My Check LIST
This check list is one I personally use when setting up any new membership site, or even just a basic non-membership website. Just in case you never knew before, having a websites of any kind can and will cost money to get started. I only put what I feel are the best options to choose from. I have added notes that might help you along the way.
If it’s not on the check list then most likely you don’t need it.
My Visual-Step-By-Step Guide:
Visual Guide – This visual guide will have you get up and running fast. I wrote this to be very easy to follow so that anyone can create a membership site.
Hosting Companies:
Blue Host – Best Hosting Company.
Godaddy – All around good reputable company.
Domain Registration:
Omnis – I’ve been using Omnis for years. I feel they always have the lowest prices.
Godaddy – If you are going to use godaddy for hosting, then you might want to use them also for the domain registration.
Blue Host - Best Hosting Company.
CMS Platform:
WordPress – My big fuss for this whole site. Use it! it’s the easiest Content Management System out there.
Membership Program:
WishList Member – This is my personal choice for a powerful membership management system. It seamlessly integrates within WordPress. Costs $97
Email Account Service:
Gmail.com – Google has the best free email service out there and I feel it’s the easiest interface to work with. This is just in case you don’t have an email already provided by your hosting company. Don’t use your personal email account for any kind of online business. Keep them unique from each other.
FREE Analytics Services:
Woopra – Live Tracking for your site. It’s a must have. Plus they have a downloadable program to run on your computer.
Google Analytics – Google has provided a great service to track your website. They also give you the ability to create what is called Goals which help you see how your prospects are moving through to your sales page. Very valuable information. Currently this is not a live tracking system but maybe one day.
2GB FREE Storage
Drop Box – will give you 2 gigabytes of free online storage. I use this all the time sending and receiving from to clients. This is a must have service. http://db.tt/YoQVycV
Mailing List Management:
Aweber – By far the best online email list management service. They specialize in preventing broadcast emails to be considered as spam. It’s $20.00 per month but well worth the price. You need this service if you are going to have a member site. Doing mass mailing without one is crazy. You can look around for other systems to use, I did in the past and none of them compaire to Aweber. Trust Me, I just saved you from a huge headache.
WordPress Plugins:
WordPress is a great platform, but to maximize the benefits and potential of your new blog, you need the plugins, and extra features that are offered! Don’t worry, they wont bite!
Akismet – Probably the best anti-spam commenting plugin that everyone should have installed.
WordPress Database Backup - On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
WordPress Backup – Backup the upload directory (images), current theme directory, and plugins directory to a zip file. Zip files optionally sent to email.
Sociable – There are many social plugins but this one is the best.
WP-IE6Update - Plan and simple, it’s time to get people updated using IE 7 or above.
Widget Context - This a great little secret for membership sites to have your side bar so only the information you want show on the individual page(s).
All in One SEO Pack – You need this SEO plugin. SEO is very importation for the life of your site, this plugin does a very good job at it.
Thumbnail For Excerpts – Not all themes have thumbnails, if that happens to be the case for you then you need this.
Broken Link Checker – Sometimes links get broken which can hurt your search rankings. Don’t let that happen, us this and you will be fine.
Google Analytics for WordPress – You will need to have an Account ID from google to use this.
Google XML Sitemaps – XML sitemaps help the search bots find you and understand your site better. This helps in search rankings.
StumbleUpon It! – This is the big StumbleUpon It! button that you can see at the bottom of this page. It’s old but still works great.
Woopra – This is the big StumbleUpon It! button that you can see at the bottom of this page. It’s old but still works great.
WordPress.com Stats – Its a clean easy stats plugin. You will need a API Key from wordpress.com to use this.
WP Digg This – A very good social media button to share your posts to the world.
WPtouch iPhone Theme – A clean easy to use plugin. However, this will not work with a membership site. I still like sharing it it works great on non-membership sites.
Hana Flv Player – The best way to embed Flash Player and Flash movie in your WordPress Blog. Includes GPL Flowplayer and OS FLV player.
IntenseDebate – This encourage conversation on your blog or website through commenting.
Contact Form 7- This is a drop in form for users to contact you. It can be implemented on a page or a post. Very useful!
