You may be a successful Author or Speaker who already has a website designed to retain readers. Yet you find your self growing, creating new products, and you are looking for other ways to make passive income and increase return visitors on your site.

If you currently have a WordPress site, installing a membership site can be a fast way of retaining long-term visitors and generating revenue. A membership site is when individuals register and have access to password protected areas of your site.

As a Speaker or Author, you have a wealth of knowledge that others are willing to pay to learn. With a membership site, visitors must login or pay to access your valuable posts, tutorials, and other information you publish in a password protected area on your site. You can offer exclusive informative articles, ebooks, training ebooks, audio downloads, and how-to videos.

Some membership site tips are:

Bonuses. You may have a book or ebook for sale on your site and you may wish to offer extra reports, checklists, audio or video dvd/cd’s, video downloads and courses to members of your site. As an Author, you may wish to direct individuals who purchase your book to these bonuses. Many membership plugins have multiple membership levels and full integration with payment processors so some bonuses you will offer for free and some may have a paid value.

Reviews and Endorsements. Asking for feedback on your new product or your next product helps you with the creation of your next bonus or book. Therefore, having a mailing list and active communication is important. Some membership sites allow you to send broadcast emails to members. Allow users to comment and discuss your posts or products on each individual page of your site. The feedback through comments on your current product can be used as reviews that, with permission, can be used during various advertising campaigns.

Multiple Membership Levels. Your membership levels can reflect specific demographic or psychographic groups. For example, one group could be baby boomers, business owners, or  writers. You can offer different access to paid membership vs free membership.

Send Broadcasts or Notify of Changes. Did you improve your book or change event information?  Software like Wishlist allows you to e-mail all your members right from within WordPress.

Provide superior customer service. Make sure that you provide a way that members can communicate with you by posting your email on your website for members only or having a contact form.

The most popular membership plugins are Wishlist Member, BuddyPress and Amember.

Starbucks and Apple are great examples of an exclusive club. A membership site can increase your profits, strengthen your brand, make you more visible, and increase customers.

Are you an author or speaker who is interested in learning more about Podcasting and Blogging? Are you looking for in depth step by step instruction? Learn more about Blogging For Smarties ebook here.

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