Have you reached a level with your blogging that you want to expand and use your WordPress site to increase your income? Did you know that you can create membership WordPress sites with ease and without spending a dime?

WordPress is far beyond the average blogging site it first started out to be. It comprises of a very user friendly and innovative Content Management System that can be converted with very little effort into a single stage membership website.

It was never impossible to utilize WordPress as an association site but it was surely not as easy as it is now. You had to add various autonomous plug-in and the configuration thereof was certainly not for the novice amongst us! Moreover, you needed to re-configured the whole setup every time you installed an update

Why do You Want to Create Membership WordPress Sites?

With a WordPress membership site you will be able to:

• Develop member exclusive content
• Provide podcasts or tutorials and sell it to members for a minimal fee.
• Selling products such as eBooks
• Set up a coaching or self development series for a specific group of members

The opportunities are as far reaching as you can imagine. Not only does a membership WordPress site allows you to make extra money, but it is a secure way not to offend current readers to your site that is used to the content you provide for free. This allows you to provide alternative and more specialized content and information to those people who are willing to pay for it.

How to Create Membership with WordPress

Before you just dive in and create a WordPress membership site you need to sit down and do some proper planning on various factors such as:

1. What differentiate members from non-members?
   What will people have to do to become members? Will they need to sign up and pay a fee or will signing up be enough?
2. Decide what the membership will entail
   You need to establish the motivation behind the membership. When people join your WordPress site, how will they benefit by joining. You must establish beforehand what you want to provide to your members.
3. Delivery of Membership Benefits
   Are members receiving all the benefits of membership all at once with sign up or are you going to reserve some content or benefits for loyal members who maintain their membership and reward them in this way?
4. What Type of Content will be Limited to Members Only
   You need to establish what content you want to set available for members only. The ideal is to use content that is desirable and are of high informational value. This is a perfect way to enhance your membership count. Limited content must serve as an “appetizer” for non members.
5. How will you Communicate with Members?
   It is all good and well creating the perfect WordPress membership site but you do not have an effective way of communicating with your members! Communicating effectively with members is of exceptional significant importance.
   You will need to build a confident relationship with your members by being in contact with them on a regular basis and portray the importance their membership.
   In addition this method of communication enables you to notify members of any development that takes place on the site, new content or products that are available, special member offers and events etc.
6. What is the Site Navigation Structure?
   How easy will it be for visitors and especially members to navigate through your site and find the data they are looking for?  People tend to be responsive to uncomplicated matters. The more easy it is to use the site, the more easy you will be able to attract and keep members.
7. Making the Layout Easy and Looking Good
   In order to keep your target audience interested you need to make sure that your site is appealing and the layout easy to understand and use. People like to be associated with things that are easy on the eye and are easy accessible.

There are numerous admirable templates available to create membership WordPress sites with. Don’t make this a rushed decision. Make sure your selection is suitable and striking and relate well to the content of your site.

During the process of creating a membership WordPress site, remember to keep a precise record of all phases and each step of creating these phases. This is very important, as you will need to disclose this information with the site developer in order to create the functioning and features of the site you have in mind.

WordPress users will know that the one main thing wordpress lacks when compared to forums is an in-built way to charge for subscriptions and offer a multi layered membership. wp-Member is a charge for subscriptions plugin for wordpress that will not only manage your users subscription, but will let you select what each membership level will be able to see.

Unlike other plugins, wp-member does not lock down your whole site preventing users from viewing any content on your site, although the option is available should you want this. Most new sites will need to have some public content to be able to get users to signup by offering them teasers.

wp-Member is designed to be very versatile allowing you to dictate exactly how your site works.

You could create:

1. a stepped membership system where each higher membership level gives the user access to more and more content with the top level having access to all content.
2. a sectioned membership system where members of one membership level would not have access to content available to other membership levels.

Read more about wp-Member, the charge for subscriptions plugin for wordpress