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Should I charge a membership fee?

by karlstech
10 replies
Hey there,

I'm working on building an online directory for technology (mostly computers, mobile phones and gaming) where the visitor would basically have a massive amount of tech-related sources linking to major authority websites.

This is an incredibly time-consuming project and requires me to work on gathering all the links, info etc. for roughly 3-4 hours every day right now (the website has a coming soon page atm). BUT, it's also a very entertaining project that I look forward to working on!

Now my question is rather simple:

Should I include this directory, or whatever you want to call it, in a members section of the website for a monthly fee? I would then have my blog section, about page, news and such on the regular section of the website. If so, I'm not going to charge a whole lot of money (thinking around the prices of $7-9 per month) since this isn't something brand new, never before seen kind of thing.

Or..

Should I just include it in the free version and try to monetize the website through other means?

What are your thoughts? If you want more info then just give a holler and I'll post the link or whatever you need.

Thank you,

Karl
#charge #fee #membership #website help
  • Profile picture of the author butters
    Im confused, you pull in information from all these niches and display it on your site right?? Kinda like a centralised access point for information on them topics? Gizmag sort of thing (In terms of tech news)?
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  • Profile picture of the author internetmarketer1
    If you feel as though there is a serious market for this specific product and there are people "willing" to pay for what you have to offer, setting up a membership site may be very worth it.

    However, you need to understand the possible downsides to doing all of this. One of them being that there may not be a serious market for it. There is a difference between making people pay for something and providing something people really need.

    It seems to me it isn't something most would pay money for on a monthly basis, but then again, I'm not in your market and this could be a big mistake on my part.

    There are luckily enough ways you could monetize your site and make some cash, whether it be CPA, banner ads, affiliate marketing, or even selling your own products in your niche.

    You could also create the monthly fee while also monetizing the site in any other way that you choose.

    Best of luck on your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author karlstech
      Originally Posted by internetmarketer1 View Post

      If you feel as though there is a serious market for this specific product and there are people "willing" to pay for what you have to offer, setting up a membership site may be very worth it.

      However, you need to understand the possible downsides to doing all of this. One of them being that there may not be a serious market for it. There is a difference between making people pay for something and providing something people really need.

      It seems to me it isn't something most would pay money for on a monthly basis, but then again, I'm not in your market and this could be a big mistake on my part.

      There are luckily enough ways you could monetize your site and make some cash, whether it be CPA, banner ads, affiliate marketing, or even selling your own products in your niche.

      You could also create the monthly fee while also monetizing the site in any other way that you choose.

      Best of luck on your site.
      This was my thought as well, since you can basically get all the info for free if you are willing to do some Google searching, so a free version seems more attractive.

      I just wanted to see how what people's thoughts might be on this. The most likely way of monetizing such a site is through banner ads, whether it's adsense or from a company that pays for banner spaces (this requires some heavy amounts of traffic though, but this is a long-term goal).

      I am also thinking about creating my own product as well and setting up a sales page on the site, who knows, maybe some will buy!

      Thank you for your insights!
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  • Profile picture of the author seobro
    I make money by charging for prime spaces. Traffic will go down to a trickle if I only let members in. Still, you have bandwidth costs to consider, so I leave it up to you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Robert Cauthorn
    Hi, maybe turn that page into a secret portal of your site to add a reason why people would want to pay for it. You'll need to add more value to keep the people coming back as well. I don't see anything wrong with what you want do, but as long as your content is top notch quality that no one else has then you may have a winner. Take Care and Take Action.
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  • Profile picture of the author kk075
    Honestly, what you're doing is a tough niche because everyone has a list or two they want to sell. So the paid membership angle will almost definitely fail unless you're an expert in email marketing.

    What I would do is offer a free and a premium service off of the same list. Maybe the freebie membership gives the person generic contact info (basically what you'd find on that company's website) and the paid membership would give contacts for key players within that company. Or if this is a B2C site, then give direct contact info to skip the customer service queues and get right to a decision maker who can fix your problem.

    I hope that helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Keith
    i dont really see it being a thing many would pay for. they will just hit the back button and do 2-3 more google searches to find what they are looking for.

    If you can get traffic, there are ways to monetize things. obviously start building an email list right from the start...that will help.

    Getting traffic is a much harder nut to crack than monetizing traffic usually.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jack Gordon
    I have to agree, you are setting yourself up for failure if you try to sell something few will find or see, and you don't even know if there is a market for this yet.

    You could try asking people to register for free access to your resources. At least then you are building a mailing list, which can be monetized as it grows.

    That is a fairly risk-free way to test the marketplace. If you get a strong response, you can then experiment with direct monetization.
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    If people are willing to pay for this and you are giving them new content each month, you can charge a monthly fee. I don't see a reason as to why not.

    But if there is a small market, you will be wasting your time/money/resources.
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    • Profile picture of the author Steve B
      Karl,

      Have you considered charging the monthly fee to the businesses in the directory rather than the viewers coming to your site?

      The key to being successful at such a model is to attract a whole bunch of eyeballs. You become the portal to these business sites and they pay you a monthly fee for advertising on your portal.

      You could charge a small fee for a regular listing, more for a listing plus some space to do advertising, more for 1/2 page ad, etc, etc. You've seen the model before. It can work great if you can get lots of traffic coming in. Otherwise, most businesses won't be interested if you can't send them traffic through your site. They are paying to be seen by a targeted audience.

      A slightly different twist on this theme would be to become an affiliate for these businesses and get paid when your visitors buy something on their sites (kind of the Amazon e-commerce model).

      The best to you,

      Steve
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