How to Start a Blog Membership Site and Build a Loyal Community

A blog membership site can do many things for you.

It can allow you to build a loyal community of followers, subscribers, and readers. It can help you gain more reputation and authority in your niche. It can also be a wonderful way for you to make money with your blog.

A blog membership site is an online community attached to the brand around your blog.

There are many benefits to starting a membership site for your blog. Aside from being able to develop deeper relationships with your readers, you can also use it as a core product to be able to monetize your blog. You own your community, so you don’t have to worry about algorithms getting in the way of you and your readers, either.

After reading this guide, you’ll be able to create a blog membership site that you can be proud of.

Step 1: Define Your Blog Membership Site Purpose

The first step in creating a blog membership site is identifying the niche of your upcoming community.

You should resonate with the niche of your actual blog. However, you might change it slightly to focus on a specific audience. For example, I have a hiking blog. Still, I might make the community focus on overnight hikers specifically because I want to create a product for that particular niche.

Knowing your audience before you start your community is important because then you’ll know who to create the community for.

Maybe it’s the same audience as your blog, or maybe it’s a segment of that audience. You should know exactly who they are and what they want to get out of a community. Consider their needs, wants, and pain points before creating your blog membership site.

Set goals for your community and create a strategy to be able to complete them.

There are many different types of goals. Some goals may be for a target amount of revenue earned from the community or a specific number of members. Just make sure you put a plan into place for achieving your goals.

Once you define the purpose of your membership site, it will be much easier to create and launch it.

Step 2: Plan Your Blog Membership Site Tiers and Benefits

Now it’s time to plan the tiers and benefits of your blog membership site.

There are many different types of membership models to choose from. You can offer a full paid membership and require members to purchase their accounts. You could offer a free membership with a premium account add-on or even a completely free account system.

You can use tiers to create different levels of membership, such as free, premium, and higher premium accounts. Each tier can offer unique benefits, with the higher tiers providing more exclusive content and features.

No matter what the cost of your community is, there needs to be some kind of amazing value in becoming a member. If there is no visible value, you won’t get any members. This is where knowing how to solve pain points, needs, and wants comes into play.

Offer different exclusive content and features to members based on the account type you decide to go with.

Exclusive content can include articles, videos, and podcasts that are not available to non-members. Features can range from community-based elements like forums and group chats to special tools and resources like templates, checklists, and discounts.

If you decide to charge for membership, you need to establish a fair price point for both the member and you.

Do your research and determine what your segmented audience is willing to pay based on their previous buying behavior. You don’t want to charge more than what a person is going to be willing to pay. However, you want to be able to earn a profit for your hard work, as well.

Most paid communities charge between $100 and $12,000 a month, depending on the benefits and needs of potential customers.

Step 3: Choose a Platform to Build Your Blog Membership Site

The next step in creating a blog membership site is to choose your membership platform.

If you use WordPress for your blogging software, there are many great add-ons you can install to create your membership site. You can use add-ons like Restrict Content Pro, Member Press, or Paid Membership Pro. You can also add custom features, like bbPress for forums and Buddy Press for a social media platform-like feel.

There are also great SaaS (Software as a Service) community providers, like Circle, Mighty Networks, and Patreon.

The pros of using an addon for WordPress are that you typically get to retain access to your members and customers even if you quit using the addon. The cons of using a SaaS platform is you typically lose access to your customer base the moment you quit paying for the service. You need to decide which one is right for you before you start your blog membership site.

Try to use demos and trials first to get an idea of the ease of use, features, customization process, and cost.

When you decide on your platform, I recommend giving it a domain name other than your main blog domain. This will make it a product of its own and allow you to market the product on its own. You can make it similar to your main blog but it’s better to be on its own domain name.

Use a payment processor that everyone is used to, such as PayPal, Venmo, Square, or Stripe.

Design Your Community with Simplicity in Mind to Ensure Ease of Use

After you set up your community, the hard part is done, and you’re ready to make it special.

Step 4: Create Compelling Content to Attract Members

If you plan to charge for your blog membership site, now you need to make it worth joining and paying for.

You need to create high-value and high-quality content for your community. It should engage your audience based on their biggest needs, wants, and pain points within your specific niche. Ask yourself what kind of content you’d be willing to pay big money for, and then create it based on your answer.

Once your community starts growing, make it a habit to post one really interesting conversation daily.

Try to maintain a regularly updated content calendar. It’s important for you to stay consistent about posting new content in your community. A content calendar will help you, especially when you have run out of ideas.

You can also post polls and surveys to your members and ask them what kind of discussions and content they would like to see in the community.

Be sure to use the content creation process to showcase your expertise. This is your chance to make your regular members into loyal members. You do this by being the leader that you are and showing everyone that you know what you’re talking about.

Make sure you have the right content in your community if you want to keep people around.

Step 5: Build and Nurture Your Community

A blog membership site is like a stubborn garden that needs constant attention to grow and remain healthy.

Do what you can to encourage member engagement. Do this during the onboarding process when they first join so that they can start being active from the start. You also need to make sure you are highly engaging to set an example for the rest of your community.

Engage actively with discussion forum features, host Q&A sessions, and hold live chat and webinar events for community members.

Try to reward loyal members. Create lead magnets to give members once they reach a certain point. If you can add gamification features to your community, you should do so to help members enjoy being active and engaging.

Take care of your long-time members with special perks such as exclusive gear or special lead magnet access.

Be welcoming to new members and onboard them to join with success. Create some basic community rules to ensure everyone can enjoy the community. Treat all members the same and moderate your blog membership site to ensure it’s fun for everyone.

You’ll be expected to be as involved in your community as possible so that you can build and nurture it properly.

Step 6: Market Your Blog Membership Site

It’s important that you promote and market your blog membership site if you want it to go anywhere.

There are a few major promotion strategies that you should consider adopting. You should utilize your blog content and newsletter to encourage signups in your community. You should also promote your community using your social media presence.

Offer free trials, limited-time discounts, and lead magnets for people if they join your membership community.

Do content marketing for your membership site to encourage signups. Create blog posts, videos, infographics, and testimonials with call-to-actions for joining the community. Use your real estate to promote your community.

As you gain members, use their reviews and testimonies to promote your membership site and encourage more conversions.

Step 7: Track and Optimize for Success

You’ll want to monitor your blog membership site analytics closely to improve it and increase the profitability of the service you provide.

Pay attention to any metrics that show member growth, as they will help you understand what it takes to grow your community. Watch the engagement rates so that you know what the best content to post will be to get member activity. Your churn rates can help you see why people might be leaving your community.

Another important metric is member feedback which is something you should be asking for on a regular basis.

Get member feedback from polls and surveys that you can post in your community. You might also request it through direct messaging or even one-on-one Zoom meetings with your most engaged members. Their feedback can help you develop an even greater blog membership site that attracts even more subscriptions.

Regularly review, adapt, and improve your community based on analytics and feedback you obtain.

Final Thoughts on a Blog Membership Site

It’s not that difficult to create a blog membership site. The advice above will not only get you started but can also help you attract more members and profit. You just have to put it into action and do a little bit of leg work to get it going.

If you want more tips and experience on a blog membership site, consider joining my membership site, Blogging Collective. It’s free, and there are no ads. I would love to grow it to be one of the biggest blogging communities online, and I need your help. Please join and invite a friend.

If you’ve enjoyed this article and want to help me even further, consider buying me a coffee.

About the Author

Shawn Gossman has created content, blogged, ran online communities, and shared a passion for digital marketing for over twenty years. Shawn believes the best way to help content creators, businesses, brands, and marketers is to give away more than you sell. The same advice is recommended for the readers who follow this blog. Shawn also offers various services for extra help in content creation and blogging.