Membership Site FAQ

This is my first attempt at being helpful to BHW. I know this topic doesn't tell you anything new, but I frequent the membership site section a lot, and I just see the same questions asked over and over, so I thought I'd just try my best to provide answers to these commonly asked questions in this topic. Would love to hear feedback from BHW on anything that I could add or change.



List of Membership site scripts:
aMember
Easy Member Pro
Community Builder
Instantmember
Launch Formula Marketing
Wishlist Member
SimpleMemberPro
Socialengine
Wordpress Micro Membership Plugin
Moneyscripts
Digital Access Pass


How do I pick a niche?
This is the most common question, and isn't really a simple one to answer. Many people seem to recommend choosing a subject you are passionate about and very knowledgeable on. Members of your site need a reason to keep coming back month after month, so you need to provide them with unique and constant content. If it's a subject you're passionate about, it won't be hard for you to provide that to them and if you're very knowledgeable on the subject, you'll have the resources and ability to provide lots of content. These two BHW topics lay out the process of finding a niche very nicely. I suggest anyone who is struggling to come up with a niche read these:
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...4-niche-guide-intro-part-1-finding-niche.html
www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/making-money/10225-niche-guide-part-2-understanding-your-target-audience.html

Popular membership niches:
Dating
Healthy/Fitness
Making money online
Adult website


How do I get members:

• Get the ball rolling by creating fake accounts to your site looks active. Outsource this to speed up the process (check fiverr, freelancer, or even BHW for people to do this for you)
• Start posting on other forums/yahoo groups/google groups with the same niche. Post quality, helpful posts and put your forum in your signature. Naturally people will start clicking your forum link.
• Make it easy for people to join. Allow Facebook integration and also give incentives for referring other members.
• Set up an attractive affiliate program so you can essentially have promoters working for you.
• Postloop
• Use SEO tactics found on this site to rank in search engines

I've seen certain software that will automatically populate your forums for you. For instance, one software I had seen years ago used to pull posts and users from yahoo answers and put them in your forum, making it look like these were actually users on your forum. I know there are similar pieces of software, but I wasn't able to find any similar software that is currently still working. If anyone knows of any that currently still work, I could add them to my OP.

Awesome red\source.....thanks!