When it comes to making money, all small business owners know recurring income trumps working per hour. We’ve all heard that it’s much more profitable to create multiple streams of income, including creating your own products and packages or running a membership site, as you can then be making money on autopilot.
However, working for an hourly rate can seem so much easier than having to work out and understand HOW to set up a membership site!
What is a membership site?
When we talk about memberships, we automatically think of online memberships, such as magazine and gym subscriptions! However there is an easy way to earn online recurring income, with the knowledge and products YOU already have at your disposal.
In its simplest form, an online membership site can be monthly restricted access to your existing content. There are sites out there that charge a monthly fee for you to access their existing blog post, audio and video content. You sign up, pay a token amount each month and have access for as long as you decide to stay a member.
Membership options can also be used for courses and programs – you make available a new month’s content every time your subscriber pays their monthly fee. You can give your subscribers access to video, audio and written content on your site, along with downloadable templates, eBooks, interviews and group calls etc.
How does a membership plugin in work – and which is best?
You can easily set up a membership site from your WordPress website, with the aid of a WordPress plugin such as InstaMember ($47), S2 Member ($89), WP eMember ($59.95) Wishlist Member ($197).
All of these premium paid-for plugins enable you to restrict access to certain pages or posts on your website. You simply upload your membership content to your site and add the page or post ID number to your restricted list.
Within the settings of a membership plugin, you have various options, including making all of the content available or letting your members access to it after a certain timeframe. All of the plugins allow you to set up multiple levels too – so you can have different membership levels for your products.
How to set up your own membership site
- Install and activate the plugin of your choice
- Go to the plugin settings and confirm the settings you want
- Integrate with your payment merchant (such as PayPal or Stripe)
- Integrate with your autoresponder (such as AWeber or MailChimp)
- Create your product pages and/or posts
- Go to settings and set the settings for those specific pages and posts (this varies per plugin).
The great thing about membership plugins is their ease of use – plus they all have extensive written and/or video tutorials on how to use them – so why not look into them today and get your site earning a recurring income for you?
Do you have a membership plugin on your WordPress site? Is it something you keep wanting to do, but you’re unsure of how to set the plugin up? Maybe you’re getting bogged down with all the technical ‘stuff’? Here at Just Ask Jean, we make that technical jargon easy to understand AND we can take it off your hands altogether. Why not have an informal chat and see if we can help you get your membership site up and running – and that recurring stream of income switched on and working for you?
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