Your Ultimate Guide to Create Membership Site with WordPress
Membership sites are fast gaining popularity due to their capability to connect a wide range of users simultaneously. WordPress is the most reliable platform in this regard, primarily due to its ease of use and extensibility. All you need is a good membership plugin and a practical guide to create a membership site with it. In this article, we present you a complete Guide to Create Membership Site with WordPress with the help of the ProfileGrid plugin.
ProfileGrid is one such plugin that helps users create a complete membership site. A ProfileGrid enabled site includes user frontend registration forms, login page, profile pages, groups, group wall etc. In short, you get all that you need to host members on your site.
Requirements Of A Membership Site
The basic requirement of a membership site is to make a number of people connect with each other on a common platform. The site builder takes in members and individual user profiles are assigned to them. Through this, a person can sell products, share premium content, allow members to contribute blogs etc. Whether you want to get paid subscribers or accept free members you just need one plugin, ProfileGrid to create your ultimate membership site.
Setting Up Your Membership Site With ProfileGrid
Right after activation, ProfileGrid offers its own set of shortcodes. These cover everything from registration page to login page to setting up geolocation on your site etc.
Along with shortcodes ProfileGrid also creates its own default pages. These are, for example, Profile page (PM Profile), Search page, Registration page, Group Wall page etc. You just need to paste the specific shortcodes on these pages and publish them.
Registering Users On Site
This Guide to Create Membership Site with WordPress is incomplete without creating a registration form. In order to get users registered on the site, you first need to create a form for them to register from. This registration form should have all the data that you need to make sure he/she is an authentic user. With ProfileGrid, creating registration form is a cakewalk. All the information fields are already provided by the plugin and you just need to add them on your form. To create registration forms you must create ‘User Groups’ first, to which you then add users.
So first let’s create Groups With ProfileGrid. Click on the ‘ProfileGrid’ option to land on the ‘Group Manager’ page. By clicking the ‘Add New’ option on the top left corner you create new groups.
Next, you start adding information fields to your group’s profile page. Click on the ‘Fields’ option on the bottom corner of your newly formed group. The page where you will land on will have an option on the top left called ‘New Field’. By clicking on this option, you will see a list of fields opening up; from here you can add your desired fields.
Assigning Pages On ProfileGrid
Now go ahead and create your registration page. I have already mentioned that ProfileGrid creates a few default pages and the PM Registration page is among them. So take the shortcode [PM_Registration id=”x”] from the shortcodes page and paste it on the PM Registration page. Now in place of x put the group id of your newly formed group to which you have added information fields. My new group id is ‘4’ so I will apply that within the shortcode and click on ‘Publish’.
This will transfer the fields that we added to the group to the registration page. The users, while registering will fill up these fields and after submission, their given information will get displayed on their profile pages. Next, we will proceed to assign this page. In order to display this page on the frontend, one has to assign it. To do this, first, go to ‘Global Setting’ from ProfileGrid’s list of options and then click on ‘General’. You will land on a page that will let you choose the appearance of the frontend profile, assign pages etc.
As you can see from the above image I have selected the ‘Registration’ page where there is option to assign this particular page. Likewise, on the same page, one can decide which page to come after the registration page or where users should land after logging in. I have selected ‘Profile Page’ after the users log in. All these pages are created in the same manner we created the registration page. For example, paste the shortcodes PM_Profile or PM_Login on the default pages created by ProfileGrid, publish them and then assign them.
Creating Group Wall
ProfileGrid also gives the option to create individual walls for individual groups. Just take the shortcode [PM_Add_WallPost] from shortcode’s page and paste it on the “Group Wall” page.
Given above is the frontend view of a group wall. This page will generate interaction between members of a specific group. Here they can communicate, share photos, comment on other’s posts. Once created, this wall appears on every group so that admin doesn’t have to create walls separately for each group. Now we are almost at the fag end of your ultimate Guide to Create Membership Site with WordPress.
Frontend Group Creation
I have already told you, ProfileGrid allows users to create a complete community-based site. Where users, not only get to interact with each other, they also have significant roles. The frontend group creation is one such role that registered users can enjoy. This, in turn, will help your site to grow and become robust, attracting more and more users. Here is a tutorial to set up groups from frontend user profiles.
From ProfileGrid’s shortcode page activate the shortcode [PM_CUSTOM_GROUP] under Group Creation Form. You will find a new page has appeared on the ‘All Pages’ page which is called ‘Create Group’. Now if you paste the above shortcode here you will publish a form on the frontend which will allow registered users to create groups.
Achieving Enormous Ends With Simplicity
From this guide to create membership site with WordPress, we found out that ProfileGrid is in true sense an example of a user-friendly plugin that is easily compatible with WordPress. It gives liberty to users to create efficient membership sites even if they don’t know coding. Its ease of use and host of features like predefined shortcodes and default pages are behind its increasing popularity.