If you want to make a membership website or add membership features to your existing website, then this is the post for you.
I am going to show you how to make a lightweight automated membership website for free
In fact, I posed the question yesterday in the WPCrafter Facebook group and nearly 700 people said they wanted to learn this.
But thats not all, this video is going to level up your WordPress skills and be quite an eye opener
Now let me be clear up front that there is nothing wrong with all in one solutions like memberpress, restrict content pro, or wishlist member.
Those are great solutions Wishlist being my favorite.
But most of what you need you already have in WordPress or the current tools you have installed on your website, we just need to get them working together in perfect harmony to automate everything and that is what this video is all about
Ask yourself: what is a membership plugin actually doing anyway?
Here is the what it is doing at a basic level:
- Setup access groups and select which content they can acces
- Registering a new user to give away or selling access
- Automate granting access based on the purchase
Now there are various ways to do each of the above. These include using the tools you already use and love.
So each step of the way I will let you know of alternative tools you can use that you are likely to already own or have on your website.
Step 1: You need hosting. Siteground or Cloudways
Step 2: You need a WordPress theme, i'll be using the free Kadence Theme
Automator Pro is on special right now and can do a whole lot more.
Step 3: Lets setup a full website
Step 4: Lets add our membership levels, for this we add this custom function.
// Add a custom user role
$result = add_role( 'gold_member', __(
'Gold Member' ),
array( ) );
$result = add_role( 'platium_member', __(
'Platium Member' ),
array( ) );
$result = add_role( 'vip_member', __(
'VIP Member' ),
array( ) );
Step 5: Setup who can see what. You can use Elementor display conditions, Kadence Pro elements, or the easiest is Content Control
Step 6: Setup a way to register or sell access. You can use WooCommerce, or a form plugin
Step 7: Automate it using Automator
Join The Conversation
Really informative tutorial. I’ve searched for hours to find this content so detailed. Thanks, man.
Glad you liked it!!
Adam, I’m following this tutorial and there’s something not working right about the content control and I noticed it might not work on your implementation as well. When setting the Restriction in the Content Control Restriction Editor, it allows you to select Gold or VIP. However, when I go back in later, they were not saved, nor does it work if I try to login as a test Gold user. Does it actually work for you? On your screen, it also did not show your roles listed on the dashboard.
Second , where did you find kadence-themes-pro.zip? It’s not referenced *anywhere* on Kadence’s website. Just that a premium version is planned for “later this summer”.
Thanks in advance! Love your videos!
P.s. LOL, the reCaptcha expired while I was typing out my message. Perhaps Google thinks that I turned into a robot in the intervening 5 minutes. 😄
Please make sure you are using the version of the code snippet on this page. In the tutorial, there was a hyphen missing when you named your membership with two words.
The Kadence Pro Theme is currently available to Kadence members. It will officially go on sale this upcoming Monday.
Hey Deb,
It was tricky for me too. If you’ve purchased your membership, start by logging in at:
https://www.kadencewp.com/wp-login.php
Once logged in, go to:
Product Downloads
There you’ll find the
Kadence Theme
Kadence Theme Pro Addon 👍🏻