If you have a website, maybe you set it up because you want to share your expertise. You might know a lot about a particular subject, and you feel that the world should benefit from that.
Maybe you created a site where individuals can read articles about books, movies, or TV shows you like. Perhaps you set up your site to talk about sports or politics.
While there are seemingly limitless reasons for website creation, there are only a few ways to monetize if you want to do that. One obvious way is to set up a site membership program.
Let's talk about reasons you might decide to pursue this route.
They're Easy to Set Up
You can easily set up WordPress membership plugins, or you can also install them for Wix, depending on which platform you used for site creation.
One of the best reasons to use this option is that it's quite simple to retrofit your site so that people can only access part or all of it once they pay for a membership. This might be ideal for you because:
- You don't have to be highly tech-savvy to install the plugins
- Once the plugins are in place, it's easy for you to maintain them
It only takes a few minutes for most webmasters to convert their free site to a pay version by using plugins. Once you've done that, you're free to start luring in potential customers.
You Can Use the Site for Passive Income
Once you have a membership site model in place, you can quickly use it to generate passive income. To do this, simply:
- Encourage site visitors to sign up with you
- Keep providing membership value
In theory, once you have content on your site that people will pay to see, there's nothing further you have to do. However, if you want not just to attract members but also to retain them, you'll probably need to keep producing fresh content.
You might post fresh articles, pictures, videos, podcasts, etc. It all depends on what your business model is and what you think will most interest your customers.
You Prevent Content Misuse
One other huge plus about having a members-only website model is that it's an efficient way to make sure no one uses your content in a manner other than you intended it.
Your site content is probably exclusive. You created it, and you don't want it floating around on the internet where anyone can access it.
If you make your customers pay a membership fee, you can also have them agree to language affirming that they will only use your content as you dictate. This way, if you see your content anywhere else online where it shouldn't be, you can often trace it to find out how it got out.
If you're creating exclusive site content, you want it to be secure, and only allowing paying members access is a great way to do that.
You Can Market Your Site for Free Through Social Media
You can also use social media for marketing your pay-only website if you don't have much of an ad budget. You might start on this venture, and you're not a well-known commodity yet. As such, you might not have hundreds or thousands of dollars for marketing to attract new clients.
However, social media is usually free to use, and you can easily create profiles on various platforms. You might need to do some market research to figure out where your possible clients are. Then, you can post about your website to try to direct some leads there.
Not all of them will sign up, but if only a fraction of them do, that still means money in your pocket and a workable business model.
You Can Hold Special Events
Once you have some clients on your membership website, you can also start luring additional customers in your direction. You can offer one-day or one-week site passes, whichever you think works best for you.
Maybe you allow would-be customers access to only some of your content during this trial period. If they enjoy what they see, they could sign up with you on a monthly basis, or however long you set up the membership periods.
The longer you have a pay-to-access website in place, the more strategies you can utilize to attract new clients and hold onto existing ones. Some people even start a network of membership sites if they can produce enough content and market interest.
