Do you know what to do about user registration?
To require or not require registration, that is the question. To come across an acceptable answer, you should consider both options very carefully.
If you do require registration to your subscription website in order to view content, there is a chance that you will miss out on a larger audience. Probably 90% or more of your organic audience.
What publisher, or anyone who has a website for that matter, wouldn’t want want an audience that is 90 percent larger?
However, a metered paywall has been working well for publishers like The New York Times and the New Yorker. The New Yorker recently switched to a metered paywall in November 2014, which only allows people to read six articles before getting shut down and asked to pay. Subscriptions rose by 85%.
This method reinforces the idea in readers’ minds that, hey, I keep getting shut down, I read this site an awful lot, don’t I? I think this subscription might be worth it.
The very concept of not requiring registration to a subscription website seems backward – it’s a subscription website, right?
But not all subscription websites are paid. And we typically suggest that registration is necessary when you also require payment for access.
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When should publishers require registration to access their website?
This is a good way to focus on your niche market. Those visitors who are really interested in your content will register and pay. You may be missing out on a larger audience, but at least this way you will be generating revenue from very interested parties. Users who are a true part of your niche market are the customers you want to have contact with. They will continuously come back to your website and will most likely be the biggest source of revenue for you.
On another note, registration is a smart idea when it directly impacts value creation. True subscription or membership websites will display some of their best content but then inform the reader that registration is needed to access it all.
I have always been partial to registration sites that continue interesting articles in the registered members section only. A brief feeling of frustration occasionally arises when all you want to do is finish the article, but registering has always seemed well worth it after gaining access to a large area of back issues or articles.
Every subscription website is different than all other websites. Users must register or subscribe in order to get access to content or other practical applications, such as software from internet architects. We refer to this as the website’s primary user benefit as it’s that main component that’ll work to generate subscribers.
The need for registration truly sets these websites apart.
What is your take on this? Would you require registration for a subscription website? Do you feel it is worth possibly losing out on a larger audience? If any subscription website owners out there read this, I would love to hear your story. Please include a link to your website with your comment.
This article was published in 2010 and was updated in 2015.
Hi Richard:
There are many ways to have your cake and eat it, too. Doing so usually involves at least 2 cakes. ;
Cake one is a free periodical website like Mequoda Daily, The Motley Fool, or Knitting Daily. The free website makes 95% of its content available in a google-frienddly open architecture designed to bring in organic traffic. The other 5% is also free, but requires registration and the opportunity to subscribe to the website’s daily email newsletter. The email newsletter subscription grants you on-going permission to tell the free email subscribers about the paid cakes.
Cake two is paid content. Cake 2 could be a subscription website like Mequoda Pro which offers paid members access to a 24X webinar series. It could be a subscription website like The Motley Fool Stock Advisor which offers paid subscribers access to a monthly print and digital newsletter. Or it could be a subscription website like Interweave Knits that offers paid subscribers a quarterly print magazine subscription.
One website for one job. In the long run you need one website dedicated to building your online audience and opt-in email database. It is highly likely that you will need several websites to market and deliver paid content in many forms on several platforms. Don’t fall into the “one website fits all” trap. Websites for online publishers are like paper for print publishers… Keep your options open and each website focused on a single primary task.
Hope you can join us for the Tuesday webinar on Developing Successful Subscription Websites.
Don
Right now I am looking at slightly different model than you’ve described here, Don, and would welcome comments and thoughts as well as those who read your blog. In the case I am working on, Pillsnews.org currently makes basic drug and medication information available free to site visitors. The publisher wishes to continue this practice and at the same time collect email addresses for conversion to paid online subscriptions. The organization behind Pillnews is non profit and they do not take advertising so subscription revenue is vital to their continued existence. Fortunately, their print newsletter, Worst Pills Best Pills News pays the bills so subscriptions to their online product represents incremental income.
So we are looking at using a combination of pop-ups and house banner ads offering free 24-hr access to the full site and/or a downloadable list of drugs that can cause cognitive impairment (a very popular subject on their site). The pop-up would appear a few seconds after the searcher has found the drug they are after, offering a free 24-hr look at the full site in exchange for an email address. The searcher could close the window and continue without responding. At the next step, when the searcher attempts to read the entire story, they would be offered a free download also in exchange for an email address. This time we would use a banner ad to deliver the message. The searcher could ignore the message and continue on but would never have access to the full site, just basic drug information.
This is as far as we have taken the discussion. What do you think so far and what are your thoughts about conversion of those who do take the free 24-hr trial?