[This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Membership Site Design.]

A membership site can be used for almost any reason imaginable. There are as many different types of membership sites as there are reasons for joining one. This book focuses on creating educational or learning sites; sites that consist mainly of content behind a membership “wall” that are meant to teach the members new or interesting information, concepts or knowledge.

This specialized information can be lumped together, or broken up into segments or levels (courses). Simple sites will allow the member to access all the information at once, and trusting them to work through it in order, at their own speed. A more complex site can be set up to “drip” the contents to a user at given intervals, like a given number of days apart, or when they’ve indicated that they finished one lesson and are ready to move to the next one. (more…)