Membership Software Guide

27 Important Things to Consider When Building Your Membership Site

Membership software or services are being used by more and more bloggers, small businesses, publishers and organizations to create their own membership sites.

While many site owners just want to introduce free membership, restricting access to certain parts of their site in return for email list subscriptions, others want to add paid membership so they can charge for access to premium content. Either way they will need to look for the right tools to make it happen.

This checklist of features, which is based on six years experience of building free and paid membership sites, should help you make sure you get exactly what you need.

I have split the list into two parts:

• Part 1 – The features your membership software should have
• Part 2 – The features you should include if you are creating your membership site from scratch

Checklist of Membership Software Features

Feature #1 – Integrated Login and Password Access

The key to running a membership site is being able to protect some or all of your content from public view. Usually this means placing your 'premium' pages in a members-only area, accessible via a login page. This sounds simple, but the challenge is in linking password protection to a member database and your content management system. Only with full integration will you have control over who can see what and for how long.

Feature #2 – Member Database

At the heart of all membership websites is the database, which collects the information from your website users. The amount of information gathered varies from site to site. Free membership sites may only collect email addresses. High priced business sites may collect a lot of detailed data, including name, address, country, company, position, association membership, etc.

Irrespective of what your immediate requirements are I would recommend that you ensure the software you use allows you to choose and edit the amount of personal data you collect.

The member database should be searchable, exportable and easy to customize.

Feature #3 – Integrated Payment Processing

As with database functionality, even if you don’t plan on taking payment for membership at the outset I would recommend that you choose software that has payment processing integrated. You can never be sure how your site will evolve.

Good membership software will usually integrate with PayPal and may additionally offer a selection of other payment gateway providers in more than one country (e.g. Authorize.net, Sage Pay, etc). The latter will allow you to use your own merchant services account and credit card processing to sign up members. For new membership site owners i'd recommend starting with PayPal.

Feature #4 – Multiple Membership Levels

Many membership sites have more than one level of membership e.g. bronze, silver and gold. The software you choose should enable you to easily assign content, members and password protection to multiple membership levels, for which you can charge different pricing.

Feature #5 – Trial Membership, Free Membership and Paid Membership Plans

Subscription websites rarely have a single type of membership plan. A decent site may offer free membership with limited access, time-restricted trial membership to all of the premium content and paid membership for long-term premium access. Make sure you have this same kind of flexibility.

Feature #6 – Multiple Payment Plans

Even simple subscription sites can require multiple unique payment plans. For example - a site with bronze, silver and gold membership levels, offering monthly, quarterly or annual subscriptions to customers paying in US dollars, Euros or Sterling potentially needs 27 different payment plans!

Your membership software should provide the flexibility to easily set plans up and manage them. More advanced services will give you the option to link prices to live foreign exchange data. This is only important if you want all your customers around the world paying exactly the same amount all of the time.

Feature #7 – Content Security

One of the biggest problems of adding third-party membership plug-ins to an existing website is protecting the content on your existing pages. Make sure that the plug-in(s) you use are well known, regularly updated and have a good reputation for security. 

Website platforms which have fully integrated membership management can build a wall that completely encircles your content making it impossible for hackers to get to it. They are also automatically updated, leaving you with less worry or hassle.

Feature #8 – Automated Customer Messages

When a customer signs up for membership to your site they should automatically receive one or more email messages confirming their details and welcoming them. For paid membership websites there are legal requirements to send customers an invoice, your cancellation policy and your contact details. All of these emails should be customizable and fully automated within the membership software.

Feature #9 – Automated Renewal or Membership Suspension

Hopefully your site will attract hundreds or even thousands of members. They will all join on different days and will have different renewal dates. Some members will be paying monthly, some quarterly, others annually. Managing renewals manually can quickly become a full time job if you have a popular site with lots of plans.

The membership software you choose should fully automate the renewal process. It should automatically take payments from your users and notify you if a credit card fails. It should send out payment reminders and suspend the passwords of people who don’t renew.

Feature #10 – Showing 'Teaser' Content

A common practice for membership websites is to show all website visitors the title and a brief description of every article. When a visitor clicks to read more the rest of the article they are instead greeted with a custom invitation to subscribe. This is very useful functionality which will increase your sign-up rate.

Feature #11 – Forgotten Password

Many of your members will forget their password. Your software should have a way of verifying who a user is and emailing out a new password, if required. If it can’t do this you will end up wasting a huge amount of time manually sending out passwords to your frustrated customers.

Feature #12 – “Remember Me”

Another related feature is having ‘remember me’ functionality which keeps users logged in on a particular computer for a pre-determined length of time.

Feature #13 – Member Chosen Passwords

Some of the more basic membership software on the market automatically generates random passwords for subscribers and then does not provide a way for them to change the password to something that is more memorable. If your users are forced to use a password you have given them (especially if it's random characters), research has shown they will login less often and will be less likely to renew their membership when it runs out.

Building Your Membership Website From Scratch

As mentioned in the introduction to this article, it is much easier to start a website with membership already integrated. Adding third-party software or plug-ins to an existing website or blog is never seamless.

If you are starting a membership website from scratch, these are the additional features it should have:

Feature #14 – An Easy to Use Control Panel / Admin Area

The more time you spend undertaking administrative tasks, the less time you are spending building your online business.

To minimize tedious admin tasks, you should ensure that when your website is up and running you have a single control panel / admin area, from which you can undertake all of your routine tasks, like adding content, changing payment plans, accessing your member database and looking at your web stats.

If you go with an all-in-one membership website service you should get a single dashboard with functionality that is built specifically for the service you're using.

Feature #15 – Excellent Content Management

A content management system (CMS) enables you to add text articles, images and video clips to your website, without needing any technical skills.

As an online publisher you must have complete control over adding, editing and removing your content, without having to know about HTML or any other kind of web coding. The CMS should also allow you to edit your site’s navigation and, ideally, the general look and feel of your site.

Content management MUST be at the heart of your website.

Feature #16 – Customizable Design

You will want to continually tweak and change your website design.

You, or your designer, should have access to a design interface where tweaks can be easily made, or a completely new design can be added. Make sure the website software or platform you choose allows for design modifications. If it doesn't you may end up having to spend money every time you need changes making.

Feature #17 - Image Library

Images are an important and often overlooked part of a good website.

Your CMS should have the capability to manage images so they can be inserted into any page, with clear labeling (alt-tags) and the ability to make them link to other content or third-party websites.

Feature #18 – Multimedia Content

Today it is expected that an information-driven website will include content in multiple formats, including text, images, pdf's audio and video. Even if you don’t plan on using these formats today, make sure your website is enabled to publish them in the future.

Multimedia content is one of the most important advantages that an online publication has over its print competitors. Use this advantage.

Feature #19 – ‘Plug-In’ Functionality

When you start your membership site you can never be sure how it will develop. Therefore you need to have the ability to easily add new functionality as it is required. This can often involve installing and configuring new thrid-party plug-ins.

Better still, consider using a managed service or platform which is continually being upgraded with the latest features. Then all you need to do is turn them on when you need them.

Feature #20 – Enable Multiple Revenue Streams

Many website owners, who are focused on charging a fee for access to premium subscription content, often ignore other revenue making opportunities, such as:
 

• showing advertisements on free content pages
• adding affiliate links related to the subject of the site
• selling physical or digital products via an online shop
• promoting and selling offline events

Most successful membership websites have multiple revenue streams. Consider other ways in which you can generate income from your site and make sure the functionality can be enabled or added to make them possible (e.g. your own shopping cart, ad server, event booking form, etc).

Feature #21 - Download Library

Most content websites provide their readers and members with digital downloads. These could be reports, eBooks, software programs, video clips or audio files.

Your website should make it easy for you to upload and manage downloads, so they are accessible to your site visitors, as well as providing the means to sell them if you want.

Feature #22 – Search Engine Optimization

You must have a website that is easy for the search engines to index. Any web developer worth his salt will be able to optimize the site code to make it easy for Google and the other search engines to find and index all of the pages on your site.

Any good managed website platform should be highly optimized from the outset, so you don’t need to worry about anything, other than adding great quality content.

A website that isn't well optimized for search engines is at a significant disadvantage from the offset!

Feature #23– Relationship Building Applications

Once you get visitors coming to your website you need to start building a relationship with them to encourage them to return.

The most important applications for building online relationships are:

• email newsletters
• forums
• comment fields under articles
• member profiles
• webinars
• RSS feeds

 
Some membership software will work with additional plug-ins so it can be added. Good platforms will have this stuff integrated and working seemlessly together.

Feature #24 – Web Stats and Website Management Information

You should be able to easily access all the information about how your website is performing. This should include the number of visitors and page views; the time spent on the website and most popular pages; where your traffic is coming from and much more.

Only when you have this information at your fingertips will you be able to understand how your site is performing and the needs of your customers.

You should be able to plug in a third-party service like Google Analytics or GoSquared.

Feature #25 – Website Monitoring, Security and Backup

As a new website owner, it's easy to underestimate the hassle involved with managing hosting, security, maintenance, data backups and upgrades. You could use free open source software on a cheap host to launch your site. HOWEVER, this route can result in downtime, lost data and hours of wasted time trying to sort out technical problems.

If you're not especially technical, you should avoid managing the technical, security and back-up side of managing your website. This tedious stuff can consume a lot of time for very little gain. Either use a fully managed service which includes all this stuff or use a development company who will do it for you.

Feature #26 - Future-Proofing

You need your website to grow with your business, so the design, functionality and scalability should be flexible enough to meet your target audience's changing needs. If you are buying software you need to understand how often it is updated, how much the updates cost and whether the new releases are backward compatible with the software you have.

Managed services take the worry out of this process as features are automatically updated.

Feature #27 - Support

I have put support last, but it should be amongst your highest priorities.

When you are running a membership website your time is the most valuable resource you have. You need to be able to focus on creating content, marketing and managing your clients - not worrying about bandwidth, hosting, backup, upgrades and fixing bugs.

Good support, by people who really understand both the technology and online publishing is vital to your success!

Conclusion

Running a membership website is one of the most exciting business opportunities on the Internet today. It is still in its infancy in many ways, but established enough that you will not have to reinvent the wheel. Everything you need to be successful is available and accessible to novices and experts alike.
 
Put time and thought into your early decisions and you should quickly have a thriving business built around a future-proof website.

Use this checklist to review any membership software or platforms you are considering. Also take the time to look at a hosted and fully managed membership site platform, such as that offered by SubHub. This can accelerate the launch of your website and make the day-to-day running of the site a real pleasure.

Enjoy and good luck!

Further Reading:

Membership Software Versus a Managed Membership Site Service
The Five Challenges of Implementing Membership Software