Best strategy for capturing new members: visitors can see everything or only main page?

[Tim Magee]

Good morning,

 

I am launching our new Ning network this week.

 

If I want people to sign up, should I set it up so they can look at the whole site first – and then sign up? Or should they be restricted to the main page only and be required to sign up in order to explore?

 

As these are the only two options – all or nothing – I’m not sure what to offer people as an inducement for signing up if they have access to the whole site immediately – since there doesn’t seem to be a way to develop special pages for members only.

 

Or am I missing something really basic?

 

Thank you for your help in advance!

 

Tim Magee

http://developmentcommunity.csd-i.org/

[Joe]

this is a good question
most probably the answer depends on the content of your website

in my case my network focuses more on news with little need of discussions from members
so I have seen that when my network was set that everyone could see everything - visitors didnt feel the need to sign up as they could get all without it - when after 2 weeks i changed settings again and made only the main page visible to non-members, instantly i got 20 new members

if your main page has enough content then i feel it is safe to set it as main page only - but if it has little content no one would sign up, in this case seeing all is safer to attract new members

[Tim Magee]

Thank you Joe,

My main page actually has some good content so i would be safe restricting access to the main page.

Tim

[Tim Magee]

Thank you John,

That's great. Makes sense.

I appreciate your taking the time to respond.

Tim