Do You Need to be an Expert to Start a Membership Website?

Memberships give people the opportunity to tap into the skill, knowledge, and expertise of the site owner.

After all, people join memberships to achieve a goal, make a change, or complete a transformation.

Helping people to achieve those goals and grow into the person and lifestyle they’re aiming for is awesome – and it’s a very appealing career!

But what if you don’t have a discernible skillset or knowledge base that fits with running a membership site?

It’s going to be harder to run a membership, no doubt!

But… it’s not impossible…

Dealing With the Ugly Side of Running a Membership Website

Running a membership website is a fulfilling and rewarding experience…

But as with anything when it comes to business there is an ugly side.

Having worked with memberships of all shapes and sizes in different markets for a number of years…

We’ve seen it all… 

And when it comes to our own membership, we’ve experienced some unpleasant things first hand…

And that’s what we’re going to explore in this blog… 

How to deal with with the ugly side of running a membership website when it comes to copycats, piracy, chargebacks and Payment disputes

So let’s dive right in…

How To Avoid Paralysis By Analysis When Creating Your Membership Site

Creating a membership website involves a lot more work than most people expect.

Memberships have a lot of moving pieces; not just on the technology front, but also when it comes to strategy, marketing and the day to day logistics too.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I discuss the steps you need to take in order to overcome “Paralysis by Analysis” – the situation where you’re so bogged down in overthinking every little thing that you get stuck in the mud, not making progress.

Why Your Membership Website NEEDS More Than Just Content

It’s easy to fall into the trap of playing the “numbers game” when it comes to creating your membership content.

Taking pride in having more courses, more tools, more bells and whistles than the next guy.

However as I cover in this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, it’s a foolish game to play and one which not only leads to you failing your members but also puts your entire membership business at risk.

How to Create Amazing Educational Content with Colin Gray

When it comes to creating membership content, it can be easy to get sucked into the “numbers game”, focusing on churning out quantity rather than quality.

Your members join because they have a result they want to achieve, a problem that needs solving; so it’s important to make sure that the content you create helps them to get to where they want to go.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast I’m joined by Colin Gray from ThePodcastHost.com. Not only does Colin help to teach people how to get the most from podcasting, but he’s also got a PhD in Online Education; so I really enjoyed discussing how to make your membership content effective and truly educational.

Busting The 8 Most Common Myths About Membership Sites

Every topic and every industry has its fair share of bad advice, outdated information and dubious “best practices”; and there’s certainly a lot of that out there when it comes to the subject of membership sites.

As with most subjects it can be a bit of a minefield trying to maneuver around the misinformation – so to help you out we’ve broken down 8 of the most common ‘myths’ about creating and running a membership site.

How To Switch From Selling Courses To Running A Membership Website

If you’ve been selling one-off courses for a while, then deciding to transition to the membership model is a big move with more things to think about than you may realise.

We’ve worked with plenty of people who have successfully made the switch, but there are some definite considerations in terms of cashflow, marketing and how the complexion of your day to day business can change.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I discuss the main implications of moving from selling courses to running a membership, how to ease the transition and my advice for deciding whether it’s the right decision for you.

How to Add Multiple Revenue Streams to an Existing Membership Business

While running a membership site can highly profitable on its own, it doesn’t have to be the only piece of your business puzzle.

Complementing your membership website with a diverse range of products and offerings can not only give you increased income from multiple revenue streams but also enable you to better serve a greater proportion of your audience.

In this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, I discuss ways in which you can add multiple revenue streams to an existing membership business.

Looking Back at the First 12 Months of the Membership Academy

This past year has been an exciting one for us, and as we reach the 12 month anniversary of the opening of the Membership Academy we’re feeling a little reflective.

To celebrate this milestone I’m joined once again on the podcast by the other (some say better) half of The Membership Guys, the one and only Callie Willows, to discuss our first year of running the Academy.

Getting Value from Live Events as a Membership Site Owner

When you’re running an online business like a membership website, the idea of going to live events as a way of growing that business may be counterintuitive when you’re spending so much time behind your computer screen.

However for membership site owners; conferences, workshops, mastermind days and other such events hold potentially even greater opportunities than for other kinds of businesses; and in this episode I talk a little more about how you can extract huge value from regularly attending live events.

Amy Porterfield on Using Webinars to Grow Your Membership

When trying to attract new people to your membership site, giving potential members a taste of what’s on offer before asking them to part with their cash and invest in your product is a great way of overcoming any doubts they may have about joining.

With this in mind it stands to reason that hosting free webinars can be a fantastic way of winning new members by demonstrating your expertise, proving your credibility and showing why joining your membership is worthwhile.

When it comes to using webinars to sell digital products, there are few people quite as knowledgeable as Amy Porterfield. Webinars are fundamental to Amy’s success, and in this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast, she shares with us her top tips and insight on how you could use webinars to promote and grow your membership site.

WooCommerce Memberships Review

There’s so much to like about WooCommerce Memberships and it’s certainly a great choice for any membership that will also be selling other products, particularly if member discounts are required.

However there are several areas of weakness that make it best used for a particular type of membership only, rather than more general memberships.

In this review we’ll look at the good, the bad, and the kind of sites that this option is best suited to.

How to Add an Online Forum to your Membership Website

I regularly talk about how your members will join for the content, but they’ll STAY for the community; and that’s something we see reflected in every successful membership site we’ve been part of.

But what options do you actually have for creating your community from a technical standpoint? How do you add an online forum to your membership?

In this episode I talk more about the importance of community, forums in particular, and discuss the various routes you can go down to add one to your website.

Tools For Creating Your Membership Sales Funnel

Even if you’re just getting started with your online business you’ve no doubt heard people talking about the importance of sales funnels. And with good reason – they’re proven to be one of the most effective ways of taking a website visitor from subscriber to customer on, essentially, autopilot.

In order to do our sales funnels right however, there’s certain tools that you might want to use to make the process as impactful as possible.

Lifetime Memberships – What are the Pros and Cons?

It’s easy to see why the strategy of offering lifetime memberships is a divisive one.

Unquestionably the biggest benefit of the membership model lies in recurring revenue, so the notion of providing unlimited access to your site for a single one-off fee may seem counter-intuitive; however as we discuss in this episode of The Membership Guys Podcast there are definite pros and cons to this strategy…

Paid Memberships Pro Review (Updated for 2024)

Paid Memberships Pro is a standout in the world of WordPress membership plugins.

It’s the only free plugin of note to have stayed the course and staked its claim as one of the most powerful and popular options for membership owners, while setting the sort of high standard and rich featureset only typically associated with premium options.

Husband and wife team Jason and Kim Coleman have established a proven track record of continued improvement, innovation and commitment to making Paid Memberships Pro a plugin that packs a serious punch with some impressive and unique bells and whistles.

That said, Paid Memberships Pro still suffers from some fundamental weaknesses that stop it becoming an absolute no-brainer choice to power your membership site – so let’s dive into the details in our full review…