You've decided to start your own membership site knowing that it could mean a monthly income for you. One of the first questions that may come to mind is what sort of membership site to start. Basically, membership sites come in seven different genres. By examining these basic seven, perhaps you can see more clearly what direction you would like to move toward with your membership site.



These are the seven basic varieties of membership sites:

1. Coaching/ Mentoring Sites. A coaching site will provide members with assistance, support and guidance with regards to a particular theme or topic. You will find sites offering coaching in life issues, business, occupational categories - the range is limitless. The advantage of this kind of site is that it allows you to offer your expertise to hundreds, even thousands, of members at one time, rather than on an individual basis.

2. Private Label Rights. PLR sites usually serve several topic specific articles to its subscribers each month written specifically around a particular key word or phrase. These articles can be re-written as the members sees fit before placing them on their own website. Subscribers are usually webmasters who need to add fresh new information and content to their website or blog on a regular basis.

3. Social Site. Growing in popularity alongside what some term hook up sites, the social site explosion includes site that are interest specific. For example, sites that cater to the interests of Persian cat owners could congregate at a social site specifically for them. These types of social sites are growing in popularity.

4. Content Sites. A very desireable site to have when providing pertinent information to a very specific interest. Members pay a monthly fee to get this information in a signle resource as it is not available without extensive research.

5. Paid Newsletter. This is another type of subscription site where members have readily made available to them information that is fresh and topic related. Usually, the site owner will compile the information from a variety of sources and place it within the newsletter with pertinent links. This saves time and energy for the readership as the information they need is presented before them with all the research already done for them.

6. Message Boards or Forums. Some message boards and forums are offered free of charge but usually potential posters or visitors looking for information will be required to pay what is usually a low membership fee in order to have access to certain parts of the site. Obviously, you need to ensure that, if you want people to subscribe, you are providing them with material that they could not find on a different site without having to pay for it.

7. Content Delivered by Video or Audio. Sites with video or audio files are being made available as additional content on other types of membership sites, similar in a way to business to business marketing.

Hopefully you can see that owning a membership site still fits the usual business model of supply and demand. Regardless of the type of membership site you start, it is important to provide quality information that people are willing to pay for.