Membership sites are all the rage. Between the Teaching Sells push from a few years ago and promises of riches, site builders have embraced pushing premium content to their visitors. Did they learn nothing from the New York Times Online?
WordPress offers one of the easiest content frameworks so it should come as no surprise that a great deal of coders have built plugins to alter a base install to offer membership features. The WP-member plugin developed by SmartMediaPro.com offers one solution to the membership issue.
Before diving into how the plugin operates, let’s first consider what a membership site should provide.
- A way for visitors to sign up for a membership.
- Protection of content from those who have yet to pay.
- Drip feed of content so the user doesn’t eat up the main course all at once.
- Membership tiers and customizable features.
That about sums it up. My membership site has yet to lift off, but these are the elements I imagine would be desirable for most sites. The drip content wasn’t a requirement for the site I’m building and is not a current option with WP-Member. The aforementioned items are simply what I would consider important for a membership site.
Onto the WP-Member plugin…
I bought the plugin for a new website venture. I ran into an issue that I DESPISE right from the beginning. The plugin requires ioncube to install. If you’re not familiar with ioncube, it’s the infuriating utility used by coders to obfuscate their code. I had to once again edit my php.ini file to allow for the ioncube loader to work. But if you’re on standard hosting, then this will likely be a non-issue. For those of us who have our own servers it can be a bit of a headache. Nevertheless I was able to install in a reasonable amount of time. It’s push button after all.
Once installed it adds a new tab area on the left hand navigation of WordPress. Currently the plugin allows you to setup a payment gateway from PayPal exclusively. Well, aside from the free gateway. This shouldn’t be an issue for most, as most membership sites are married to PayPal.
The plugin does offer a quick text newsletter mailout that could easily be used to notify existing members of new content, cancelled members of deals on subscriptions, or any other quick little blurb.
The plugin does have a feature where you can change existing members of your site into a tier of membership. So if you have forty or fifty people who registered at one point, then you could promote them to the trial membership and shoot them a message saying such. Otherwise the wp-member plugin does give you the tools to create new tiers of membership, of your own naming and pricing.
The plugin also makes it simple to create custom messages to your visitors throughout their experience, tailoring welcome emails and the like.
How well does the plugin separate free from paid content?
WP-member makes it simple to separate free from paid content. You can delegate entire pages as only available to whatever tier of user you have. But it’s also possible to do teasers with the plugin by wrapping the content in [private]…[/private] tags.
I would love to see some more tools made available in the WordPress GUI to handle the privatization tags. I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard to implement. The plugin doesn’t support drip content. I understand this may be a deal breaker for some, but
The plugin has as strict, single use license for $49.99. In the administrative area, the code synchronizes with the mothership and would likely not be functional on a second domain, without an additional license, of course. One membership site is enough, right?
Recommendation: Good for content rich membership sites where the user will have access to everything from the beginning.
I bought the WP-Member Plugin for use with my new membership site. I have written an honest review of the product. If you decide the WP-member plugin meets your needs, please use my link to buy it (yes, I will make a few bucks).
Grab a copy of the WP-Member Plugin now!
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