MembershipSiteAdvisor.com

14/08: WordPress Blog to Instant Membership Site using a Simple Plugin

If you know what a blog is, then you probably also know WordPress. WordPress is one of the easiest and most effective blogging applications on the 'Net. It also makes for rapid membership site creation and content management - as shown in this real-life case study and video tour.

Meet Ralph Claxton (one of our MSA subscribers) - using a simple plugin he was able to take his well designed WordPress blog and turn it into an instant membership site. It only took a few minutes. And although this case study might be slightly biased towards the plugin (it has to be a bit - we created it), it's more about following a set pattern to rapidly launch your own WordPress membership sites.

We interviewed Ralph to provide a real-life pattern you can follow when it comes to launching your own WordPress based membership site.

Ralph followed 5 basic steps...

1. Determined a specific topic
2. Installed WordPress
3. Installed MemberSmart Pro with WordPress Plugin
4. Started creating content
5. Brought in the traffic

These 5 steps turned this real estate investor into the proud owner of the membership site LearnANiche.com, which only launched last month (July 2008).

Advantages of using WordPress

Before we give you the breakdown behind LearnaNiche.com and the 6 steps above, let's look at some advantages of using WordPress.

1. The biggest attraction for WordPress is its ease of use. Within a few minutes of playing around in the admin, it's not hard to work out how to manage your site using it.

2. WordPress provides full content management and it's relatively flexible when it comes to making changes or adding additional pages.

3. With a well designed theme/template, WordPress sites can compete with high end corporate sites - at least as far as looks go.

4. The entire look of your site can be changed instantly simply by uploading a new theme/template.

5. It's easy to install. Most hosting companies have an auto-install option in their cpanel called Fantastico, which can automatically install WordPress on your site within a few seconds.

6. A vast library of software, plugins and widgets is available for WordPress - many of them for free.

Overall it removes a lot of the obstacles a beginner faces; such as site design, uploading pages to a server, etc. It lets you get down to the important stuff - adding content. It's probably the fastest way to take a blank website and slap up a professional looking membership site.

How the plugin words to convert your blog into a membership site



Step #1: Determining a topic for your WordPress Membership Site

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Best regards,
Ansel Gough
www.MembershipSiteAdvisor.com