There are many subscription websites that are instant hits, while others that do not take off at all, and there are still others that do just normal business. There are certain points that one should keep in mind while getting into the business of subscription website. This checklist of points given below will ensure that the subscription website takes off well.

The site must offer some thing unique to the member in the form of unique information, or product or facility that is not available anywhere else on the Internet. If some other site is offering the same information free of charge it will definitely have a negative impact on the sales of your subscription site. This means that your pay site should offer original and unique information or content written with specific intention. The idea is that if a visitor wants to read the information given on your site then he will have to subscribe to your site, and that it will be difficult to obtain the same information elsewhere on the internet. Potential subscribers will not join your website as members, if they feel that they can get the same information elsewhere for free.

The main aim of the website should be to target a niche market, even if a narrow one, with very specific information on a specific subject. The theme or the focus of the subscription website should be to target the few niche segment customers, who are really interested and involved with your product, rather than have a product where many people are interested in your product, but no body is involved with it. Human psychology is such that people have to be emotionally involved with your product to first buy it and then continue using it.

The subscribers must get a sense of community belonging on joining your pay subscribers list: The prospective subscribers should be made aware that there are a group of people who feel emotionally about the information your website is offering and that by subscribing to the website, he/she would also join that community of emotionally involved people on that particular topic. More over he/she would be able to network with these like minded people, through either a discussion group or any other such forum.

The subscribers must get a sense of exclusivity by subscribing to your web site. The subscribers and potential subscribers should get a feeling that they have joined an exclusive club by subscribing to your site, where only they can get access to the specialized information and benefits that they are seeking, and that masses do not have access to all these benefits.

The site must offer a 'compelling reason to join' to the subscriber list - It is important that the potential subscribers feel a compelling reason to subscribe to your site. Even if your site offers all the above benefits of a unique product to a niche market and exclusive membership, you still need to make him feel that he has an urgent need for that product at that given time. If you are not able to get them to this 'urgent need' state then they may just categorize your site as interesting and move on without subscribing. They should get to the stage where they are able to say that this is the product I have been looking for and I must subscribe immediately.

The site must follow a viable business model to survive - You must have a viable business model and the sales targets that are achievable. You have better chances of succeeding with your subscription website, if your breakeven point is low, you have low overhead costs and need small number of subscribers to become profitable. On the other hand if your business model requires you to have a minimum of say 4000 subscribers for you to breakeven, then chances of success are very few.

The look of the site must be appealing and should be easy to comprehend and navigate. The look of the site and the navigation within the site should be simple yet captivating. There should be an overall theme, and the whole site should make the visitor feel comfortable. If the site is confusing and the content unclear then the visitor is sure to move away to another site. Moreover every element on the site like the topic headings etc should be crisp and clear. You can have a copy of the content teaser displayed along with the topic, to give a fair idea to the visitor regarding the actual content within that topic. And when he is sure that he wants to see the contents of that topic, you can have him register with your subscription website.

The site must be easy and inexpensive to build and maintain. To maintain a content rich web site you can use a content management and subscription website publishing tool. This tool will help to eliminate the problems caused by manual maintenance of such sites.

The site must have the feature of 'password sharing' blocking to avoid misuse of the pay site - Your subscription web site should have the feature of blocking password sharing. The website administration tools should be able to detect if the same username is being used from different locations or some unauthorized users. This type of situations can arise if a user posts his name on a user group or a discussion board. There fore the accounts that are being used inappropriately should be disabled.

The site must have inbuilt reporting tools to help you analyze the visitors profile and navigation details. The administrative tools of the site should be able to give you regular reports on the visitors' profile- where they come from, what are the keywords and the content they search for, and the trends and history of the website. This will help you improve the content on your site and make additions according to the requirements of the subscribers or the prospects. Reporting tools should also be able to give the income transactions, and other activity reports.

All the above points should be checked on your 'must have checklist', for a successful subscription website. Even if one of the points is not checked, then you may have a problem getting the subscriber base that you are looking for and hence the profitability and even the existence of the subscription website may itself be at stake.