If you’re looking for the best web conferencing tools for your membership site, you’ve come to the right place.
By the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll have all the information needed to help you decide.
As we all have different needs and requirements, this guide will start off with some points to consider when weighing the options before we get to the best tools for setting up online conferencing for your membership site.
Let’s get started…
What to Look for in a Web Conferencing Tool
Web conferencing has many benefits, including giving you another way to communicate with your members, adding value to your membership site, and simplify the process of collaborating with a team of distributed staff.
However, as this type of service can be used in many different ways, it makes it difficult to declare one service the overall best web conferencing tool for membership sites.
Tools of this type all have their own unique features and ways of doing things that make some better suited to certain projects than others.
Since everyone has their own set of priorities and requirements when choosing a service or tool, some points to considering when evaluating the best web conferencing tools include:
- Cost: do they have a free trial, a free entry-level plan, or a plan that matches your budget?
- Number of users: how many concurrent users can participate in each call?
- Time limit: is there a limit on the length of each call?
- App and software support: how can your members join the conference calls, e.g. via mobile, desktop, etc.?
- Dial-in support: can participants use a regular phone to dial in and join the conference session?
Though you might not need all of these features, they’re worth thinking about before you make a final decision.
Now that you know what to look for, here’s our pick of the best web conferencing tools for your membership site, with some of their key features highlighted.
The Best Web Conferencing Tools for Membership Sites
With five impressive web conferencing tools to consider, you’re sure to find a suitable option.
Hangouts Meet by Google
Hangouts Meet is a business-focused web conferencing service from Google. You might already be familiar with the regular Google Hangout service, but if you’re serious about finding the best tool for your membership site, then it might be time to think about upgrading to the premium Hangouts Meet by Google.
One of the benefits of upgrading to Hangouts Meet is the ability to run 30-person video calls, all through a lightweight interface. Creating a dial-in phone number for your meetings is an option too, giving your participants another way to connect.
If you’re already using other Google products, such as their email and calendar services, you can effortlessly integrate this video conferring service with those tools.
However, Hangouts Meet can also integrate with other non-Google services, such as Microsoft Teams (previously known as Skype for Business), giving you even more options for connecting with your members and your team.
With prices starting from a few dollars a month, Hangouts Meet is a feature-rich and affordable web conferencing tool for membership sites.
Find out more about Hangouts Meet by Google.
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams has replaced Skype for Business to become the premium web conferencing service from the widely-known creator of the Windows operating system.
The free version of Microsoft Teams actually supports up to 300 users, so it might be suitable for your membership site's web conferencing needs.
However, if you need to accommodate more users, the top-end plan has support for unlimited users. There are generous storage and file size allowances on all plans too, helping you to share content between users.
If you want to record your meetings — something that can be useful for adding more content to your membership site — you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan. However, with affordable annual plans available, Microsoft Teams can be a cost-effective way to add premium web conferencing to your membership site business.
Find out more about Microsoft Teams.
GoToMeeting
Founded in 2004, GoToMeeting is a well-established name in web conferencing. Therefore, if you’re looking for a reputable and popular service for your membership site, this one is worth a closer look.
Its focus on online meetings, desktop sharing, and video conferencing should give you a good idea whether GoToMeeting will have the features you’re looking for.
The online conference sessions are delivered via a web-hosted service through software installed on the host computer to provide secure data transmission. Also, mobile apps for Apple and Android devices should increase your members' ability to join the conference calls that you create.
While there’s no free plan for GoToMeeting, you can try the service free for 14-days to see if it's right for you.
Find out more about GoToMeeting.
Cisco Webex
Webex from Cisco should have everything you need to start adding web conferencing to your membership site, helping you to communicate with members and make your site more interactive.
Thanks to the free entry-level plan, you can start using Webex to run web conferences with up to 50 participants without any financial investment.
However, on the free plan, meetings can’t last longer than 40 minutes. Upgrading to the paid Starter plan removes the time limit and increases the number of participants who can join in.
In addition to the conferencing service, there’s a Cisco Webex Teams tool that’s been created to aid collaboration. So if you want a service that can help you and the other people working on your membership site complete tasks together, this aspect of Webex might be of interest.
With good communication and file-sharing tools, Cisco Webex should help your remote team and members connect and collaborate more effectively.
Find out more about Cisco Webex.
Zoom
Zoom is a web-based video conferencing tool that has desktop clients and local apps to ensure your members can attend your online meetings regardless of their technical set up.
Zoom is also a popular webinar tool. Therefore, for those who'd like their conference call sessions to be more presentation-focused, rather than discussion-based, Zoom has lots of useful webinar features.
Like a few of the other popular web conferencing tools for your membership site, the limited free plan allows you to start running online meetings, regardless of your budget.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, one of the options in this collection of web conferencing tools has stood out from the others. If so, you should be able to start running online meetings and conferencing in just a few clicks.
If you can’t decide on just one tool from the available options, the good news is that the above services are all high-quality and should work well for most projects.
Many of them have either free trials or free entry-level plans that enable you to test them out to find the best solution for your membership site.
Regardless of which one you choose, it’s likely that you’ll be able to start reaping the benefits of web conferencing in no time at all.
Which do you think is the best web conferencing tool for your membership site? Please let us know in the comments below.
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