Sorry about yesterday’s post, I was experimenting with Digg and the like. Did not make the front page, although it has 200~ Diggs so far – not bad I thought. Make sure you enter the contest for a Nintendo Wii. :)

This is something I’ve recently come across (over the last few months or so) – membership sites. I love membership sites, simply because they turn into recurring income if you do them right, and although some will unsubscribe (just like your RSS feed) if you promise them killer content AND deliver on that promise, you’ll be able to keep people for a few months – turning them into a source of passive income.

The problem with membership websites is that well – transferring them. If you setup Paypal subscriptions, you are screwed – if you want to ever sell the website, you have the hassle of getting everyone to cancel then resubscribe – most will not if you make them do that. You could also transfer the Paypal account (only if it’s a business one) but this is unrealistic for most of us.

Here’s where we can use vBulletin to handle memberships.

The great thing about vBulletin is that you can offer multiple memberships on the same website, with usergroups. All you do is set usergroups and offer paid subscriptions; people select what they want to pay for and how long for (including recurring / non recurring) and get access to your members area.

You can change the Paypal address at any time, so transferring is a breeze, and most people are pretty familiar with vBulletin. Unlike similar solutions for running memberships, vBulletin is actually pretty cheap -
a brand new owned license costs $180 and a second hand one is available for $80 – $120. vBulletin also comes with quite a few sweet mods which are mostly free and improve functionality.

Remember, if you have a few members that are somewhat long term, you can easily sell a website for 10x or even 20x it’s monthly revenue – it’s not hard at all to get 10 people paying you $10 a month in any niche for a couple months and if you can do that you have a website worth $1,000 – $2,000. In the internet marketing niche this can be harder, but elsewhere – one PLR eBook, maybe some audio, a members forum and you’re all set.

For me, direct sales – they’ve always been easier than selling someone else’s product (affiliate marketing) or even monetizing a site through things like PPC. If you understand what your customer wants (this is the same whether you’re selling an eBook, a script or a website) and can fulfill those needs, it’s far easier to make money.

I am seriously considering that website coaching class, as I’ve had a few people interested – maybe at a lower price (say $27 – $37) as a few of you seem to think $47 is too expensive. I’m also thinking of recruiting experienced ’site flippers’ … in different niches, so that you guys can get a lot more knowledge. Also maybe a case study of getting a website from the ground up to something successful, one of my $1k+ flips.

Nothing decided yet though, still searching around for things like a vB license. We will see how it works out. :)

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