Many have decided to launch their website using WordPress.com hosted services. This is a good idea but you need to make sure you understand the rules about WordPress.com. Using WordPress.com can help you learn about WordPress and how to manage it as you use it to enhance your online presence.

If you are a business owner and you want to develop your online presence using WordPress.com, there are a few things that you should keep in mind regarding WordPress.com Terms of Service:

• WordPress.com Terms of Service: make sure you read the information that WordPress.com provides regarding how you can use your hosted website.
• Understand the Advertising rules for WordPress.com: they have specific guidelines to what you can and can not do regarding advertising on your WordPress.com website. Make sure you read the information that they provide.
• Review types of blogs on WordPress.com: to help you understand the types of blogs/websites that you can create, you should review the list that WordPress.com has provided.
• Learn about the WordPress.com Privacy: make sure you read about the privacy that WordPress.com ensures for its users.
• WordPress.com TV: check out this section dedicated to TV shows all about WordPress.com.

When I develop a membership website for a business owner, I always try to get to know the business owner first. I then work with him or her to develop  a membership website that will meet the needs of his or her target audience. The website also meets the varied needs of the business owner so he or she can easily manage the membership and site.

By getting to know the business owner, it helps me understand his or her need for a dynamic membership website. Over the past few years, I have compiled a list that can help business owners get a better understanding of how a membership website should work.

• Content: make sure that your content is rich with information that will be helpful to your target audience.
• Ease of use: ensure that it is easy for your target audience to log-in and connect with your content to learn from the knowledge that you share.
• Fees: research and ensure that the price you have set for your membership
• website is in line with industry standards.
• Private member area: create a section on your website that is just for your subscribed members.
• Downloadables: in your membership section, include files that can be downloaded by your members, such as: audio, video or eBooks.
• Affiliate program: create a way for others to help spread the word about your membership website and for them to earn passive income from their referrals.

These are some of the necessary areas that you should consider when developing your membership website and to gain an understanding of your membership website. I have found that one of the key things to do is create a plan that will help you implement your membership website and understand how everything will work together.

I though it would be great to share a little bit of comic relief with everyone about social media that would help you remember many things that occurred in 2009 regarding social media. To help me share this comic relief with you, I have included a video below by Robert Cottingham who created all of the drawings included in the video.

In Robert’s own words…

From the election of the first American social media president… to a nod to social media from the mainstreamiest of mainstream media (Oxford Dictionary…)… it’s been a big, tumultuous sprawling toddler of a year, prone to tantrums and potty accidents but adorable nonetheless.

For those who love Google Chrome or for those who’ve been waiting for additional functionality to be added, then the time has finally come. The latest BETA version of Chrome now allows you to install extensions easily so that you can add functionality to Chrome.

To install the latest BETA version of  Chrome, click here and then to find out more about the extension that you can install, visit here. Some of the extensions that you can install are:

• Google Wave Notifier: notifies you when you have a new Wave message
• IE Tab: Display web pages using IE in a tab
• Xmarks Bookmark Sync: Backup and sync your bookmarks across computers and browsers. Xmarks is also available for Firefox, Safari and IE.

OK, so I’m going to stop the list here because there are at least a couple of hundred extensions that you can add to Chrome. I have to really monitor myself or I could go crazy by adding extensions.

A membership website can be a valuable tool for a business owner to use in creating not only a reliable income, but also a huge following of people that will help you to establish yourself as an expert in your field and help you to become the go-to guy or gal for the services or products that you are providing.

When creating a membership site, however, there are some key sections or areas that are crucial to the success of the site itself.  You want your members to feel valued and to get the most value from the membership as well.

The key areas for a membership site include:

• Forum
• Learning center
• Help section or service center
• Affiliate center.

These areas are just the beginning of what you can offer, but are some essentials.  The forum allows the members a place to interact not only with you, but with each other, posting their questions and concerns, which will help you to know not only their needs and desires, but also what they are benefiting from and what you can scrap.

The learning center is the meat of the matter.  This is where the real focus should be given, and where you will provide good quality content for your members, whether it be in the form of valuable information in articles, ebooks, special reports, video tutorials, step by step screen captures with detailed notes or audio learning tutorials. Whatever the case, this is what your members are truly paying for.

Another important section to have in a membership site is a help desk  or service center.  The last thing you want is for your members to get stuck and not be able to find what they need.  You will want to provide good quality customer service through a help desk, whether you do this yourself or outsource it.

Finally, an affiliate center, though optional, is a good option to have in a membership site.  Why wouldn’t you want your members to refer others to you? It will certainly be worth sharing commissions with them in order to gain more members in the long run.

These are the key areas of a membership website and though there are other areas that could be included, these key areas will help you to create a successful membership site if done well. If you still need to determine what you need to use to create your membership website, then I would suggest that you use WordPress and WishList membership plugin. Many people have tried to turn WordPress into a membership site but in the past it’s been quite tricky.

There are some fabulous plugins out there, but you had to “tweak this” and “tweak that” and if you aren’t technical, it becomes very frustrating. That’s why I was very excited when I saw WishList Member. It’s a membership solution that was specifically built for WordPress.