Since then it’s expanded quite a bit: from hosting corporate websites, to maintaining complex e-commerce, to building entire communities with membership-based businesses or even a SaaS application within WordPress. The possibilities seem endless. In this article, we’ll explore what the advantages are to setting up a WordPress membership website and what’s the best way of going about it.

Advantages Of Setting Up A WordPress Membership Website

Before we begin with the benefits of setting up a WordPress membership website, let’s be sure we’re on the same page as to what it actually is. Membership websites refer to websites that require a sign-up upon entering. Once a visitor signs up, they then create login information that will allow them to access the website/course/content that is deemed more “exclusive”. That exclusivity is decided on by you as the content creator. A subscriber-based site is a great step towards building a membership community and making more money, which brings us to advantage number one.

#1. You can make money setting up a WordPress membership website.

By offering some free content and then restricting the rest to monthly memberships, you can make money quickly. This has become a popular model for many, and the potential profit is largely behind the reason why.

#2. You can gain credibility if you execute correctly.

The membership model is only effective if you plan and organize accordingly. The success of this option relies heavily on well-designed, exclusive content. When you can achieve that, the demand for your company’s “secrets” will rise dramatically and the credibility of your company along with it

#3. Your membership data can be used to further target and streamline your marketing.

As useful as Google Analytics and other similar data analytic tools may be, their information can only go so far. The demographics and user behavior are recorded and monitored, but that’s about it. Nothing could be more useful in helping to target your market than setting up a WordPress membership website. Why? Because you’re getting exact information about your most enthusiastic visitors – straight from the source. Your sign-up can include questions that will help you gain a better understanding of what they love, want and are hoping to get from your company.

What Is Considered Membership-Worthy Content?

• Ok, so now that you know a few of the benefits of setting up a WordPress membership website, let’s talk about what exactly should be offered. Nothing is worse than ripping your users off, so make sure you make a membership, especially a monetary one, worth their while. The following are examples of membership perks:
• Special Promotions – anything from discount prices, to seasonal deals, to premier event tickets.
• Exclusive Content – this will obviously vary depending on your business, but make it your best.
• Tips/Tricks – you can save some of your company’s best advice for those who are willing to pay.
• Master Classes – reserve top speakers/consultants/instructor videos for higher membership.
• First Access – give passes or tickets first to those who pay monthly membership.

Best Plugin For Setting Up A WordPress Membership

As is the case with most web-related things, there are countless of plugins that can be used for setting up a WordPress membership website. Thanks to newly designed, intuitive plugins and WordPress’ incredible flexibility, you can create a membership option in your website/business easily and quickly. Instead of giving you a lengthy pros and cons list of all the plugins available, we’ll cut right to the chase and cover what we consider to be the best plugin for setting up a WordPress Membership, which is Membership 2. We’ll explain why it’s so great, how to setup and configure it with the Jupiter theme and how to improve on it with our favorite add-ons.

Membership 2

Membership 2 is one of the most popular Membership plugins out there, and for good reason. It’s simple, easy to use and full of features developed by WPMUDEV. It has both a free and premium version available, however, we’ve found that you can do most things just fine with the free version.

What we love most about the Membership 2 plugin is that it has lots of features that other plugins lack, such as supporting different payment gateways, various user levels, and page restriction rules. Those three features alone are pretty much all you need for a standard or slightly more complex membership website/app.

Since it’s convenient to set-up and fully compatible with Jupiter, it’s definitely our go-to plugin for membership websites. If you’re fully convinced, let’s move on to installing and configuring the plugin.

Getting Started With Membership 2

You can start using Membership 2 plugin right away by simply installing the plugin which is available at https://wordpress.org/plugins/membership.

After a successful installation, you’ll need to configure your first membership class. Then all the necessary pages that go along with a membership will be created for you, like an account page, sign-up page and login pages. Basically, your site is ready to accept sign-ups in your website.

Memberships

This is the section where you can control your various membership classes, see the list of members and change the access options to each class. There are four base membership options available:

Standard Membership

Dripped Content Membership

Guest Membership

Default Membership

Protection Rules

This is the section where you can manage the protection rules on your pages and memberships. You can restrict and protect your content for certain membership plans, or grant access to specific members. As we noted in sections above, make sure you reserve exclusive content for the highest classes of membership so that you have something special to offer your most loyal members and subscribers. You want them to feel like their membership is bringing them value that’s above and beyond the standard site content. Don’t forget to use this exclusivity as a marketing tool to help incentivize people to sign up. Trust us – it can work wonders!

All Members List And Add Member Option

You can conveniently see all the members that have registered up to date in the All Members section. From there you can edit their information and credentials. Also you can add new members manually in the Add Member section quickly and easily. Keeping a clean record of your members will allow you to focus your marketing in a more strategic and targeted way. They’re the right pool of people to present with surveys, questionnaires and feedback forms that can help guide your team on what your company could change and improve.

Add-Ons

You can activate various add-ons for your membership website here. All the add-ons are free and ready to be activated by you. Make sure you take a look at the add-ons immediately after activating Membership 2 because many features are hidden away in the add-ons section. 

Conclusion—- if you’re ready to take your website and customer base to the next level, incorporating a membership program into your site is a great way of gathering loyal, active and interested customers into a forum to share more specialized content and insight AND gain more direction for your marketing and business development/growth.

If you’ve got the chops to back it up, begin setting up a WordPress membership website with Membership 2 and create an even closer community of loyal customers/followers. You certainly won’t regret it – and neither will they!

Overview

Advantages of setting up a WordPress membership website:

#1. You can make money setting up a WordPress membership website.

#2. You can gain credibility if you execute correctly.

#3. Your membership data can be used to further target and streamline your marketing.

What’s considered membership-worthy content:

Special Promotions

Exclusive Content

Tips/Tricks

Master Classes

First Access

Best plugin to use:

Membership 2

Why? It’s very easy to use and fully compatible with Jupiter.

How? Install the plugin and configure your membership classes. Then manage protection rules on your pages and add members.

What Else? There are various add-ons that can enhance your membership website that are free and can be easily activated.