The simple fact is that no matter what your ideas for a membership site, you are nowhere unless you have a membership software. So, which membership script is right for you? There are literally dozens of membership solutions out there and they all behave in different ways and I want to tell you exactly the way I set up my membership sites. It involves three components: WordPress, Wishlist member, and a Drip plugin.
Let’s first cover WordPress. When people log in to your membership site, they need t go somewhere. Right? In the past, the membership login used to be a separate component than, for example your WordPress blog. The idea was that somebody could charge for access just to a forum or just to a WordPress blog. But recently, developers have figured that usually people want to end up on a WordPress blog, so you should definitely use WordPress to host your membership site content. This is great because with WordPress, you could have multiple authors, you can schedule posts, categorize posts, make posts searchable, embed video, allow others to comment on that post and more, and best of all, it’s free. A very small minority of membership sites run on Joomla, but I definitely would not recommend Joomla simply because it’s slightly more complicated than WordPress and not as mainstreamed. So, use WordPress as the blog inside your membership site.
Once you have that blog, you should install a WordPress plugin to keep the wrong people outside of your membership and allow the right people in. My favorite WordPress plugin that runs a membership site is not my plugin, but it is called Wishlist member. Other solutions such as Rapid Action Profits or Digital Access Pass require you to install multiple plugins or modules just to get the basic membership site running, but Wishlist member is one simple plugin that you install and now you have a membership site. It allows you to have different levels, it provides sharing protection, sequential content, autoresponder integration, and more.
Finally, install a Drip plugin to make sure that your membership site acts more like a training course, like an autoresponder. Without a Drip plugin, you control the access to your membership site, but if somebody leaves and comes back to your site six months later, they can see the entire archive of six months that you posted in the meantime. With a Drip plugin, however, it changes the way WordPress behaves and makes it so that when somebody joins on day one, they see day one worth of content. If they quit and come back in six months, they are still back at day one. So, the longer they are in your membership site, the more content they see.
What membership software should you use? You should use WordPress for your blog, Wishlist member for the software, and the Drip plugin for the training functionality.
I wan to give you all three of these membership site components right now tonight. Claim your access to everything you need to create a membership site right now.