I get a lot of questions from people on memberships sites.  

There is no doubt that there is money in membership websites if you approach it correctly.

But what most people fail to realize is that running a membership site is a lot of work.   You need to be very good at building business systems that roll out new high quality content to keep your members enrolled and your monthly income steady (kind of like running a blog:-.

And that is only ½ the story.  Since each month you will have members drop off you will have to keep replenishing the site with new members to keep your revenue steady.

So don’t be mistaken by people that sell you the hype that it is as easy as throwing up a membership site buying a little traffic and then updating it once a month with a lot of content.  If you try this strategy people will not stay! 

You really need to have a focus on delivering high quality unique content all the time.  It is best if the content can not be easily found anywhere else.  Also allowing user contributed content via a forum can be very helpful for keeping members involved and your membership site remain sticky.

Here are 7 factors you should consider when deciding if a membership website will fit the market you are considering:

1. Are people widely passionate about the topic?  Think of markets like make money online, gambling (poker, blackjack etc..), weight loss, acne, and religion to name a few.

2. Are people currently spending money in the market around their passion?

3. Are people creating social network groups around the topic on social networking sites like Myspace, and Facebook?

4. Can you produce unique content around the topic to keep people excited about it?

5. Is there an easy way to reach the market online or offline? 

6. Are there backend products in the market you can sell to your members via onetime offers?

7. Do you have a good network of industry contacts in the market that you can interview to easily create unique content?

I hope this helps clear up some of the questions on membership sites.  There is no doubt that membership sites are one of the many great business models you can use online. Just be sure you are evaluating the market correctly and that you a system in place to continually produce high quality content to serve the market.