An easy way to increase your website revenue can be creating a WordPress membership site. The term “creating a WordPress membership site” is a little bit different than just having a WordPress site and start selling product. In this case, you setup a website with a membership system i.e. only members will be able to access some specific content and you can charge them money for accessing the content. So, how’d you protect the content? A WordPress membership plugin allows you to protect the content of your WordPress blog which you don’t want any anonymous visitor to access directly.

There are many WordPress membership plugins but I found three plugins which are well-known for creating a good membership site. WP eMember, Magic Member and WishList Member. All of them have at least the features which an ideal membership plugin must have. I’ve created a comparison list below with the additional features every plugin has to help you choose the right plugin for you.

Number of membership levels you can create –

eMember                 Magic Member                 WishList Member

Unlimited                         Unlimited                           Unlimited

Control the subscription length of different membership levels –

eMember              Magic Member                 WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                    Yes

Protect specific content (e.g. posts, pages, categories, comments) based on the membership levels

eMember                Magic Member                 WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                       Yes

Flexible membership options (allows you to create free, trial an paid membership)

eMember               Magic Member                 WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                       Yes

Sequential Content Delivery system (allows you to specify when a member will be automatically upgraded to another membership level and can access new content)

eMember              Magic Member                 WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                        Yes

Login Redirection (redirect members to different pages after they log in based on their membership levels )

eMember                   Magic Member                 WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                        Yes

Control access to different content (specify which membership level will be able to access which content )

WP eMember                Magic Member                 WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                        Yes

Teaser content display ( allows you to show the partial content of a page or post  to the visitors )

eMember               Magic Member                 WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                        Yes

Autoresponder integration -

eMember                Magic Member                       WishList Member

Yes                                       Yes                                                  Yes

Aweber                              AWeber                                         Aweber

GetResponse                     GetResponse                             AutoResponse Plus

MailChimp                        MailChimp

Payment integration-

Magic Member                       WishList Member                              eMember

Yes                                                   Yes                                                         Yes

PayPal Standard                        Paypal                                                   Paypal

PayPal Pro                                  1shoppingcart                                    WP eStore

2CheckOut                                   ClickBank

CCBill                                             QuickPayPro

Authorize.net                           Red Oak Cart

ClickBank                                    Premium WebCart

WorldPay                                    InfusionSoft

Epoch

Manual Pay

Additional features of Magic member

• Pay Per Post Access: It allows your free members to purchase content (e.g. article) on a per post basis.

• Custom Error Pages: It allows you to create custom error page to change the look of your membership site.

• Secure RSS Tokens: It allows only your members to add the content to their RSS Reader. You don’t need to worry about any non-member accessing it.

• Download Manager: It allows your members to download the content (which they have access to based on their membership levels).

• Simple Press Forum Integration: Magic member allows your Simple Press forum to turn into a paid subscription forum with a page template.

• Multi Language Support: You can use different languages with Magic member plugin.

• Custom Widgets: You can use different ready widgets e.g. Login, Register, Text and Status Widgets.

Additional features of Wishlist Member

• Custom error page: You can redirect the non-members to an error pages while they try to access members’ content.

• Registration Redirect: Once anyone registers as a new member you can redirect them to another page where there will be instructions for them on how to get started.

• Unsubscribe Page: If anyone cancels the membership you can redirect him/her to an unsubscribe page.

• Pending Period And Secure RSS Key: You can have your members to go into a pending period to identify them and verify if they are paid members whereas Secure RSS key allows your members to read the content in their RSS Reader based on what they have paid for.

• Private Tag Protection: It allows you protect your content within the members.

• IP Login Protection: You can specify how many IP’s a member can use a day to access your content ( this is to prevent a member to share their login details with someone else).

• Importing And Exporting Members: You can easily import or export a large number of people.

• Custom registration page: It allows you to customize the registration page by adding html above or below the registration form.

• Email Broadcast: You can easily send email broadcast to your members.

• Membership Blacklist: If any member is causing problem you can blacklist them to prevent from signing up for your site ever again.

Additional features of eMember

• Secure RSS feeds: It allows your members to view the content in the RSS Reader.

• IP Login Restriction: You can specify the number of login attempts from different IP’s with the same member account.

• Domain Level Lockdown: It allows you to prevent visitors from viewing your site content (the site won’t load until they log in).

• One time payment membership option: You can setup a once off payment system where the members will be able to access the content for a specific duration (e,g. lifetime) for one payment.

• Customizable source code: You can make customizations to the code.

• Bookmarking feature: It allows your members to bookmark any page or post for viewing later .

• Flexible membership login: You can place the membership login at any page, post or sidebar.

• Usability with theme: It is compatible with any properly coded (valid xHTML code) theme.

• Integration : It is pre-integrated with WP eStore shopping cart and WP Affiliate Platform plugin.

Support and Upgrade:

Technical support for customers-

eMember                                        Magic Member                       WishList Member

Yes                                                           Yes                                                   Yes

Cost:       Free (Lifetime)             Free( unspecified)                      Free(1 Year)

Days:       Everyday                     Monday – Sunday                   Monday – Sunday

24 hours                                        9 A.M. – 5 P.M. (EST)               9 A.M. – 5 P.M. (EST)

Plugin upgrade for customers-

eMember                        Magic Member                       WishList Member

Yes                                              Yes                                                 Yes

Free( Lifetime)                    Free (1 year)                            Free (1 year)

Plugin price- eMember                Magic Member             WishList Member

Single-site License:    $49.95                            $97                                   $97

3-site License     :                                                    $197

Multi-site License:      $49.95                            $297                                $297

All of them are good membership plugins and have their own unique features but you have to choose the one which suits you the most. If you are interested here are the links to the membership plugins-

• WishList Member
• Magic Member
• WP eMember

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Creating a WordPress membership site is very profitable nowadays. With a WordPress membership plugin you can easily protect the premium contents of your site which only the premium members will be able to access. As soon as someone subscribes to the premium membership, he/she will be able to view the premium contents. In this way you can increase your website revenue from subscriptions.

There are many membership plugins out there but WP eMember, an easy to use WordPress membership plugin could be a good choice.

Why eMember WordPress membership plugin?

a) It allows you to create as many membership as you want.

b) You can set the content (e.g page, post, category etc) protection for all your memberships easily and choose which content can be viewed by which membership level.

c) It allows you to set up the membership payment button in plain Paypal button so you don’t need to have a WordPress shopping cart plugin.

d) Members can bookmark the page or post anytime. Those bookmarks can be shown to them in a list when they log in  so that they can access them easily (A member can only bookmark  the page or post which he/she has access to view).

e) It allows you to protect the section of a post or page (if you don’t want to show the whole page or post to your visitor you can protect a section which can be accessed if anyone subscribes to that membership)

f) It allows you to use the Auto Upgrade Feature to Drip Content (suppose you have basic membership and premium membership on your site. Now you can specify after how many days that basic member will be upgraded to premium member).

g) You can show the purchase history of members if they purchase something from your site while logged in (Each member can see only his/her own purchase history).

eMember Video Tutorial

Please watch the following tutorials to have an understanding of how WP eMember plugin works.

1. eMember Installation

A quick video on how to install the eMember plugin on your WordPress site.

2. How to Setup a Free Membership Site

This video tutorial shows you how to set up a general content protection for anyone visiting your website and how you can give access to members (e.g members of level “free”)

3. How to Setup a Premium Membership Site

This tutorial shows you how to set up a content protection for free members and allow access to premium members. Note that the payment button has been created with WP eStore in this tutorial but you can do it with simple Paypal button as well ( Watch tutorial-4 on how to do it with Paypal button).

4. How to Use a Plain PayPal Button to Create a Premium Membership site

5. How to Manage Content Protection in eMember

Other Miscellaneous Tutorials

Some other useful tutorials to get you started with eMember

A. How to Create Membership Levels

A basic tutorial on how to create membership levels (e.g free, silver, gold).

B. Configuring the Settings Options

This tutorial shows you how to configure the settings options in eMember plugin.

C. Managing Content Protection

Integration with eStore for membership payment

If you are using WP eStore as a shopping cart plugin, this tutorial will show you how you can integrate it with eMember.

If you are interested in setting up a WordPress membership site with eMember plugin, you can get the plugin here:

• WP eMember

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