I am a recent graduate of a Pro-Track class.  During the year, we were taught the importance of blogging, pod casting, and having a web presence. For me, building a website is second nature, but I realize that it’s sometimes paralyzing to others. If building a website becomes paralyzing, many end up just not having any web presence.

I believe there is something in between having nothing, and having to pay too much money for a site.  I envision a web community that pro track participants can be a member of, which would give them many of the benefits of their own website, without the overhead of maintaining a site.  Something more focused to the speaking profession then Yahoo Groups, or other online communities.

I built the member site with the following features – leveraging off the NSA member site.

1. Custom Member Page to use as a Website Promotion – I created an example page for myself: www.nsaprotrack.com/profile/jim-carrillo. Members have the ability to create their own page, upload images, pod casts, and it’s all done from a simple website page. I’ll have online videos to explain it step by step. This is like a personal website without having to know how to setup a website (or pay for it).

2. Ability to contribute to articles and blog posts which will publicize the member’s name on the internet. This is like a personal blog that leverages off all members posts. Instead of having the burden of writing enough articles for a personal blog, all members contribute to the same blog. They will have all the rights to create posts, but the post will need to be approved by a moderator before it can be published to the internet. That will ensure the content stays professional.  All chapters can have a designated moderator, or rely on me to do it for them.

3. Monthly pod casts of members posted on this site. Ian Griffin of NSA/NC started this with our Pro-Track class, and it was a great way for new speakers to get their own pod cast.

4. The site will be submitted to Google, Yahoo, etc… with Search Engine Optimization tools – members won’t have to worry about doing this for their own site. With contributions to the site from other speakers, it would leverage off this additional content for higher Google rankings.

In addition, the Chapters can have their own page displayed on the main menu.  They can edit the page as much as they want.  Semi-private pages (not listed in the menu) can be created for the class.  For private information, it’s very easy to add a password protection to any page.

For participants, joining the site is a real easy process, and again, no cost. Go to www.nsaprotrack.com , in the right menu bar, under the “login” button is a link to register. Just enter your name, email address, answer a few questions, and you’re done.I think this would be a nice benefit for Pro Track members, and if you agree, pass the word on.

You can use this concept too for your business.  Create a Member site for your seminar participants.  Build a community that you own from the people you speak to.  I’ve posted an article on my blog detailing exactly how I created the Member Site with 100% free WordPress and it’s Plugins.  My only cost was $10 for reserving the domain, and since I host it under my company’s GoDaddy account, that was free too.  If you’re moderately technical, you should have no problem running your own membership site without paying much money at all.  If you want to learn just enough to pull this off, you can also check out my training videos on my blog on how to set up your own WordPress site that you’ll have complete control over.