I had a telephone consultation with a potential client last week and she made an interesting statement.  ”I’ve heard membership sites are dead.”  I didn’t mean to, but I laughed for a brief second.  So she laughed also.  I took a deep breath before I went into my thoughts on the subject.

I have news for you, membership sites aren’t dead.  They are growing, thriving and flourishing.  Of course I explained why they aren’t dead. The general concept of the membership site is to make certain content available exclusive to readers that are members on the site.  Registered members gain access to content that is usually more extensive than what is on the public areas of the site.  The great thing about a membership site publisher, you know more about your demographic than before.

The main reason why membership sites fail is because their readers don’t find value in their content.  The most important thing to having a successful membership site is valuable content.  Valuable content is anything that your readers want to know more about.  For example, Derek at Click Consultants offers consulting services for readers who want to earn more from affiliate advertising.  Derek is very good with affiliate advertising.  He shares his direction and guidance on his members only forum.  Hence, you will join so that you can take advantage of the learning opportunity.

Another example of valuable content is the support forums for some of my favorite theme developers.  Thousands of people register for Diythemes, SoloStream, and StudioPress.  Why?  Because you need to register to get help to use their themes.  Therefore, the content is valuable to the reader.  Readers want to learn.

One of my writing collaborators is always sending me links to financial websites.  She wants to know what stocks are great buys and which ones are not.  I asked her if she ever joins the financial site.  She immediately said, “yes.”  And her reasoning behind it is, “I want to learn from a respected person in the industry.”  After further discussion, I learned that she only connects with 2 of 10 traders on the site. So she reads all of their information, posts and tips.  As a reader, she wants to learn.

The same thing is true for any other membership site.  Your readers will find value in your content.  And great content always has value.  The goal of a any membership site is to teach your readers and that is why the success of a membership site is directly connected with their content.