Do you want to create a paywall in WordPress to publish premium content? Would you like to find out how to use the WordPress memberpress plugin? or want to create a website subscription? This WordPress tutorial will address these concerns
Adding a paywall allows you to monetize some or all of your content with a subscription plan. This freemium model is already used by top publications like the NYTimes and the Washington Post.
In this article, we will show you how to easily create a paywall on your WordPress website without hiring developers.
But before, if you have never installed WordPress discover How to Install a WordPress Blog in 7 Steps et How to search, install and activate a WordPress theme on your blog
Then back to why we are here.
What is a Paywall and why use one?
A paywall is a way to hide or lock down your content until the reader pays to access it. This is normally done through an ongoing subscription.
If you want, you can also set a one-time fee for accessing all paid content. Some websites also use the paywall to grow their mailing list by asking users to subscribe to their newsletter or by creating a free account.
Many newspapers have introduced paywalls on their websites. Here is an example from the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph:
And here's the New York Times paywall that only requires an email subscription:
In many cases, paywalls allow readers to access a limited amount of free content. For example, readers may be able to view up to 5 articles before needing to enter their email address or purchase a subscription.
A paywall can be a great way to monetize if you provide lots of high quality content. It is suitable for sites that do not want earn money online by others methods such as advertising or selling products.
Create a Paywall on your WordPress website
For this tutorial, we will use the MemberPress. It's the best WordPress plugin subscription that allows you to easily sell subscription products on your website.
First, you need to install and activate the MemberPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Once you have activated the plugin, go to the page MemberPress -> Settings » License to enter your license key. You can find this information under your account on the MemberPress website.
Simply copy and paste your license key and click the button Enable.
After that, you will need to set up a way to receive payments. MemberPress supports multiple popular payment gateways such as PayPal, Stripe and Authorize.Net.
You can add your payment method by accessing the page MemberPress -> Settings, switching to the “ Payments », then clicking on the button (+).
You will need to provide a name for this payment method and then select your payment gateway from the drop-down menu.
MemberPress will prompt you to fill in the details of this payment method. For example, for standard PayPal payments, you'll need to enter your PayPal email address:
You can also add multiple payment options by simply clicking the button (+) and repeating the process.
Once you are happy with the payment settings, remember to click the " Update Options To store your changes.
Creating a subscription plan for your Paywall
Now that you've completed the initial setup, it's time to create the paywall itself. To do this, you need to create a subscription level in MemberPress.
Just go to the page MemberPress -> Memberships, then click on the button Add " up.
On the next screen, you must first give a name (title) to your subscription plan, then set a price in the " Membership Terms ". Here we called our subscription “ Premium Membership and set the price to $5/month:
You can set your subscription terms according to your needs. For example, if you want to create a free subscription, you can leave the price at 0,00.
You can also choose between the billing type " Recurring» and « Single (Once Time)". For recurring payments, you can choose from monthly, yearly, weekly, quarterly, or custom interval options.
Optionally, you can provide a description of your membership plan in the text editor or further customize it in the " Subscription options».
The default settings would work in most cases, but you can always review them and see if you want to change anything.
Once you're done, just click on the button Publish to create the subscription plan.
You can create multiple subscription plans with different subscription levels. For example, you can create a premium plan and a VIP plan that gives your users access to even more exclusive content and features.
Adding Content Behind the Paywall
Now that you've created a subscription plan, it's time to choose the content you want to restrict with a paywall in WordPress.
MemberPress gives you powerful rules that offer multiple ways to restrict content to specific subscription plans.
To configure a rule, you must visit the MemberPress -> Rules page and click on the button " Add New " up.
Next, you need to select the content you want to restrict. Simply click on the first drop-down list to select the content that matches the specific conditions.
You can select content by category, tags, child pages, posts, pages, etc… We choose'All content tagged: premium' for this example.
Underneath you have to select the subscription plan or the member. We choose " Membershipthen the plane we created earlier.
You can now click on the button Save Rule to store your changes.
Now, if someone tries to view content tagged " premium without subscription, he will see this message:
Tip: You can customize this message when adding or editing your rule. Just scroll down to the section unauthorized access. There you have to select Custom in the drop-down list Unauthorized Message and type the message you want to use.
You can add links, images, and format text here. You can also hide the login form and replace it with a link. Here's what the paywall looked like on our test website.
If you come back to Articles -» All articles in your dashboard, you will see that all posts that match this criteria have their access marked with the membership plan.
Give non-members a limited number of free views
What if you want to let non-members see a certain amount of your content for free? It can be a great marketing tool.
You can enable it in MemberPress by going to MemberPress -> Settings » General in your WordPress dashboard:
Here you have to scroll down to the section “ SEO & PayWall » and check the option « EnablePayWall ". You then need to enter the number of free views you want to provide.
Note: You can also give search engines access to your protected content here. This helps your paid content rank in search engine results, but it requires disabling all caching plugins. This can slow down your WordPress website.
Be sure to click on the update options at the bottom of the page to save your changes.
That's all.
Recommended Resources
To go further in the creation of a website and the optimization of it, we also recommend that you read the following articles:
- How to Regenerate Your Permalinks in WordPress
- How to disable all plugins without access to WP-admin
- How to Update WordPress Website URLs
- How to create a multi-step or multi-page form
- PayPal vs Stripe: Which is the best payment gateway?
Conclusion
So ! That's it for this tutorial. We hope this article helped you learn how to create a paywall on your WordPress site and add a free views option. If you have some Comments or suggestions, do not hesitate to tell us in the section reserved for these.
However, you can also consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on the WordPress blog creation or the one on Divi: the best WordPress theme of all time.
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