How to Create Your Own WordPress Membership Site

WordPress membership site quick guide – WordPress has great features that give you an ability to create any type of websites, including a membership site.

This month I’m quite busy building my first membership site using WordPress, it’s not easy but it fun and a lot of challenges . Having a membership site is very profitable, instead of selling your product for one time payment, membership site has ability to give you a recurring income stream.

Determine The Topic For The Membership Content

Any kind of topic could be content for your membership site. You can see the examples on offline magazines or newspapers, you have already seen a lot of people subscribed monthly or yearly to get the content. There were various topics on offline magazines or newspapers such as health, business, furniture, home & kitchen, and many more. So don’t confuse to get the idea for your membership content, as long as you are an expert in the niche or you can find someone to supply the content.

The Features That You Need For Your Membership Site

I separate the features for a membership site become two; the mandatory features and optional features.

Mandatory Features

Such as its name, the mandatory features should able to be found on all types of membership software. Nowadays all membership software increasingly sophisticated, and all mandatory features below have been built-in on their software:

• Ability to protect the content from being access by public/guest visitors.
• Ability to protect the downloadable files.
• Ability to create several types of membership, such as: free member, silver, gold, etc.
• Multiple payment options.
• Unlimited members.

Optional Features

Although they are just an option, but they are also important and you should consider adding them to your WordPress membership site as well. By adding them it will enhance and give rich features for your membership site.

• Forum. It will be better if the software has feature forum integration. I prefer to use Simple Press, there are also many other plugins to create forum on your WordPress blog such as bbPress, Forum Server, phpBB Recent Topics, Wp2BB.
• News. You can use twitter to publish short news. You can also use a blog to announce some important information.
• Affiliate program. People will love and glad to promote your site if it has affiliate program, since they will get commission for every sale they made. I prefer to use Magic Affiliate Plugin, because it integrated automatically with Magic Members. There’s also one good choice to create affiliate program on your WordPress blog, it’s WP Affiliate Platform by Ruhul Amin.
• Autoresponder integration. It allows members to receive newsletter updates directly to their inbox, members may unsubscribe as well.
• Coupons creation. It will attract more people to join to your membership site, because they get the discount price.
• Custom design. Your home page design should not like a blog design. Since you use WordPress and it’s a blog platform, the standard WordPress themes are designed for blogs (the home page will display the latest blog posts).

WordPress Membership Plugins

There’re many wordpress membership plugins out there, one of my favorites that I use myself is Magic Members. Magic Members has many features to build a professional membership site using WordPress. Some of its features that I really love are: Simple Press forum integration and magic affiliate plugin integration. You can see full features of Magic Members here.

If you decide to buy Magic Members, you can use these coupon codes to get discount:

Single License: MGM876MM for $10.00 Off
3 Users License: MGM965MM for $15.00 Off
Unlimited License: MGM996MM for $25.00 Off

Magicmembers admin dashboard (click to enlarge)

WordPress Membership Site Custom Design

Although you use a blog platform (it’s WordPress) to create your membership site, you should customize your blog design, especially on the home page and on the offer page or sales page. Your home page or offer page design should not like a blog layout. I separate types of membership site designs become two: Sales page design and Web portal design.

Sales page design

Contains just a bit menus and no sidebar widgets embedded, usually just login and or register link. This design style includes: landing page, squeeze page, and splash page. You can see this example on these sites: problogger.com or articlemarketingrobot.com, also there’re many example sites for sales page style – almost all Clickbank products are using sales page or offer page style. If you prefer to use this design style, I recommend you to use Optimize Press.

Optimize Press has complete features to create squeeze pages, sales letters, one-time offer pages, launch pages and much more, completely customize the look, all through a simple point and click interface. With the membership templates module, it integrates with popular membership scripts, Optimize Press template have tested with Nanacast, Wishlist Member and Digital Access Pass.

But if you have capability to customize and create your own WordPress theme, I think design your own by yourself is the best option.

Web portal design

Or whatever you name it, usually contains the complete menus and widgets on the site. You can see this example on these sites: nanacast.com, icontact.com, onlineprofits.com. If you prefer to use this design style, I recommend you to use Framework WordPress themes such as Catalyst Theme (formerly Frugal Theme), Genesis Theme from Studiopress or Thesis Theme from DIYthemes.

I prefer to use web portal style as default home page and do it myself. I also create several landing pages or offer pages by creating new posts or pages on my WordPress. So I use both sales page style and web portal style. You might know that by creating different page designs is important to track and test, so you know which the best converting page. To track your page you can use Tracking202.

So, What are The Requirements to Build WordPress Membership Site

Here’s a list of some requirements to build a professional membership site using WordPress:

1. Your product; can be downloadable ebook or web based information, videos, service, software and tool, etc.
2. Web hosting & domain name and self-hosted WordPress; so that you can customize the theme and install any necessary plugin.
3. WordPress membership plugin; I recommend you to use Magic Members.
4. Custom design for your membership site; you can create your own custom design WordPress theme, hire a professional, or buy high quality premium WordPress theme (as mentioned above).
5. Last but not least, the optional features as mentioned above.

Conclusion

I like these quote: “No body perfect” and “Don’t wait until it perfect, or you will never start”. Yups, my membership site is not perfect yet, but I have started and will continue optimize the site. So far I quite satisfy with my membership site although it’s not perfect.

Here’s the list some important things of what I have planned and done with my sites:

Customize the home design. I use web portal style and do it myself. I also plan to create several types of offer pages such as: landing page and squeeze page. It ideal for capturing leads. I also embed opt-in form on the home page (I put it on the sidebar). For the autoresponder service I use Rapid Response Bot.

I put some important menus/links regarding of my membership site information such as: features, and join (explain to visitors how to join and how much it costs). Here’s the screenshot:

My site is currently only available in Indonesian language

Using Magic Members. I use Magic Members to create and manage the membership site. Currently I’m not using affiliate program yet, but I have planned to add this feature next time by using Magic Affiliate Plugin or WP Affiliate Platform.

Using blog in its domain. I create one category called blog to publish articles, this category is accessible to public. There are also several options to create a blog for your business such as: create a blog on different domain, or create a blog on subdomain (blog.yourmembershipsite.com). Nowadays, having a blog for your business is very important, any business online should have a blog.

Membership fee model. Joining to my membership site is almost free, I only charge $5 for the first year then $50 (it may fall or rise) for the second year and subsequent years. But I require all prospective members to sign up to a web hosting via my affiliate link, so I can make money and at the same time members get web hosting and domain for their online business.

Hopefully this article can help you to build your own WordPress membership site, at least you are understand the preparation for starting. Please use comment below to share your opinion, experience or question about building WordPress membership site. I’m glad to hear your thought