Day 5

Subject: Time to get building [firstname]

Hey [firstname],

I hope you've put some thought into what type of membership site you want to start and what type of niche you want to start it in.

Now it's time to think about what type of platform your want to build it on.

For most people, especially those starting a conventional membership site, the platform of choice is Wordpress.

Wordpress started out as a rather clunky blogging platform, but over the years it's evolved to be an extremely versatile content management system.  You can have a blog, membership site, ecommerce site, and forum (more about that tomorrow) all on the same platform. The great thing about Wordpress is it's free and open source.  If your hosting account comes with Cpanel and Fantastico or Softalicious you can probably install Wordpress automatically with just a few clicks.

To adapt Wordpress to suit your requirements, you use plug-ins.  Some of these are free and can be installed from within the Wordpress dashboard, others are paid-for and have to be installed manually  although the process is pretty straightforward.

A very good membership site plug-in (and one that I've personally used) is s2member.  This is a very simple, straightforward and easy to use plug-in, and is perfect for membership site newbies.  It comes in free and paid versions  which is great.  You can start out using the free version, then upgrade to the paid version when your site is up and running and you have bit more cash to spend.

Incidentally, I've tested and reviewed a number of different membership site plug-ins for my guide to starting a membership site.  Read more about them here [link to sales page].

Because Wordpress is open source, you can always hire a coder to create a plug-in that suits your specific requirements if you can't find an off-the-shelf solution.  Perfect if you're starting an unconventional membership site.

Talk soon,

[Your Name]

PS. You'll want to have a unique design to your membership site, and with Wordpress you can get different Themes (templates) to achieve this.  You can design one yourself using Lubith http://lubith.com  which is also a great example of a software as a service membership site.