Is a Drupal Membership Website the Best Option?

Posted on 08. Jul, 2010 by Steve in CMS Systems, Tips & Tricks

Drupal has long been one of the most popular content management systems among webmasters. However, with the growing popularity of membership websites, many people are wondering whether or not a Drupal membership website is the best choice. This decision, for many people, will come down to how much work they want to do in order to set up and integrate the additional modules into their website. While there is no “right” answer, by understanding what will need to be done in order to create a Drupal membership website, making this decision can be much easier.

Drupal historically has been considered to have a steeper learning curve than many other popular CMS options. This makes integrating additional modules to create a membership website simpler for seasoned users than for newer Drupal webmasters. In order to create a membership website, there are several common modules that will need to be installed. These include: the Content Access module, CCK module, and a membership module.

Once you have Drupal installed, the first thing that will need to be done is to create a new “Role” for paying members. Many people will name this role something like “Premium Member”, “Paid Member”, Bronze/Silver/Gold Member”, etc Along with creating the name for the role, you must also create a new “Content Type” for the paying members. This is where the CCK module comes into play.

Once the new Content Type has been created, you can use the Content Access module to rebuild/alter the node access permissions. Once this has been taken care of, you must make sure that your new Content Type has been configured so that only Paying Members will have access to it.

Once all of this has been set up, it is now time to integrate the membership module of your choice. In order to create a Drupal membership website for paying customers, there are several functions that a membership module must have. The first is a way for members to register for your membership site. During registration, this will include things like setting up a password, selecting a payment option, selecting a tier (if you are creating a tiered membership website), a way to connect to payment processor or payment gateway, as well as a way to set up trail memberships. It is also important to make sure that you have the ability to utilize recurring billing, automatically renew subscriptions, and much more. This may be taken care of with a single module or may require several modules, depending on which ones you choose.

As you can see, there are a variety of modules that will be necessary to create a Drupal membership website. It is important to understand that you will need to know how to properly integrate all of these modules as well as manage them, whenever needed. For some people, this will be, at most, a very minimal problem. However, for others, this could be very frustrating, almost to the point of overwhelming. Depending on how familiar you are with Drupal, it may be a great choice for a membership website. Deciding whether or not a Drupal membership website is the “best” choice is entirely up to you.