If you are a niche site, use that to your advantage. Target your strengths. Write content for your site that focuses on these strengths. And, keep the information fresh. If people are reading the same things every time they visit, they are not going to want to come back. Short articles and brief posts will keep people interested. Build links to your site. The more links to your site, the more traffic will come to you. Customers do not automatically appear, so you have to knock on a few doors, so to speak, and build and make a few contacts.

Be sure and set time aside each day, to either build links or to update information on your site. Unless you have the budget to have someone else do the work, it’s up to you to see that it gets done.

Your position on the search engine’s pages is important, too. The higher the positioning, the more contact you will have with new and returning visitors. The more they visit, the more chance you have of subscribers. Just like a newspaper, you have to grab with headlines. Your opening web pages need to grab the visitors attention, so they will stick around and look further. If the web pages are boring and hard to negotiate, you’ve lost out. Offer the visitors a taste, a sneaky little peek into what you are offering.

Something they will see, as a value to subscribing to your site, and use immediately. Visitors want to see for what they are paying. Of course, you can’t show them everything. But, give them enough of a taste, so they will want more. Make your site is memorable. Since most will not subscribe on the first visit, give them an easy way to remember you and contact you again. Have them sign up for a weekly newsletter, tip of the week, etc. This way, you can stay in touch with potential customers.

Keep information fresh, on your website. If they see the same thing week after week, they will not come back, because they knew what to expect. Even small changes will keep the visitors interested.

If you have a pay website make sure you have expertise, on your subject matter. If you are going to charge, be sure what your selling is worth selling. If it’s information, it needs to be a great informational site. Show the potential customers your site is worth the subscription. Just like a regular business, niche markets target customers that will keep coming back. Sometimes it’s not a good idea to address everything, but if you target one or a select few specific things, your customer base will be greater. Keep your site friendly to search engines. The higher you are on the list, the more people will visit your site and potentially subscribe. And, keep your site user-friendly.

Once you have people visiting your site, it shouldn’t be a stressful experience for them to negotiate around it. If they don’t enjoy the free visit, they won’t enjoy the subscription.

Guest posting must be approached in a professional manner. How you present yourself may convince the people who read you, to give your blogs a try and in turn increase your subscriptions. Guest posting is your opportunity, to present yourself to people who may not know about your blogs. But remember, you are guest posting, not advertising, so don’t overdo it. Take advantage of the opportunity. Give a link or two and that’s all.

Also, use the guest post as a chance to do or try something a little new. When Jay Leno guest hosted for Johnny Carson, there was something he brought to the stage, that was new and fresh. Not necessarily better, but different. Whether the blog is small or large, if you are asked to guest post, it is your chance to step outside your normal realm. What results you want are entirely in your hands.

Being a blogger is no different, than anyone else in business. If you have been blogging, for any length of time, you managed to negotiate one of the tougher hurdles. But, just because you managed to stay in business for a few months or more, does that mean you are as successful as you could be? As with any business, you have to make yourself marketable. In this day and age of short attention spans and instant gratification, people do not want to search endlessly through blogs, to find what interests them. Make it easy, on your readers. Add a search box, so people can negotiate through your blogs quickly and easily. Saving old blogs is also important, but allow readers easy access to the old blogs, if they wish, with a quick hotlink. E-mail subscriptions are also a way to keep in touch, with your faithful readers.

It is 10 times harder to find new customers, than it is to keep old ones happy. If you have a following, do everything you can to keep them. And, always make yourself available for contact. Also, adding a contact hotlink is a great way, for your readers to contact you and to inspire even more discussion and blog topics. You’re not the Dalai Lama, so make yourself available!

Testimonials are no different. They put all the comments together, from people who have used the product, so that you can make an appropriate choice. They can make the difference, as to whether or not someone will try your service or buy your product. If you do use testimonials on your web site, give them a prominent placement. These are the people, who have already used the product and want to tell others what is good about it.

Be sure that others can see these comments, don’t hide them Update them, on a regular basis, so that if someone is still unsure, they can see new comments coming in rather than the same old blurbs. Testimonials may not give you an instant rush of new customers, but they could mean the difference, in a sale to someone sitting on the fence unsure of whether or not to try your service.

Writing is writing. When you get an idea, work with it. See what develops. Write it down. You may not expand on it right then, but by writing it down, it at least gets the thought process started. Whenever you have an idea, put it down. You can always edit it later. Make sure to write on your terms. Some people enjoy a quiet room, to get their thoughts going. Others, thrive in crowded, busy environments. Whatever it takes, get to that spot and write. It doesn’t have to be hours on end. A few minutes each day and thoughts will grow and flourish. Every little idea, put together, will add up. Once the initial process starts, either other ideas will branch out or the original idea will spread.

Talking to yourself is another good way, to realize whether or not an idea is worth pursuing. Sometimes, once you hear the idea spoken aloud, you realize it may or may not be worth pursuing. Once you’ve gathered enough information, it’s time to edit. Though you may think all of your ideas are interesting and important, someone else may not want that much information. Keep to the central idea. If something goes too far off subject, or has no real reference toward the central idea, take it out. This process can sometimes be time consuming. Like anything, writing takes patience and practice. But, the main thing is WRITE!

An easy way to increase subscriptions is to work it in at the bottom of your blog, about how and where to subscribe. Perhaps you don’t want to scare people away, by saying subscribe. Term it however you wish, depending on what your focus is. Think of the websites you have been to that say “e-mail updates” or “weekly newsletter.” It all means the same thing. Subscribe. Whatever you choose, make it easy for the reader to do and make it obvious. You’re not trying to be deceptive or sneak anything past anyone. Especially if someone is wanting to subscribe to your blog.

You can also offer incentives, if they subscribe. But they can only receive the free gift, if they subscribe. Networking, guest blogging, cross promotions are also other ways that you can generate interest in your blogs. Remember, you are the product and you must promote the product, in order to sell it. Don’t be afraid to ask.

Please note: We can’t write guides for every single application on the planet this guide is therefore generic and we have tried to make it easy to follow and hopefully it should be easy to adapt for your application.

Server or Client Integration

Your Members offers two main ways to interact with Your Members either through server side hooks or via client side scripts which are run on return from a location such as Paypal.

Your Members Client Integration – Javascript

Since Your Members first released we have included a simple method for running Javascript on return from Paypal this is very much a legacy system but should you wish to add javascript calls then in Payment Gateways → Paypal (Standard)
The place the javascript you want within the Additional Callback script.

Please note you must use the dedicated return URL wp-login.php?from_paypal=true

This is useful if you just need to add a quick bit of code such as affiliate code so if it looked like:
< script id="pap_xxxxxxxx" src="http://www.example.com/affiliate/scripts/sale.js" type="text/javascript">< /script>

This callback will be replaced with Thankyou integration in Your Members 1.4.5

Server Side integration

This is the most flexible method of integration with Your Members but does require some programming, we recommend people write dedicated plugins for these additions (see code below for basics)

Anatomy of a Server Side integration

Request function
Nearly all third party integration involves sending data to another server or application the most common way to do this is through CURL or Fopen to make a post request, Wordpress 2.7 has an expanded system for doing this but unless you are brave and have upgraded you may find it easier to do it yourself, either by copying code provided to you by the third party or using our example code below.

Server Side Hooks
Your Members can trigger off code written by third party at certain points in the registration and upgrade process. The hooks work like standard Wordpress actions so if you have used them before then you will find this system really flexible.

Current Hooks are:

Current Hooks in 1.4.2

• Free Registration/Downgrade - ym_return_free
• Trial Upgrade/Downgrade - ym_return_trial
• Paypal (Standard) Membership upgrade/downgrade - ym_return_paypal
• Paypal (Standard) Client call - ym_return_free_js

New Hooks in 1.4.5

• Paypal (Standard) PPP Purchase (1.4.5) - ym_return_paypal_ppp
• Clickbank Membership upgrade/downgrade (1.4.5)- ym_return_clickbank
• Clickbank PPP Purchase (1.4.5) - ym_return_clickbank_ppp
• Worldpay/Thankyou (1.4.5) - ym_return_thankyou

Pulling user Data
In 1.4.2 we have 3 payment modules and the default hooks all occur after payment and account generation has occurred however we do run into a small snag as the different payment types were written at different points in Your Members evolution and so each handle this last stage differently and produce a unique request string to expand to grab user data.

Free Payment Module

list($user_id, $account_type) = explode('_', $_REQUEST['custom']);

Free Account only returns user_id and $account_type which we already know because the return_free hook is only called after the account type has been set.