Here are some free plugins you can use to bring memberships to your WordPress website. Some cater to niche uses, while others aim to provide a full suite of functionality.

User Access Manager

User Access Manager provides an easy way to set permissions on your website’s content. Create a user group based on WordPress Roles & Capabilities and use the handy checkboxes to assign pages, categories, or individual posts to that group. Users and content may also be assigned to more than one group.

Simple Membership

With Simple Membership, you’ll be able to configure unlimited free and paid membership levels. Paid memberships can be set to automatically renew via PayPal and Stripe.

Also, website owners can take fine-grain control by manually approving new members and selecting which content to protect on a per-post basis. Google reCAPTCHA compatibility is there to help cut down on spam registrations.

Members

Members is a complete solution for user and content control. You can edit and create new user roles, assign multiple roles to users and adjust content permissions – all in a slick GUI.

Paid Memberships Pro

Get your WordPress membership site off to a quick start with Paid Memberships Pro. The core plugin offers many ways to wall off your content and create multiple membership levels.

You can also extend features by using the available free and premium add-on plugins. They cover everything from WooCommerce integration and email marketing, to membership approval. This is a solid solution for creating a highly-customized membership experience.

WP Members: Membership Framework

WP Members allows users to register, login, and edit their accounts on the front end of your site – keeping them away from your WordPress dashboard.

Registrations can be held for admin approval, adding an extra layer of security. The ability to set content permissions is also included.

Peter’s Login Redirect

Peter’s Login Redirect lets you create login/logout/registration redirects for users by roles, capabilities, or specific individuals. It’s very handy for those times when you want users to see specific content after performing a member-related action.

Remove Dashboard Access

Often, site owners don’t want lower-level users to access the WordPress dashboard. Remove Dashboard Access can be used to redirect users with specific roles or capabilities to another URL and keep them away from the dashboard.

User Submitted Posts

User Submitted Posts allows users to create content on the front end of your site. They can even upload images. Admins can set the status of submitted posts to draft, published, or set to auto-publish after that user has a specific number of previously approved posts. There are lots of options to set things up to fit your needs.

Membership & Content Restriction

Sell memberships on your site with Membership & Content Restriction. You can create multiple levels of memberships, each with its own pricing.

The plugin also includes member management and content restrictions. Lots of commercial add-ons are available to enable more functionality.

Ultimate Member

Designed for creating advanced user community sites, Ultimate Member features front-end registration/login/profiles, the ability to create a custom registration form, and content restriction.

You can also conditionally display menus, customize email templates and display a member directory. There are several add-ons available to enable WooCommerce integration, private messaging, and more.

Membership has its Benefits

The needs of membership sites can be unique. Each has its own goals, challenges, and desired functionality. Fortunately, there are WordPress plugins available for just about every type of membership site imaginable.

The post The 10 Best Free WordPress Membership Plugins appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

The web is finally old enough to see the return of some trends. Brutalist design is a prime example. Web designers spent years building increasingly complex layouts. But many have gone back to the basics in recent times.

I’m wondering if we’ll see the same thing happen with online communities. Years ago, we built niche sites that catered to a specific group. We installed forums (shout out to phpBB), opened our blogs to comments, and tried to stake out a little corner of cyberspace.

Social media changed all of that. Communities began moving to larger, proprietary platforms. The likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have become places to meet and discuss hot topics.

The move made sense at the time. Access to powerful servers, globalized networks, and providers that handled moderation (to a degree, anyway). Why would we ever go back to the way it was?

Well, recent events have made me long for those good old days. Here’s why I’d like to see a return of niche web communities. That is, with some modern conveniences.

We’re Subject to the Whims of Companies

Everything is great on social media – until it isn’t. Social media companies can change policies (or, ahem, ownership) at any time. And too bad if you don’t like the results. Users have zero control.

Twitter has become the poster child for what can go wrong. The reduction of content moderation staff means slower responses to harmful behavior. Meanwhile, the platform’s user verification policies have been turned on their head.

And Facebook causes its share of headaches as well. Algorithm changes have made it harder to see posts from Groups in your main feed. Plus, I believe that the Groups feature is becoming more cumbersome to use. The service shows what it thinks I want to see. It rarely guesses correctly.

Sadly, users appear to be low on the priority list. Shareholders and overzealous billionaires get top billing. The rest of us are an afterthought.

A web-based niche community can put users first. Stakeholders may not have complete control of the experience. Much depends on the platform being used. But there’s a better chance for stability and sustainability.

Users Don’t Have an Ownership Stake

Let’s say that you’ve decided to leave Twitter. Good for you! But what happens to your tweets?

You can’t simply import them to Mastodon or a similar service. You’ll have to start from scratch. That’s especially painful if you value any of the content or interactions you had.

But open-source tools like WordPress don’t lock you in. You own the content you post. And the site’s data is portable.

This means that you can move to a new host or redesign your website without losing anything. In addition, you’re not reliant on finicky APIs that can go down or start charging money at any time.

How Does a Modern Web Community Look?

There’s a reason why so many people abandoned the idea of web-based communities. Social media was easier. It did much of the dirty work for us. All we had to do was show up and start making connections.

At the same time, building and managing community-based websites was not easy in the 2000s. The tools at our disposal lacked cohesiveness. You could have, say, a website and a forum. But tying them together wasn’t a simple process.

That’s no longer the case. New tools and protocols can solve many of the previous generation’s pain points. With that, here’s how a modern web community could look:

It Runs on a Single Platform

It’s now possible to provide a more unified experience. Membership sites have become mainstream. Several plugins exist that make setup a breeze. You don’t need to invest a lot of money or know how to code.

In addition, other functionality can be added to suit your needs. The community can be open to the public or invite-only. Membership can be monetized or remain free. Content moderation and spam prevention tools are vastly improved.

A single WordPress login is all a user needs. They can use it to access their profile, communicate with other members, and register for events.

WordPress isn’t the only option, of course. There are plenty of platforms for community builders. But it is a natural fit for this type of site. You no longer have to cobble together a collection of unrelated tools.

It Ties in With the Fediverse

What’s the opposite of a corporately-owned platform? A decentralized network of services that can communicate with each other.

That’s what the Fediverse is all about. It encompasses larger services like Mastodon. But individual websites can also join in via the ActivityPub protocol.

Install the ActivityPub WordPress plugin, and you can automatically publish from your site to connected services. It’s like using Twitter’s API to auto-publish. But you’re not limited to that singular walled garden. Your content could go to social networks, websites (via the Friends plugin), or anywhere else that supports the protocol.

Communication is also two-way. So, when someone replies to your post on a federated service, it could also become a comment on your blog.

It sounds complex. But the result is that communities can more easily curate like-minded content. In that way, your community expands beyond your website. People can interact where they are rather than being limited to specific channels.

It Still Uses (But Doesn’t Rely On) Social Media

None of this is to say that social media is dead. It’s still an important way to reach people. But it doesn’t have to serve as a community hub, either.

Instead, these platforms can be used to drive traffic to your website. Posting content to Facebook, Twitter, etc., increases visibility. That can help attract new members.

One positive of this approach is that you’re being self-reliant. You won’t have to depend on social’s APIs or infrastructure. Yes, you’re still beholden to their algorithms. But they’ll have a much smaller impact on your community’s day-to-day operations.

Big social networks can be used as an enhancement rather than a foundation. This allows you to take advantage of what they do best.

The Web Can Benefit Communities

Building a web-based community used to be difficult. The technical challenges of time prevented some groups from reaching their potential.

Meanwhile, the advent of social media brought renewed hope to community wranglers. But the landscape is in a constant state of upheaval. That makes it harder to maintain stability and growth.

Thus, a move back to the web makes sense. Tools like WordPress have grown by leaps and bounds. And they offer more flexibility when it comes to design and functionality.

Is this the wave of the future? We’ll see. But it’s exciting to think about what’s possible. Online communities may find a new home in a familiar place.

The post Could Niche Web Communities Come Back? appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

Using WordPress as your base platform provides a number of plugin-based options. Over the past several years, I’ve had the experience of using several of them to build in membership capabilities for a variety of websites. Each one presented unique challenges, including some that didn’t match up with the functionality offered by the chosen plugin.

All told, there are a lot of things to consider. So, before you decide which path to take, think about the following factors. They’ll help you develop a plan of attack for your project.

Types of Available Memberships

The first thing to look at is what type of memberships the site will offer. For instance, you’ll want to determine if there will be single or multiple levels. The more levels you offer, the more complex your setup will likely be.

Multi-tiered memberships often mean that each level has its own separate set of benefits. Some levels may have access to more content (we’ll discuss that in a moment) or require the ability to allow members to set up “sub-accounts”.

eCommerce may also play a role here. If you plan to charge for membership, it’s important to map out how you plan to collect fees. That not only means picking a compatible payment gateway, but also whether you’ll want memberships to be renewed. Depending on your choice, members could be renewed automatically or manually.

Lastly, plan for how members will access their account. In many setups, you won’t want anyone except administrators to have access to the WordPress Dashboard. The ability to access account information from the front end may be a desirable feature to have.

Access to Content

Next on your to-do list is to determine what, if any, special access your site’s members will require. This could be anything from a single “Members Only” page to walling off specific categories or custom post types.

If you have more than one membership type, this often means restricting content based on level. This can be done via custom user roles, either manually through custom code or plugin settings. Custom code may provide more flexibility, while a plugin will be much easier to use.

And, if your site will allow anyone to join (as opposed to a private organization), it’s worth thinking about what the public can access. This could mean offering a trial membership that “drips” content or simply making some content fully-available to everyone.

Another, often overlooked, consideration is how you want search engines to treat protected content. Some membership plugins offer control over this, while others require you to develop your own solution. If you don’t want members-only content to be indexed by Google, plan ahead. Many SEO plugins will allow you to turn off indexing for these areas.

Member Data

Chances are, you’ll want to have access to your membership data. This can include the basics, such as names and email addresses. But there’s a lot more you can (ethically) collect and things you can do with it. And, there are also some concerns with how you handle it.

Mailing Lists
A membership plugin that ties in with a mailing list service such as MailChimp can be great for putting together a newsletter. A simple checkbox on your signup form or profile will allow members to opt in.

Reporting
Running membership data through reporting software (or via built-in membership reports) can help you determine trends. For instance, you might notice that more people are joining during a certain month or maybe your members are concentrated in a specific region. You can also better judge the effectiveness marketing campaigns, etc.

Custom Data
There may be data you want to collect that is specific to your organization. Things like educational background or areas of expertise. This can help you better target content and services to specific groups of members. If your membership plugin doesn’t have this capability, something like Advanced Custom Fields could be used to further tweak member profiles.

Exporting
Exporting data in WordPress can be tricky – especially if you use more than one plugin to collect member info. That information can be spread all over your site’s database. Therefore, you’ll want to determine where the data you need is stored and find an effective solution for exporting it to your preferred format.

Privacy Concerns
Any data your members provide should be protected to the best of your abilities. Make sure you use SSL and only collect the information that is necessary. And you’ll want to ensure compliance with GDPR or other local regulations. WordPress has some of this capability built into core, but plugins may not necessarily comply. If you’re unsure, ask the plugin’s author about ways to scrub a user’s data.

Keep Members Happy

Above all, every decision you make with regards to building a membership site should be on the side of member happiness. Keep things simple in terms of navigation and the ability for members to manage their accounts. Employ those little UI enhancements that make interacting with the website easy and fun.

And, once your site is up and running, it’s a good idea to solicit member feedback. You might receive some helpful suggestions that you can use to further improve the experience.

WordPress affords you the opportunity to build a membership site to match your needs. But planning is crucial. Take time to consider what’s required and then implement the right tools to make it all come together.

The post Thoughts on Building WordPress Membership Sites appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.