Each site sets its own rules for how to join and the code of conduct for the site. The site topics are many and varied. There are many “support” sites for those with health problems or concerns and for those who have suffered the loss of loved ones. There are sites for those who are passionate about crafts like quilting or wood working. There are sites for those who love to travel. There are sites for different age groups from teens to seniors. The sites include chat software and a limited amount of space for posting pictures, documents and links per member.  The free sites do not have such things as access to specialized data or lists. They don’t give access to such things as music lessons.

Paid for membership sites are set up by businesses or individuals with the objective of making money by supplying hard to find information, access to specialized data or lists, or instruction in various fields. Membership sites are owned and operated by people who either own the sites or who are hired by the site owners to monitor and administer them. The topics for paid for membership sites are even more varied than the free sites and certainly more specialized.

If you choose to start a membership site about…say….dogs. Just dogs in general won’t attract many members. You will need to choose a specific breed….and possibly even narrow it down further. Instead of Poodles, your theme should be; Tiny Toy Poodles, Miniature Poodles, or Standard Poodles, for example. Millions of people are dog lovers and the theme of a specific breed of dog should do well.

If you are really into video or computer games, start a membership site devoted to one specific game… not just video games or computer games in general. People all over the world and from every walk of life get really involved with a specific video or computer game and love to talk to others about the game and give each other hints.

There are thousands…maybe millions…of people who love certain crafts and hobbies. However, those who love to quilt aren’t interested in wood working so your membership site should be about a specific craft or hobby.

Professionals like to talk to other professionals in the same field. Each professional field speaks their own language and find the same things to be interesting, informative or funny. So if you start a membership site for professionals, you should get a good response.

A membership website with the theme, ‘Resell Rights’, should do well, also.  This kind of site will need to be kept updated on a regular basis.

A large entity like MSN, for example, allows members to access most things on their sites without the need for any sign in procedure at all but, in order to join a group, you must supply your email address, choose a user name and a password. The use of the site is still free. However, to use MSN as your ISP or to gain enhanced email resources you will be required to pay for it.

In the same way, an individual might start a free membership website. There would be no charge at all to access the site. To gain access to limited information would require supplying an email address, choosing a user name and a password. To gain full access to the site would most likely require payment if the information they are providing merits a fee. Some sites never charge a membership fee and rely solely on selling their own product or promoting products produced by others as a source of income.

Free membership sites very rarely, if ever, supply information that you couldn’t easily acquire on the Internet yourself. An individual who sets up a free membership site doesn’t do it for free so they will be planning to make an income in some way. Usually free membership sites are for the purpose of selling a product or service. Some information will be provided but supplying information is not the main objective.

Some of these paid membership sites provide mentoring or coaching, others publish useful articles or information in a particular field or product. Still others publish the results of tests and studies or product reviews. Some membership sites provide specialized service or act as a meeting place for people with a common interest and then there are those that provide step-by-step instructions for such things as painting or music.

All these sites have one thing in common: to access the website (or the best information on the site) you have to pay for it! Which begs the question…why would anybody pay for information on the Internet?

The answer is simple. People buy information that they could probably find for themselves if they looked long enough and hard enough, because they want to save time or because they think the information will be better or more specialized or because the information just isn’t available to them unless they pay for it.

Just a few short years ago it was almost unheard of to charge for access to a website and almost no one was doing it. Today, however, it is the norm and not the exception. Actually we have Internet dating sites to thank for this huge money making opportunity.

The Internet dating industry began with free membership sites that were mostly populated by nerds, weirdoes and perverts. It was quickly discovered that ordinary people would gladly pay to have access to lists where the posters had been screened even just a little. Now people actually expect to pay for access to valuable information.

You can see where an affiliate marketer would be sorely tempted to send out email advertising the products he makes money on for promoting. This resulted in so much SPAM being generated that anti-spam laws were enacted. Spammers are severely fined and the newest twist in the anti-spam laws are that the merchants whose affiliates spam are being held responsible for the spamming as well. So caution is well advised to merchants.

Merchants who are considering adding an affiliate strategy to their online sales channel should research the different technological solutions available to them. As affiliate marketing has matured many affiliate merchants have refined their terms and conditions to prohibit affiliates from spamming. Some types of affiliate management solutions include: standalone software, hosted services, shopping carts with affiliate features, and third party affiliate networks.

Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately creating web pages which will be indexed by search engines in order to increase the chance of a website or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned.

Right now there is a lot of debate about the affiliate practice of Spamdexing and many affiliates have converted from sending email spam to creating large volumes of automatically generated web pages each devoted to different niche keywords as a way of search engine optimizing their sites. This is sometimes referred to as spamming the search engine results. Spam is the biggest threat to organic Search Engines whose goal is to provide quality search results for keywords or phrases entered by their users.

Deciding what your publishing schedule will be for your website is important. Keep in mind the kind of information you will be supplying to your membership. Information that changes hourly will require a RSS feed. Information that needs to up-dated on a daily basis will most likely require a content management system. For weekly publishing of content, you can do that yourself but a content management system can make it a lot easier.

When you are planning your newsletter, you need to decide how often your ezine or newsletter will be sent out to your subscribers. Basically, you need to create a schedule and stick with it. But how often should you publish? How much is too much and how often is not enough? When it comes to frequency, the usual choices are daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly.

Daily – that means 365 newsletters a year. You could wear out your welcome even with your most devoted members.

Weekly – that is still a lot of work…52 letters a year…a little over 4 a month. Would your members appreciate that much mail from you?

Bi-weekly – Publishing an e-zine twice a month is just often enough to keep you fresh in your subscribers’ minds but not so often that they become annoyed with you.

Monthly – doesn’t seem often enough. Your members may forget about you and where your website lives on the Internet.

The content of your membership website needs to always be kept up-to-date with relevant and useful information. Keep your eyes open and all of your feelers out for information that your subscribers will find interesting and helpful. If you have always relied on only print information up to this point, try adding some audio or video. People today prefer to hear or see information rather than just to read information. Setting up audio or video feeds to your website isn’t very difficult and can make a huge difference in the traffic and membership.

Each e-zine or newsletter should be filled with vital and timely information so that your subscribers eagerly await the next issue. Spend as much time and energy as you need to insure that your e-zine or newsletter isn’t just deleted when it hits the in-box.

Use your autoresponder to your greatest advantage. You already use it to send out emails and ezines and newsletters. Now use it to send out vital NEWS FLASHES. Make the autoresponder get the attention of your subscribers.

If you don’t already have a blog, forum or message board on your membership website, then set one up as soon as possible. Members like to have input and you will benefit greatly from constructive member input. You can ask them what they would like to see on the website and then act on suggestions that are viable.

Invite a guest who is a guru in the field of your website theme to participate in an online chat discussion. Set a specific starting and stopping time and be sure to outline the discussion topics.