Designing a basic WordPress plugin isn’t inherently difficult which is why there is a growing trend to hire a freelancer or company to create customized plugins. While this may serve a purpose in some cases, this isn’t always the best idea. If you are thinking about this for a membership plugin then you might want to reconsider. There are a number of potential hazards that you could run into, especially if you do not have a freelancer developer who you work with on a consistent basis. Here is a closer look at what these problems are and why purchasing a commercially available membership plugin is likely to be the better option.

The first problem, or group of problems, all arise if you do not have a freelance developer who you use often. While some people do have WordPress developers on retainer, it is fairly rare. The first problem is that you are going to have to test out a handful of candidates just to find the right one. While this may not sound like a big deal, you cannot get sample projects done for free. In many cases, testing out 5 developers will be more expensive than buying a plugin outright. Not only is it expensive, but you may not be happy with the results. This could be a time frame issue, workability issue, or communication issue. Regardless of what it is, if the project ends and you are unsatisfied then you have wasted a lot of time and money.

The next problem is dealing with the future. WordPress is constantly updating its core which means the plugin could become incompatible at any moment. If you purchase a custom membership plugin and in a few months there is a problem you don’t have anyone to turn to. You can either re-hire the first developer to fix it or you may have to go through the entire hiring process again. Plus, the second developer will not be familiar with your custom plugin which means that they will have to spend time understanding it before they even start working. Another future-related problem is expansion. What happens if your demographic changes and your new members want to use a payment processor that you didn’t have integrated?

There are a number of additional problems that can arise as well depending on how the creation process goes.

As you can see, there are several major hazards that you can fall victim to if you hire a developer to create a custom membership plugin. The better option is to simply purchase a commercially available membership plugin that meets all of your needs. There are several high quality option on the market and they are very cost effective when you consider how much time and effort goes into creating and supporting them. As an added bonus, the commercial plugins were built after weeks or months of testing, plus they are designed based upon the feedback that users give them. This means that not only will you be purchasing a great product, but it will always be changing and adapting to meet your needs.

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Membership sites are currently battling the same problem that many other online profit sources have faced at one time or another. A relatively simple concept has become unnecessarily complex. This is a problem that happened to ebook publishers a few years ago. The sales pages grew to 10 pages long, the ebooks got longer and more complex, and the entire promotion process jumped from a few weeks to 6 months before the launch. Today, the use of audio, video, and more effective launch tactics, ebook publishers have re-simplified. WordPress membership sites have undergone this same problem lately, fortunately there still may a light at the end of the tunnel.

The problem that had arisen with the WordPress membership site first started before there were a wide selection of premium plugins to choose from. Webmasters were forced to piece together a multitude of different plugins simply to secure content and accept payments. In many cases, this could be 4 to 7 plugins solely for dealing with members and accepting recurring payments. Plus, it didn’t include additional functions like setting up an affiliate program, managing affiliates, sending payments, or drip feeding content.

About 5 years later, there were a growing number of premium plugins on the market. Unfortunately, many of them were designed by software companies that had already created independent membership site software and they ended up forcing their software into WordPress rather than working with flexibility that WordPress provided. The result was a bulky plugin that ended up constraining what the webmaster could do. There were also issues that limited the themes that could be used and often caused compatibility problems with other plugins, especially SEO plugins.

Today it seems like everything has finally started to balance out. There is a new crop of plugins designed specifically for a WordPress membership site. They work with the WordPress core rather than against it. For example, the Magic Members plugin provides all of the elements and features that you need to create and manage a WordPress membership site, while at the same time providing the flexibility, scalability, and ease of use that makes WordPress such a popular content management system.

If you are wondering whether or not a WordPress membership site can still offer simplicity, they answer is yes. In fact, managing a membership site using WordPress and the right plugin is actually easier and simpler today than it has ever been.

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3 Essential Steps Keep Your Membership Site Ahead of Your Members

It doesn’t matter what type of website you run, the biggest problem that you can have is falling behind your members. There are a number of different areas in which this can occur to a membership site including content creation, topic relevancy, and product promotion. Fortunately there are some simple steps that you can take to stay ahead in all of these areas.

The first area and often the most important is the content creation itself. Some people make the mistake of over-preparing content before opening a membership site, whereas others are on the ropes from the very beginning. The general rule of thumb is to stay two to three months ahead of your oldest member. You know that if you stay ahead of them, that you will be ahead of everyone. The easiest way to do this is to simply outsource all of your content creation. However, if this isn’t possible, then staying ahead is even more important because once you fall behind, it will feel like an impossible task to catch up. The best way to stay ahead is to dedicate a few days to content creation. By doing this, you will be done with it quickly and spend the rest of the month focusing on improving and promoting your membership site.

The next area to focus on is topic relevancy. It doesn’t matter how much content you create if it is out of date or not related to what your members want. The easiest way to stay connected to your members is to simply create a members only forum. This will let you know what questions they need answered, which is exactly what your content should do. Moreover, by creating content based upon your members requests it helps improve your level of authority and your relationship with your members. If you don’t want to create and manage a forum for your members then make sure that you are actively reading a few forums in your chosen niche.

The final area to pay attention to is product promotion. This isn’t something that will directly impact the satisfaction of your members but it will impact your bottom line. There is a very high likelihood that every member of your membership site is also on several other mailing lists related to the same subject. This means that you need to stay on top of new products so that you are the one promoting them and not someone else. Membership sites are a proven way to promote affiliate products and you must stay on top of new products that will interest your members in order to monetize them effectively.

As you can see, keeping your membership site ahead of your members doesn’t have to be difficult as long as you have a plan of action. The three areas that are most important to focus on are content creation, topic relevancy, and new product promotion. All of these areas will directly affect your bottom line either through members retention or effective monetization.

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WordPress is a popular choice for creating up and maintaining membership websites for a number of reasons; it’s easy to use, it’s very flexible, and a lot of available plugins are evolving to accommodate more needs. Even before comprehensive plugins came about, there were so many ways on how to integrate multiple plugins to setup a membership website and you can all do these for free. As technology evolved to improve on existing methods, comprehensive plugins came into existence which holds a great value to users and webmasters alike. Nowadays, a single plugin can do everything. Below are the top benefits.

1. Everything you need is there.

You can expect a lot of cohesion when you use a single plugin, and obviously this is your top advantage. This allows you to manage just every single aspect in your WordPress membership site: registration, recurring billing, and all the details in between. It’s easier to setup and maintain a membership website on a daily basis and headaches are very minimal, if not totally nonexistent. Usual tasks are easier to do like creating major changes on the setup and adding content. Compared to a piecemeal plugin, you will have to modify each and every plugin you have integrated before any minor change can take effect and you can just imagine the time and effort this menial task will consume when a single plugin can do it all.

2. Support issues here.

Comprehensive WordPress membership plugins also allow for faster and easier support when issues arise. You will know exactly who to talk to when you encounter problems and most of the time, help is very reliable. With several plugins pieced altogether, one developer can say that the problem lies with the other plugins so most of the time they won’t be willing to help. If you are able to convince one developer to change their plugin, well and good; but understand that this is next to impossible. The problem with multiple free plugins is that support is always unavailable, either the developer won’t be helpful or it just vanished from the face of the Web. This means that you will have to analyze the problem and troubleshoot it yourself.

3. Maintenance issues there.

When you maintain 5 different plugins, you update and troubleshoot each one of them even for a very minor change you need to effect on your website. Not all plugins are compatible with each other and this is especially true when you update a single one that may bug the others. You may also encounter maintenance problems trying to upload fresh content. A single comprehensive plugin is very low on maintenance because the design is simple. You won’t have these kinds of problems even if you update the core of your WordPress membership site.

For the most obvious reasons, having a single comprehensive plugin have a lot more benefits to offer compared to using several plugins which can only be a headache later on. These benefits translate to important resources saved – time, effort, money, unnecessary stress, and that valuable time you can otherwise devote to more productive pursuits – if you take advantage of these benefits.

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Creating a membership site has been proven to be one of the most profitable ways to generate a solid recurring online income. With wordpress, they can be very simple to create because of the ability to quickly install a comprehensive plugin to manage your website.

WordPress used to just be a platform for bloggers, but it has quickly evolved into an elite content management system. More and more often, internet marketers have turned to wordpress to manage their membership site as more companies produce amazing and comprehensive membership management plugins.

When you are choosing a membership plugin there are 5 requirements that a wordpress plugin must have in order for you to consider using it to manage your membership site.

1. RSS Feed Encryption

This feature is almost always overlooked the first time you design a membership using wordpress. RSS Feed Encryption ensures that only members have access to your rss feed. Without it, everything you put in your membership site would be available to the public through your rss feed. Even if you do not promote your rss feed, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

2. Membership Levels or Types

The ability of creating multiple membership levels is critical to maximizing your sites profitability. With this feature you can create multiple levels that are more expensive than the standard level of membership. If your members are happy with your content, they will often upgrade their membership status to get even more content. It also allows you to create a free membership with limited access so that prospective members can get a take of what your membership will provide.

3. Content Teasers

This is a great way to pull in members. They are allowed to see the first paragraph or two and when they tried to read more they will be taken to your registration page. There is no better way to entice people to become a member of your website than to give them a taste of what is to come.

4. Drip-Feeding Content

Most membership websites have content that needs to be delivered over a pre-set amount of time. Many plugins do not allow that to happen, which is why it is important to make sure that you choose a plugin that does. Drip-feeding content allows you to load all of the content you need and deliver it over a specific period of time.

5. Payment Integration

It is important that your membership can easily accept payments from multiple sources. Using only paypal has become common, but can be very limiting. Make sure that your membership plugin can be easily integrated with your virtual payment processor.

If you have found a plugin that has all of these requirements then it might be the right fit for you. If you have several plugins to choose from that all have these features make sure to consider important intangibles such as customer support and a money-back guarantee Without these, if you have a problem with the plugin, you may not be able to overcome it. With excellent customer support, the sky is the limit.

Our WordPress Membership Plugin Suggestion;
Visit Magic Members’ Home Page : Magic Members WordPress Membership Plugin

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Membership sites have continued to gain popularity with the online community because they are the most effective way to create a long-term income.  WordPress has emerged as one of the most reliable options for creating a membership site.  Once it is set up, it can operate hands-free which allows you to move on to other profitable projects.

WordPress utilizes a simple plugin style which means that you can create your membership site within hours instead of days or weeks.  It is designed to allow you to create whatever style of membership site that you need from a simple protected download area to online courses and on going content creation.

There are numerous plugins available, both free and commercial, with varying formats an options that can be used to create your membership site.  By using only free plugins you will be able to create a very simple wordpress membership site.

The first thing you need is a plugin that can protect your members area.  The purpose of this plugin is to ensure that your paid content is not accessible by everyone.  Every plugin is set up differently, so take some time a choose one that best fits your needs.

The second plugin you need deals with payment processing.  This plugin needs to create a way for people to actually subscribe to your membership site.  The size of your customer base is very important to consider, because some programs will force you to collect recurring payments manually which will take a lot of time when you have even 100 subscribers.

While these types of plugins are free to use, they are very limited in what they can achieve.  If you are looking to create a truly unique and profitable wordpress membership site, then you should seriously consider a premium commercial plugin.

For your do-it-all solution, Magic Members has proven to be the best membership site plugin available.  It has the ability to drip-feed content.  This is incredibly important if you selling monthly content or an ecourse.  This ability allows you to limit what people can get based upon how long they have been a member.  There is no point in subscribing to a membership site for a year if you can pay for one month and download everything and then cancel the membership.  For long term profits, you need long term subscribers and giving them everything at once does not give them a reason to stay.

Magic Members also has premium functions such as total content protection which allows you to create membership levels (bronze, silver, gold, etc.).  This give you more chances to maximize your income.

There are a laundry list of additional features of Magic Members that can give your wordpress membership site the edge over the competition.

While it is simple to create a very basic membership site on wordpress using free plugins, a paid plugin like Magic Members will make your life much easier and your membership site look and feel more professional.

Visit: Magic Members Membership software

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If you don’t own a membership site you are more than likely missing out on a very profitable income stream. It’s no accident that most Internet marketers have a membership site or more than one.

The great thing about a membership site is that if you sell a product you can offer a month free to your membership site as bonus therefore making your products more easy to sell and creating multiple streams of income from one customer.

Also people love to learn so if you have great content and you want to spread out in the form of an online course what better way than a membership site. Your course material i.e. module one is delivered on the day that they sign up and use sequential modules will all be available to them month after month.

The best thing about a membership site is that once it’s in place and all the content or modules are in place and ready to be delivered you can leave it to start on your next project knowing that one site can generate a sizeable income for years to come.

WordPress The New Standard

WordPress with its easy-to-use plug-in architecture is fast becoming a standard on the web today, making it extremely easy for you to have a fully working website up and ready in a matter of hours.

For many WordPress is just a blog, but it can be so much more with new plug-ins appearing every day!

The plug-in I’m talking about today will turn your WordPress blog into a fully functional membership site which will be fully incorporated into your autoresponder and shopping cart.

The best part is, it’s easy to use. Just unzip, upload and within minutes you can have your own membership site up and running.

Types of Membership Site

When you hear “Membership Sites” it’s likely you think about a site publishing ongoing content.

Am I right?

But what if I told you that there are many “types” of membership sites.

Take a look…

1) Ongoing Content – This is your traditional membership site. Essentially you provide fresh content on a regular basis and people pay monthly to access that content whenever they want.

2) Protected Download Area – If you sell any type of digital product, you’ll want to protect it behind a membership.

Why?

Because that way you can prevent people from passing your info to others who haven’t paid for it AND you can block their access should they ask for a refund.

3) UPS Method – This type of membership is used when you deliver a “package” of content to your members each month.

They belong to your membership so they can receive this “package” every month.

A good example would be a Private Label Rights membership. With those memberships they deliver a package of PLR content each month.

4) Course Materials – If you sell any type of course that has “Modules”, then you should consider putting it into a membership site.

When you select the right membership software, you can automatically deliver each module at a predefined time so that everything is automated.

That way you can create the course once, but after that people can continue to sign up and receive the course one module at a time.

5) Micro Continuity – This membership was made popular by Russell Brunson and essentially it involves delivering content for a fixed period of time.

It’s similar to running a “modular course” where you automatically deliver content but over a fixed period of time (3-6 months).

6) Project Management System – Running a virtual business often means you are working with vendors around the world.

With the right membership solution you can quickly create a “private membership” for YOUR company.

Just setup a membership level for each “position” in your company and then create a section of your site just for people who belong to that position (webmaster, designer, customer support etc.).

Buy The Best  WordPress Membership Plugin

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The purpose of membership websites are many and varied. Whilst the majority tend to be related to Internet marketing, membership websites are starting to diversify. In recent times I’ve seen sites that are related to cooking, self improvement and other topics that are of interest to a broader audience. It’s only common sense that this new trend to choose non-internet niches will continue. Why compete in a fairly saturated market like Internet marketing when the membership world is literally your oyster?

More and more people are discovering that setting up and running a membership site isn’t the gargantuan task they may have thought it would be. Granted, it does take some work, research and study, but there are very few businesses that don’t require at least some effort on your part.

Let’s look at some things that are required to run a successful membership site.

1. Passion and Dedication – It’s always easier to provide information, services and products to others if you have a keen interest in the product you are selling. If your only motivation for wanting to run a membership site is because you see others making money with them, then don’t waste your time. Unless you are willing to put the time in to maintain and develop your site you will end up with a poor reputation and a lot of disgruntled members.

2. A Good Domain – If you’ve ever looked around at other membership sites you’ll see that they nearly always have a relevant domain name. This is important as it is part of your branding. There are plenty of good examples of well thought out, branded membership sites. Names like Mr. Overdeliver and SureFireWealth are good names that enhance the overall concept of the membership site and are easy to remember.

3. Starting Content- You usually can’t start a membership site if you don’t have any content. This could be information, scripts, e-books and/or your own products. When most people join a membership site they expect to see something that they can use straight away. If you have a large amount of content you don’t necessarily have to offer it all up straight away. Keep in mind that your members will expect regular updates, so it’s best to try to always overdeliver. You can’t do that if you’ve given everything out on day 1.

4. A Good Script – This is a topic in itself, but basically you need to work out your membership fees and structure first. You also need to be sure of how you are going to present your products and which payment methods and processors you will use. Once you know the answer to these questions you can look for a script that has the appropriate membership structures, can deliver your products in a way that suits your site and supports your payment processor(s). (We recommend you to use WordPress)

5. Commitment – This is one of the most essential ‘ingredients’. Whilst membership sites will, for the most part, run on autopilot, you still need to maintain and update them regularly. Provide a helpdesk and a forum where members can get in touch with you and interact with each other. Some of the best membership sites are thriving communities because they provide these features to their members.

So there you have it in a nutshell. You’ll notice that I didn’t mention anything technical. That’s because with the range of membership scripts and information that is available the technical aspects and requirements have become quite a minor issue.

Yes, you really can run a membership site but to be successful it will take some time, dedication and work. The rewards for a well run membership site can be quite extraordinary though.

Our recommendation to operate your own membership site; WP Membership Plugin

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