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FAQs
Starting a Subscription Website
Running a Subscription Website
The Opportunity Q. What is a subscription website? A. A subscription website is a content-rich site where people pay to get access to premium content. Well-known examples are the websites of the large newspapers such as the Financial Times (www.FT.com) and Wall Street Journal (www.WSJ.com). But subscription websites can cover just about any subject. Indeed, it is often very specialist subscription sites that are most profitable. Take a look at www.jancisrobinson.com, www.robertashton.com or www.bookbytes.com for good niche examples. Subscription websites usually have a public area used to promote the benefits of becoming a subscriber, and a password-protected area where the premium content is made available to members. There are already thousands of successful subscription websites and the opportunity exists for thousands more. Q. What is the difference between a membership website and a subscription website? A. Membership and subscription websites are essentially the same thing. The only potential difference is some membership websites have free membership, whereas all subscription websites are paid for. Q. Are there any restrictions about who can use SubHub? A. SubHub has a few exclusions related to pornography, terrorism, racial or religious hatred, libellous and immoral content. If in doubt about your subject, please contact us for clarification. Q. How much can a subscription website earn? A. This is a difficult question to answer without knowing your subject area, audience and aspirations. As an example, a niche site that charges £9.97/$9.97 per month with 1,000 subscribers will earn £120,000/$120,000 a year. Out of this money will come the operating costs, but this should still leave an individual expert or author with a very good profit. There are quite a lot of subscription websites with over 50,000 subscribers and there are hundreds of membership websites with between 2,000 and 5,000 subscribers. Your revenues would depend on your subscription fees and number of subscribers. A. Please navigate through our site to read more information about SubHub, and find our pricing. We feel it is important to find out about the features and benefits of our platform, and gain an understanding about what we can do for you, before simply seeing just a price first. Q. Why will people pay for content when they can get it for free on the internet? A. Subscription website publishing is booming, but why are people paying for content that they could probably find for free on the internet. Research has shown that members are looking for:
About SubHub A. SubHub is a company specialising in helping individuals, publishers, companies, clubs and associations set up and run subscription websites. SubHub combines its expertise with a technical infrastructure that enables them to rapidly build, launch and grow subscription websites for their clients and partners. It is a soup to nuts solution, as they say in America! The website you are viewing at the moment is built on the SubHub platform. To run the site requires no technical, developer or HTML skills. If you can use Microsoft Word (or similar) and can send an email, you can run your own subscription website on the SubHub platform.
A. The SubHub services can be used to run any website. However, its real benefits are realised if you want to run a website that recruits members and charges for access to premium content. Obvious users are existing specialist print publishers who want to move online; individual experts and authors who want to build a paying subscription base around themselves and their knowledge; existing content websites who wish to start charging for access to their premium information; clubs, societies and associations who collect annual subscription fees and distribute information to their members; and probably many other opportunities we have not even thought of yet! A. Every website needs a server to run on, software, maintenance, upgrades, monitoring, virus protection, backup, flexible bandwidth and security. With the SubHub solution, we take care of all these things for you within the monthly or annual fee. That is what is defined as a ‘managed service’. If you just buy a software package, you will need to take care of all these essential tasks and requirements yourself.
A. You can. Indeed, before solutions like SubHub were launched, there was no other choice. However, go into such a project with your eyes wide open. The SubHub service is made up of over 100 pieces of functionality wrapped in an easy-to-use control panel. Bespoke development and integration of third party applications is a difficult, unpredictable and expensive process. Do you really want to undertake such a project yourself? It will certainly be a much more expensive route than SubHub and will take many months before your website goes live.
A. SubHub provide both the technical platform and the know-how to enable you to build, launch and run a subscription website:
A. For some examples of existing SubHub sites, click here.
Starting a Subscription Website Q. How do I design my subscription website? I have no design skills. A. You don’t need to do the design. It is all part of the SubHub service. We work closely with you to understand your requirements, whilst helping you understand what has been proven to work for other websites. We then create a professional looking, fully functional website ready for you to add content.
A. SubHub takes care of the website design and build. At the end of this process, you will have a website ready for your content. To give early subscribers a rewarding experience, it is recommended that you load quite a bit of content onto the website prior to launch. Every website will differ in the amount of time and content required. But be aware -- to run a successful subscription website, you will need to update it regularly and look after your members.
A. Choose a subject that:
Running a Subscription Website Q. How much work is involved in running a subscription website? A. SubHub takes care of the software management, maintenance, upgrades, hosting and security of your website. Most of the membership and payment management processes are automated. As a result, the two main areas of focus for the siteowner are creating content and marketing the service to potential subscribers.
A. SubHub has made the service simple and intuitive to use without needing to know any HTML or software development skills. If you can write an article in Microsoft Word and send an email, you’ll have the skills to run a SubHub subscription website.
A. You can run a subscription website part-time and many people do. What is important is that you are giving your members value for money so they regularly visit your site and continue to renew their subscription. The greater the commitment you make to a site, the more likely the members are to perceive real value and the more loyal they will become. Only you can work out this balance.
Technical Skills Q. What technical skills do I need? A. None. SubHub is a managed platform, so we take care of all the technical issues.
A. Yes. SubHub work with a range of payment processing gateways that are all approved by the banks. All personal data and credit card details are encrypted before being transmitted over the internet to ensure their security.
A. You do not need any additional hardware or software to run the SubHub service. SubHub provide this within the monthly or annual fee. You will need the ability to write articles, collect emails and access your site via a web browser, which means you’ll need a computer connected to the internet.
Please click here to read more about the SubHub solution. Alternatively, please click here to use our contact form or use the contact details below to get in touch with our US or UK offices:
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