Having mind mapped an outline of the first six month’s content for my membership site it’s time to start building.

One of the first things to organise is the graphics. Poor graphics can give a bad impression and dissuade people from joining so I’m outsourcing this particular task. I also want the PSD files and ideally the fonts too, though often there are licensing issues and the most you can get is the details of the fonts used. This is so I have the option of creating other graphics at a later date using the original image components.

It’s also time to start creating the first month’s content. This will give me a head start when I open the site to customers.

I’m aiming to make the first month a mixture of building the foundations of an online business, whilst producing some early results. If subscribers can see an advantage from their membership in just the first few weeks it should make it more likely that they will renew their subscription for the following months.

The media you use can also affect the perceived value of the content you are delivering. For this reason the first week’s content will be a video. I also plan to add a transcript at a later date.

Parallel to this work I’ll also have WordPress, OptimisePress, Wishlist Member and Easy Video Suite installed on the site. I am already familiar with the first three, and EVS is an improvement on Easy Video Player which I have used so far.

So it’s full steam ahead with graphics, themes, plugins and content. I’ll give you a further update when I move on to the next steps.