Today we will know How to Create a Membership Website with WordPress. Some websites (like ours), require you to sign up as a member to get the most out of them. WordPress supports user registration out of the box, but it doesn’t enable you to implement complex membership systems. That means you may be tempted to start looking for an alternate platform. Fortunately, you can add almost any feature to your WordPress website using plugins, and membership systems are no exception. With the right tools, you can turn a regular WordPress website into a members-only club that users must pay to access. Even better, you have many options to choose from which plugin to use.
In this post, we are going to briefly talk about the benefits of membership websites. Then we’ll introduce you to some plugin options and teach you how to use one of them. Let’s get to work!
Why you might want to build a membership website
You need to sign up to get access to the full content of membership websites and they come in many shapes and sizes. Of course, not every website is suitable for the membership model. WordPress blogs are generally open to anyone, for example, if you don’t want your content to remain private. However, there are many reasons to restrict some or all of your site’s content to members.
Some of the key benefits of membership sites include:
- They enable you to monetize your website.
- Communities with personalized content can attract curious users.
- Membership systems often encourage a sense of community, such as through forums or other social media features.
WordPress supports user registration out of the box. However, its membership system is quite basic. Fortunately, we can improve this by using the right plugin(s).
An introduction to WordPress membership plugins For Create
We’ll teach you how to use a plugin to convert your WordPress blog into a membership website. First, we’ll take a look at some of the best plugin options out there.
Let’s start with Ultimate Member. This free plugin overhauls your WordPress user registration and profile pages using a drag-and-drop builder. It gives you the tools you need to restrict content to members only and offers plenty of premium extensions if you want more options.
s2Member enables you to restrict your posts, pages, tags, categories, and even forums to registered users only. More importantly, it integrates with PayPal payments out of the box, so you don’t need to set up anything else to start charging for membership.
Membermouse is a little different. It is an add-on for the WP Courseware plugin, which enables you to create online courses. Using both plugins, you can monetize your lessons through subscriptions instead of selling them one-on-one.
Finally, Restricted Content Pro includes almost every feature we’ve talked about so far. It also enables you to restrict pages and posts to members only and charge for registration through Stripe, Braintree, 2Checkout, and Authorize.net. You can even create discount codes to entice visitors to join.
As you can see, there are plenty of options to choose from. Whichever plugin you choose will – at the very least – provide you with a way to restrict content from non-members. On top of that, you’ll want to look for tools that include profile customization features and that integrate with at least one payment gateway.
How to Create a Membership Website on WordPress
We’re going to use the Ultimate Member plugin for this section because it’s a free option that offers tons of features. More importantly, it’s easy to set up! The only downside to this plugin is that it doesn’t support paid subscriptions out of the box. If you want to add that feature, you will need to use a premium extension that integrates with WooCommerce. That said, go ahead and install and activate the plugin before proceeding to step number one.
Step 1: Enable user registration on your website
By default, WordPress disables new user registration when you create a website. To enable them, go to your dashboard and find the Settings > General tab. Then, scroll down until you see the Membership section. Right next to it there should be an option that says anyone can register, which you want to enable:
After that, scroll down and click the Save Changes button.
Step 2: Customize your user registration and profile pages
Membership pages require users, so it stands to reason that you want to make the sign-up process as efficient as possible. It’s also important to provide users with profile pages they can access and modify themselves.
Ultimate Member automatically overhauls both your user’s registration and profile page. However, you are still free to customize them in any way you want. To do this, go to the Ultimate Member > Forms page and find the Default Registration and Default Profile pages:
First, click on Default Registration. You’ll see a custom editor, which includes a drag-and-drop builder. You can use this builder to choose which elements to include on your registration page and change the order in which they appear:
Each item has three options: one to duplicate, one to delete, and an edit feature. Here is an example of the fields you can edit for the username item:
If you click on the plus sign icon below the editor, you can add new items and have dozens of options at your disposal:
There are no restrictions on the items you can add to this page. When you’re done customizing it, you can click the Live Preview button at the top of the builder to see how it looks on the front end:
Now, you’ll want to save your changes and repeat the process above for the default profile page, which is located under Ultimate Members > Forms.
Step 3: Restrict your website content to registered users
Ultimate Member enables you to customize access rules on a page (or post) basis. With the plugin activated, you’ll get a new Ultimate Member widget on every page and post when you enter the editor:
Apply custom access settings? The option will enable you to choose access rules for each page individually. You can make your content public, or restrict who can see it. Naturally, the best approach is to restrict the content you want to be available only to logged-in users.
That’s it! Your membership site is ready to go, and all you need to do now is start creating some content.
Conclusion
Some people still think of WordPress merely as a blogging platform. While this is an excellent solution for blogs, there are very few roles that WordPress can’t fill with the right plugin. You can use the platform to create almost anything, including online stores, social networks, and even full membership websites. When it comes to membership plugins, we are partial to the ultimate member due to its extensive set of features. Hopefully, now you can Create a Membership Website with WordPress. Buy WordPress Hosting From Oudel Inc.
