THINKING OF CREATING A MEMBERSHIP WEBSITE 2

Choosing The Membership Software

Okay, so hopefully you are getting something out of this blog and have read the previous article on the minefield that is getting a grip on reality regarding what you can expect from a membership website. My main point being, unless you are incredibly lucky, it's not an overnight success brandy and cigars thing! 

The software; which one to choose? There are so many membership software options out there that it really can set your head in a spin. They range from pretty cheap to incredibly expensive. Most if not all of them have a feature list as long as your arm and at this stage, it's pretty easy to think that if you pay more you will have more success. I took a long hard look at what was out there and I have to say that the package I finally chose I've never regretted. 

Choosing A Platform

Up until around August 2013 I had being using a bespoke piece of website creation software called Xara. It was good. I used it for around three years. I created quite a few of my own websites and even created some for other people. It saved me thousands in development fees and I could create exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. The problem was, that it was kind of boxed in. It did what it did but it did not have database functionality and with a few potentially tricky options, the reality was it created static websites. 

It was at this point that I started to look at Wordpress. Wordpress is huge and more and more people are buying into it. The positives of Wordpress were immediate and not lost on me:

• It worked with databases which meant a much more complex website was possible if needed.
• If you needed a specific website feature there were thousands of plugins.
• It had the ability (crucially) to really help with SEO.
• It was easily expandable.
• There were plenty of plugins already out there for Wordpress re membership website creation.

I had been tinkering with Xara and trying to create a membership website with that (yes, I know, totally self defeating), but quickly realised that I needed to make the move over to Wordpress. It was the best move I had made re website creation and online real estate to date.

So, I did need to learn some stuff which made a difference. You can host your Wordpress site on the .com site or download and self host by downloading the package from the .org site. 

I would highly recommend that you learn how to self host and only use the .org option. This blog is not going to go into all of the reasons why, there are plenty resources on the web which will explain why. 

Membership Software Choice

To cut to the chase, I chose a plugin in called eMember. By clicking the link you will be taken to their product page. Here are reasons why I finally chose eMember:

• It's relatively inexpensive.
• The other programmes around it like eStore, WPaffiliate and WP PDF Stamper are all designed to work with each other seamlessly.
• It has a worldwide community that are constantly looking to keep the programmes up to date and functional.
• There is a wonderful forum attached to the programmes which is an excellent way of dealing with any problems that come up.
• It's not too difficuilt to understand and set up on your Wordpress install.
• They have lots of tutorial videos available.
• The deal re bundle buys is excellent and means you really do get a lot for your cash.
• You can place eMember and WP eStore on as many sites as you wish, it's a one time payment.

Okay, I know that not everyone will agree with the above choice, but I can't see past this inexpensive and thorough piece of software and it's accompanying programmes. 

In the next blog post I'll go into the setting up of GMI (Guitar & Music Institute) and my online guitar lessons empire and how things developed re themes and designs.

As always, I thought I'd offer you a video from GMI, these are not directly from GMI, but through our Youtube account where you see the vids, but not the resources that accompany the videos. This one is by guitarist Ross Baird who is one of the GMI core tuition team. I hope you enjoy it.

 

THINKING OF CREATING A MEMBERSHIP WEBSITE 1

The Idea

So, around August 2013 I decided that I would create a membership website. I've been playing guitar professionally for around thirty years...wow, where did the time go! Anyway, I have worked in just about every sphere of music that is open to musicians. From touring with bands, to working in pit bands, playing with major orchestras to part running a record company, putting on exhibitions etc.

I started doing some preliminary research around the aforementioned date and decided that I wanted a website that was not just a rehash of everything that is already out there. Here is a list of my criteria that I drew up around that time:

• I didn't just want a guitar site. 
• I didn't want a guitar site that just helped people play riffs.
• I did want a website that helped musicians in their careers re getting better paid work that was meaningful.
• I also wanted a website where I could teach people about all the things I had learned about online promotion.
• I wanted a meaningful learning experience that I could share a lifetime of playing and teaching experience through and pull other musicians in to help them gain exposure etc. 

Initial Contact With Blogs Describing Membership Websites

So, now that I had scoped out some of what I wanted and didn't want, I then turned my attention to both looking at what was already out there and learning a bit about creating a membership website. 

The first thing to say is that for the most part, there are great website already up and running which deal with a huge amount of guitar related material but I felt that what I wanted was a little more bespoke and not just aimed at the bottom of the pyramid where the vast amount of users are based. So far so good, however, when I turned my attention to actually reading about membership website creation and how they work, well, let's just say that you should probably take the promises made out there with a large bucket of salt. Here is a website that makes big claims about how you can make money through membership websites. Now this may be true for them, but it's not how I have found it in my two years so far.

For a start, there are hugely inflated ideas all over the web about how you can make a massive amount of money with membership sites. Basically, a lot of these help blogs on the subject say you only need to get two people signed up. If these two people enroll (through an affiliate scheme) another two people and they enroll two people each etc. etc. Within a short space of time, your making thousands of dollars a month just like that. I also found that a lot of membership sites subject matter was not about my niche, learn to play guitar but on how to make money online. Basically, there is a huge industry on the web telling people how to make money through the Internet by selling courses which explain how people can make money through the Internet. 

It's All About The Membership Software

Another area I found odd was that the emphasis on so many websites and blogs was about the purchasing of membership website software; as if this in itself would create the site. Buy this software and get your membership website up and running. Call me old fashioned, but just having a nice site with no content in it is not going to have customers banging down your doors. 

Worse still, there were and probably still are lots of websites which say you should rehash old material to create the one thing that takes an age to create....content! In future posts I'm going to talk about the software I chose and why I chose it. About content creation and one of the hardest things of all; traffic sources and driving it to your site...not any old traffic, but targeted traffic. 

In the meantime, here is a video from the GMI Youtube channel. It's one from a playlist of ten for complete beginners to the guitar by a brilliant guitarist called Gary Clinton who creates work for GMI. I hope you enjoy it and come back to hear the next installment in membership websites. I'm sure I can give you some insight into this whole area through my own (at times) hard earned experience.

ONLINE GUITAR LESSONS

ONLINE GUITAR LESSONS

How Creating Online Guitar Lessons Is A Long Hard Road

Several years ago I decided to create a site dedicated to online guitar lessons and general music courses for guitarists and musicians alike. I looked at the competition and decided that rather than just create another

guitar "lick" site, I would create a site dedicated to high end guitar tuition. As well as this, I also wanted to provide courses for musicians in general such as online promotion and entrepreneurship courses.

So far so good, however, I didn't realise just how much of my time and how much effort it would take up. Two years down the line and the website is getting around five thousand visitors per month and it's making, well a little money. That is to say, not enough money to eat out on. Having said that, I never really thought that it would actually make much money so that's not so much of a disappointment.

I suppose the real issue that I have found is how people actually want to learn. Do people want to take a long term view of slowly building up their skills, or do most people just want a quick fix? Youtube videos, we are told should not be longer than five minutes long; people just don't have the concentration to last longer than that. So, I have come round to the realization, slowly, that GMI or the Guitar and Music Institute is actually a niche website within a niche! How hard is that to take! 

In It For The Long Haul

So, it's yet again another hard long haul, but having said that I am not despondent. We now have a mailing list of over six hundred students. We get regular sign ups and we have had some really great comments from people over the last two years. When people go to the site or the Youtube channel and give positive

feedback, it's little things like these that make all the difference. Would I do anything different if I was starting again? I don't think so as I feel quality of material is what we want to define us, not just how to play a guitar riff without any understanding or bad technique. 

The other area that I was not that aware of was the amount of time the actual mechanics of running a website would take up. I simply wanted to create a great site that had excellent courses for people looking for online guitar lessons. The reality of this is that you have a very steep learning curve when it comes to plugins, SEO and a myriad of other things that come with running a site like this. 

Final Thoughts

The final thoughts are now that I have spent a big part of the last two years building up GMI, I'll be damned if I'm going to stop now. I think this is probably the most important part of running a membership site. If you are considering the same, be prepared for the long haul as stated above. The get rich quick concept is not a viable reality for most of us. Love what you do and do what you love. For all of us involved with GMI, we'll just keep on going on and see where the road takes us.

Best to you all.

Ged Brockie is a professional guitarist based in Edinburgh, Scotland and runs the GMI (Guitar & Music Institute) and oversees the direction of the teaching materials presented.