In this issue: 1) Looking at 2007 2) Before 2006 ends... 3) Recent Articles 4) Top posts 5) Cool (Free) Tool 6) On a personal note... Looking at 2007: A Reminder Now that 2006 is coming to an end, don't forget to change the copyright dates on your site. Nothing screams "outdated!" quite like a copyright that is a year (or two or three) out of date on a site. So while you are thinking about it, go ahead and update your sites with 2007.   Last Minute Tax Write Offs Disclaimer: This is not tax advice... Its easy to notice the end of the year with my role as support manager for MemberGate software. We always get a flurry of last minute businesses signing up for a new MemberGate site. Quite often their goal is to get the purchase in before the end of the year for a last minute tax write off. Many are able to write off most business related expenses (check with your own tax professional to see if that applies to your situation). With the end of 2006 coming up in just a few days, here is a list of 9 last minute purchases that a membership site owner may want to consider. Laptop for Travel - I bought a Sony Vaio TX770 earlier this year and I love it. It has Wifi (for hotspots) as well as a built in wireless broadband option through Cingular. Its very compact but just big enough to actually be functional without too much of a sacrafice. Here is a list of various models of Sony Vaio's. Herman Miller Aeron Chair - These aren't cheap but are oh so comfortable... If you are spending hours behind your desk, you might as well enjoy the benefits of being productive as possible. I finally bought a Hermann Miller Aeron chair 1.5 years ago and I love it. How much is being comfortable worth to you? Dell 24" Flat Panel Monitor - Do your eyes a favor and consider a larger monitor. I love my Dell 24" Flat Panel LCD monitor. It also increases my productivity as I have two windows open side by side to multitask. A 24" will run about $700 but you can also get a 20" for about half that amount. Pay For A Seminar - Are you considering going to a seminar next year? You may want to purchase the tickets to it this year. That's exactly what I did with Yanik Silver's upcoming Underground Seminar in March 2007. If you are also going to this seminar, let me know. There are quite a few Membership Site Owner members going so we will have to meet up. Video Camera - Its no secret, video is gaining ground rapidly online. The price of video cameras continues to drop while the quality goes up. Here is an excellent choice for a video camera which has the right options. Quickbooks -Quickbooks is the accounting software that I rely on to manage my companies. It has more bells and whistles than I will ever need, but more importantly it does everything that I need it to. Camtasia Studio - Camtasia is a piece of software that almost any membership site can benefit from. It is great for making tutorials, site tours, content for your site as well as info products to sell off your site. Samson USB Microphone - The Samson USB microphone is excellent and a very good bargain considering the quality of it. I've written about this microphone on the MSO site and it definitely makes a difference in the quality of audio. MemberGate Software - I am 100% biased but I honestly believe this is the best membership site software out there for a variety of reasons. I was a MemberGate customer before I ever started working for the company and it continues to amaze me with its power.   Most Recent Articles Here are a list of some of our most recent articles. If you aren't a member yet, no problem. You will have instant access to EVERYTHING on the site. Make sure after reading through the articles, you stop by the very active forum. It is frequented by many very successful membership site owners sharing their favorite tactics and best practices. We reserve the right to remove this free trial at anytime so if you wish to take full advantage of it, click here to access the site.   Effective Affiliate Tactic That Works Bringing affiliates on board to help promote your site can be very profitable if done correctly. The problem with most affiliates is that most never do anything to promote your site. Here is one tactic that has proven successful in the past in landing more active (or even "Super") affiliates . . . keep reading     Should You Offer Free Trial Memberships On Your Subscription Web Site? Here are our real results from this very site's testing of free trial memberships. See the results and the effects it had on our membership numbers. There's a few surprising observations discovered as well . . . keep reading     How-to dramatically increase your affiliate product sales commissions Affiliate product sales can add thousands of dollars in revenues each month from my membership websites. This is one of the most effective strategies for increasing the profits that I earn from those affiliate products . . . keep reading       Google Secrets Every Membership Site Owner Needs To Know Of course you want good Google search engine results for your membership site. The question is, what are some of the things that they look for to give your site the credibility it deserves? Here are factors you need to know about . . . keep reading   Click here for a free 14 trial access to read these articles and many others   Excerpts From Our Forum The Membership Site Owner (MSO) forum is very active with many posts every day. Here are some of the most recent topics which are bound to help out other membership site owners. You will need to have an account to read the full posts. You can get free trial access here.   Which Autoresponder service to use? - A portion of Kenneth's post was: I'm stuck about which autoresponder to use. I already know Aweber is awesome for email deliverability. I'm planning to sell other physical/digital products in my niche, besides the membership site, hence the shopping cart need. So I'm considering 1ShoppingCart because of the cart features, and the ability to automatically move people who buy your products into a new separate customer list, instead of keeping them in your general subscriber list, so you can give different followup offers/pitches. But is it worth it to get the all-in-one 1shoppingcart if the email deliverability might be less effective with 1ShoppingCart, compared to Aweber's? I need a reliable autoresponder, but I also like the purchasing/auto list mgmt features. But if the email deliverability is subpar, that's not going to be good. Opinions? Read the 10 replies from users who have experience with both programs by click here.   Free Trials - Should I require a credit card when they first sign up? - Rich made some good points and asked the forum in part... 1) On my revised member registration form, I will require visitors who want to get the 14-day free trial to put in their credit card information along with their personal info. This has come about after reading several posts here about getting "more serious" potential members - in my case parents and coaches instead of just a bunch of kids who are looking for freebies. But could this be a strong deterent for people (adults) who are just looking for some free stuff for the time being? If I discontinue the mini-course and I don't have some sort of optin for those unwilling to fill-out the membership registration form and commit credit card information, will I have "cut my nose off to spite my face" and lose getting these potential members sometime in the future? Any suggestions are welcome. 2) Perhaps I should still offer a monthly newsletter as an optin and keep this optin idea, although this is not my MWR (Most Wanted Response). Tim, I notice that you still have your Tip of The Week running, even with a drop down pop-up window, although you have your 14-Day Trial Offer too. How does this affect you and your site's conversion? Thanks all. Appreciate the feedback and suggestions. Read the replies here .     Which Software To Use To Run My Site? Theresa asked for some feedback on which software she should be considering for her membership. She mentioned a few specifically that she was looking at and requested some feedback from members of the forum. Here are some insightful replies from a variety of members.     Cool (Free) Tool Did you know you can use Google for simple or even complex computations? You simply enter the formula into the Google search box. For example, enter any of the following and Google will return the results: 4+5 4/5 4*5 45 miles in kilometers 50 kilometers in miles 3 times 2 times 22 15 divided by 82 22 / 4 * 1.044 sqrt 81 4 squared 2^4 pi The next time you are stuck on a calculation, simply turn to Google.   On A Personal Note... My wife is due VERY shortly with our second child. The due date is 2 weeks away but we both are thinking sooner rather than later. I don't know if we will be able to get the tax deduction for this year :-p but I am not looking to rush it either. I'll post something in the forum when there is news to share... Wish us luck!!   Best wishes and I hope 2007 is your best one ever.