Have you ever dreamed of starting your own membership site? Some say it’s the best way to make money on the Internet, so why not? Well, let’s make sure you have the right tools for the job! Starting a membership web site is possible but you will need a hosting company that offers you the right tools to conduct the day to day operations of your site. At minimum the prospective hosting company should allow you the ability to create forms, set up an ecommerce site, community development tools, recurring billing modules and access level controls. But that’s not all you will need to build and run a membership web site.

While browsing through the prospective hosting company’s site, look for a few additional necessary tools such as MySQL, PERL, CGI, SSI, CRON, Curl, FrontPage, PHP scripting tools, Python, GD and ImageMagik, which allows you to create streaming videos and music.

Don’t overlook your email needs. Your hosting package should come with auto responders, mailing lists, mail forwarding, web mail, Spam control, POP3, IMAP, and SMTP. Again, if this is not specified on the host’s website, ask.

Does the hosting company provide you with a control panel? For most of us a hosting account without a control panel would be like opening your personal computer without the Windows interface! Unthinkable! Cpanels usually offer you multiple features such as hotlink protection, Fantastico, Search Engine submission and error pages. Fantastico is a commercial script library that automates installation of about 50 scripts including instant blogging software, portals, PHP, Nuke, Instant Chat, Forums, counters, FTP, and so on.

Membership sites are private, so you simply must have password protection for your folders. Check to see if the hosting company’s cpanel package has password protection; additionally, you will want .htaccess privileges.

Want to know what pages your customers are viewing, how many requests are returning an error code or where your visitors are coming from? Make sure you have tracking statistics available. Tracking statistics often include raw log or other access such as Awstats. Error logs and analogs are provided as well.

If you plan to start running a membership web site, you really should consider purchasing the plan that offers ecommerce features, as well as Shared SSL or Private SSL, Agora Shopping Carts, Instant OS Commerce, and Cube Carts. Joomla, Mambo and other membership scripts are usually also available.

In addition to the basic tools listed above, you will also need to consider a few marketing tools for your site once you get setup. These will vary depending on they type of site you are building. In fact, there will be things you will need, but you won’t even know what they are until you run into a problem or two. Just head on over to the search engine and start searching.

Are you ready? It all started when you dared to dream of owning and running a membership site. You are now armed with knowledge of how to find a good hosting company for your site. Now its time to “just do it” - find a good host and get that membership site online!

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