If you are thinking about how to create WordPress membership site – this article is for you!
WordPress is one of the most famous and versatile website development tool available. Most of the businesses and blogs on the internet run on WordPress due to the many benefits it provides. The biggest benefit of using WordPress is because you can develop a website with minimal knowledge in website development and it is cheaper compared to other website development services.
If you are using WordPress for your business or blog, you can enable user registrations for the users who visit your site and do transactions. However, WordPress does not provide inbuilt functionality to make your site a WordPress membership site. In this article, we will look into how you can with easy tools, convert your site into a WordPress membership site.
What is a “Membership” site?
A WordPress membership site is when your site prompts its users to enter user details and create a username and password to create an account to use its features and gain benefits which will not be enjoyed by other users.
When the membership feature is added to the site, you can benefit by gaining access to the email addresses of the members which can be developed to email database to be used to promote your products or services and send newsletters. The registered members too should be able to enjoy some benefits, otherwise they will not opt to go the extra mile to create a membership in the site when there’s no difference in benefits even if you are or not a member of the website.
Benefits for users
Following are some of the benefits you can provide to the user who become members on your WordPress membership site.
- Provide to them discounts when purchasing your services. These discounts can be sent via email with a discount code they can access when purchasing your services
- Offer member-only promotions in the site, where only members can enjoy a promotion such as buy 1 get 1 free etc.
- Only the members are able to access certain content on your site
- There could be an option where a community is created via the members such as forum, where the members can only post and comment and get questions answered.
How to Build a Membership Website with WordPress?
The first step to building your WordPress membership site to decide on the membership strategy. Decide on which stage you will prompt users to create a membership profile in your site. Importantly, what benefits would the members receive if they create a membership on your site? Put yourself on the shoes of your user. Think then why do I want to be a member of this site? Are the benefits provided by this site exclusively for their members worth for me to share my details and create a membership in this site?
Once the membership strategy is decided, then decide how you are going to integrate the membership function into your WordPress site. As discussed earlier, WordPress by default do not provide an option to make your site a WordPress membership site. Following are the two main methods how you can do that.
1. Code in the backend using the programming language used by WordPress/ theme
If you have programming knowledge, then this is the best option. Because you can get the Membership option developed with least cost. However, when you make changes to the source code, there’s always the risk of changing code in another part of the website, which will result in some options or the whole website to crash.
But, if you do not have skills in programming, you will have to hire another person to get this done. It will be costly and there’s always the risk of changing the original code of the site and crashing.
2. Use a reliable plugin and customize it as per your requirement
The second option and the option used by a lot of users is to use a reliable plugin to enable the option. There are some plugins which are free and for some plugins you may have to pay a fee to install. The disadvantage of using a free plugin is that the functions you can do from these types of plugins are very minimal. However, with paid plugins you can get access to a vast number of features and customize accordingly. Mostly with paid plugins you can ensure user-friendly user profile page and other pages design.
Why choose UserPro for creating WordPress membership site?
UserPro is the leading plugin used by WordPress membership sites to enable the membership option in their website. the plugin is affordable and provides a number of options which can be customized as per the user requirement. Following are some of the many features of UserPro.
- Ability to chose from a number of login and registration form designs
- Free integration to PayPal
- Ability to create and customize attractive user profiles pages
- Ability to add badges and achievements for the users
- Front-end publishing
- Ability to search for members
- Restricted website access to non-members
- Newsletter integration
Read more about how to create membership website – Important Membership website tips
