Here’s a good outline of what you might want in a membership site. I obtained this specification from an Elance membership site project. I appreciate seeing this level of detail. A consultant needs to know who is going to be adding the content, how much web design is needed (logo, banner) or if a downloable theme is acceptable.

Outline Design Scope for Membership website
Overall scope

A website designed to promote football (soccer) related items and to contain paid for membership content along similar lines to the following two sites:
Grassrootssoccer.com
Soccertutor.com
Academysoccercoach.co.uk

The site will exist on 3 levels.

• Pages than can be accessed by everyone.

• Additional pages that can be accessed by those completing an online registration (“standard membership”)

• More pages on top of those above only to be accessed by those paying either a monthly or annual instalment (“Gold membership”)

Processes to be supported

1. There should be a facility to link a number of pages to a number of on-line retailers such as kitbag.com and clickbank enabling affiliate income to be earnt.

2. Home page to contain the ability to capture membership details such as first name, surname, email address, password (to be entered twice for confirmation, with an error message generated if they do not match) separately recorded in a database and generate a membership number, (A sequential number to be used as a payment reference) Once membership number generated send an automated email confirming details to member and containing a link they click on to activate “standard” membership.

3. The data base should be formatted so can easily link into an auto responder facility such as aweber.

4. Once membership is activated the facility to add free gifts (PDF e books) to the confirmation email is required.

5. The membership sign in should consist of email address and the password input by the member.

6. Once the standard membership is activated, and each time the member signs in, then should go to an “upgrade” page that will list the additional facilities and give an option (similar to grassrootssoccer.com) to pay either a monthly recurring fee, or a one off annual payment (that turns into a recurring monthly payment after a year) by either bank account or credit card.

7. If the member chooses not to upgrade at this time then they can access a number of additional pages that will potentially include coaching drills contained on a medium (possibly PDF files but still to be decided) than should be available by “clicking on”. They should be printable once the file is opened. A discussion forum page where members can post to will need to be accessible.

8. Once a payment is made the member can access “gold” member area and standard area facilities. This will include a number of different pages to include more coaching drills as in (6) in the same way. An “ask the coach” facility where people can pose questions which can be answered only by someone with administrator rights. There should be the facility to add additional web pages up to a maximum of 50

9. Once payment is processed a confirmation email should be sent with the ability to attach a “free gift” (PDF file or files) that can be removed or added to.

10. There should be a facility to cancel payment by the member, when this happens it should remove the “gold” member access but keep the standard member access.

11. There should be the ability for the administrator to change the value of the one off or monthly payments. This can either effect all, or just new members.

12. The membership reference number must be included for each payment made.

13. There must be an ability to upload PDF files to a page as per (6) and (7) above.

14. A message board/forum must be included with edit rights held by an administrator

15. Payments should be collected automatically for monthly subscriptions. Any uncollected payments should result in an email being sent informing access rights have been removed to the “gold” area, and those rights should be removed.

16. Payments should be collected automatically for someone starting with an annual subscription. The payments should be collected monthly starting 12 calendar months from the annual payment. Any uncollected payments should result in an email being sent informing access rights have been removed to the “gold” area, and those rights should be removed

17. There should be a “password reminder” facility for those forgetting their password.

18. A “help” facility producing a blank email addressed to admin@xxxxx.com should be available

19. There should be administration rights available to amend the site in line with the above criteria.

20. The code should be provided for the website design in case a locally based designer needs to respond to further updates.

21. There should be an “affiliate tracking facility” so if someone joins gold membership from a link from a different website then a database entry is generated so that commission can be paid.

22. The site should be “search engine optimised” to enable a high ranking to be obtained within search engines

23. There should be a facility to “unsubscribe” from emails for standard members

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