It's time to now finish and launch your membership site.
Let's start by recapping what you've done:
- You've installed and activated WishList Member.
- You created and configured your first membership level.
- You set up protection and access for a post.
- You integrated a payment provider.
- You integrated an email provider.
- You set up you error pages.
- You configured your redirects.
- And, optionally, you've set up a content schedule.
Nice job!
Hopefully, it was mostly painless. So, what's next? There's a couple big pieces and few minor things. Let's start with the “big frogs”.
Okay, so those are the big rocks. As for your site, there are few, WordPress things to clean up:
WordPress Configuration
- Permalinks. If you haven't, set them to the Post Name option (unless you have a compelling reason not to). You'll find them under Settings > Permalinks in the WordPress menu.
- Site Title and Description. These show in the browser and search engines, so you'll want to clean them up. Go to Settings > General to edit those.
- Theme, Page-Building, Styling. It's a lot different today than it used to be. Page builders have changed the game. We strongly recommend that you use a page builder like Elementor, Thrive Architect, Divi, or Gutenberg (the WordPress default editor). All the pages we've talked about in this series can be “prettied up” using these tools and many have pre-installed templates that make building pages a snap.
- Plugins. Of course, WordPress has thousands of other plugins you can install on your site. It can be easy to go a bit crazy with these. Just remember, every plugin you install adds complexity and “overhead” to your site. So, be judicious with the plugins you install. Only install what you absolutely need and always make sure the plugin is updated regularly.
Creating Your Content
Another thing we've learned a lot about over the years, including from running our own membership sites. Here, we've got you covered with another tutorial series. We'll walk you through creating your Content Strategy — a 1-year plan of all the content you'll create.
The people who go through that training report feeling a “weight” being lifted off their shoulders when it comes to content creation.
You can start that series here.
We also have a great free resource on generating content ideas for your membership site. It's a blueprint that contains over 60+ “Idea Generators” — each capable of generating hundreds, if not thousands, of individual content ideas — pulled from the top content creators on the web. With it, we believe you'll “never get stuck for content ideas”. So, definitely check that out.
The Blueprint is a free resource you can grab here.
Marketing Your Membership Site
You, of course, need a sales page and a marketing strategy in order to get people to join your membership. Now, we're not going to claim to be the foremost experts on marketing and writing sales copy. We're a technology company. But, we have picked up a few things, specific to marketing membership sites, the last 14 years operating in this space.
Here's a Few Ways We Can Help:
- We will be adding regular marketing training to our tutorial videos page, so you can head over to the Marketing section here and check out what's available.
- We also interview many of the top online business owners on our podcast, The Memberships and Courses Podcast. So, be sure to check that out.
- And, we also regularly post marketing and business-related insights on our blog. So, that's another resource.
And, that's about it. You could, of course, work on your site endlessly, but you can't start building your recurring revenue until you launch. So, don't get caught in the perfection trap. Start small and simple, launch, and then build from there.
If you're looking for the next steps, we recommend checking out our Content Creation series next.
Enjoy, best of luck, and don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
