Have you ever dreamed of starting your own membership site? Some say it’s the best way to make money on the Internet, so why not? Well, let’s make sure you have the right tools for the job! Starting a membership web site is possible but you will need a hosting company that offers you the right tools to conduct the day to day operations of your site. At minimum the prospective hosting company should allow you the ability to create forms, set up an ecommerce site, community development tools, recurring billing modules and access level controls. But that’s not all you will need to build and run a membership web site.

While browsing through the prospective hosting company’s site, look for a few additional necessary tools such as MySQL, PERL, CGI, SSI, CRON, Curl, FrontPage, PHP scripting tools, Python, GD and ImageMagik, which allows you to create streaming videos and music.

Everyone needs email - and especially membership sites. You will need one for the admin, support, information, etc. So don’t overlook your email needs. Your hosting package should also come with auto responders, mailing lists, mail forwarding, web mail, Spam control, POP3, IMAP, and SMTP.

Does the hosting company provide you with a control panel? These control panels (often referred to as cpanels) usually offer you many tools and features such as hotlink protection, Fantastico, management of Search Engine submittals, and error pages. If Fantastico is provided you have at your fingertips access to instant blogging software, portals, PHP, Nuke, Instant Chat, Forums, counters, FTP, and so on.

Membership sites are private, so you simply must have password protection for your folders. Check to see if the hosting company’s cpanel package has password protection; additionally, you will want .htaccess privileges.

Also make sure you have tracking statistics available. Tracking statistics often include raw log or other access such as Awstats. Error logs and analogs are provided as well. While this feature will not make your site run any better, it will help you to improve it when you know what’s going on “behind the scenes.”

If you plan to start running a membership site, you really should consider purchasing the plan that offers ecommerce features, as well as Shared SSL or Private SSL, Agora Shopping Carts, Instant OS Commerce, and Cube Carts. Joomla and other membership scripts are usually available.

In addition to the basic tools listed above, you will also need to consider a few marketing tools for your web site once you get setup. These will vary depending on they type of site you are building, and are not usually provided by the web hosting company. In fact, there will be lots of things you will need, but you won’t even know what they are until you run into a problem or two. Don’t spend time fretting about it - just head on over to the search engine and start searching.

Whatever you do, don’t give up your dream of owning a membership site. With the tips in this article you know how to find a good webhosting company. The time for hesitation is over. Just build it.