Memberium Membership Site Design Principle

What matters most when designing a membership site is how easy it is to use and get access to the content.  This is true when building a Memberium site using Infusionsoft, but it's just as true if you are using other Wordpress membership platforms.  Many people worry about the specific Wordpress theme to select. That is a decision you need to make, but it's much less important than the overall design.

Let me show you and walk you through what I recommend when it comes to building a membership site.

This is my main site or www site.  What I recommend is creating a button for logging in (i.e., members’ login – whatever makes the most sense).  That takes you to a login page.  In this case, the login is for a WordPress page.  This second website is optimized for your own personal membership site and for getting access to whatever it is that you specifically need.  It’s also optimized to sell additional things to people which may be of interest to them.

So, I’m going to log in here.  You may notice there’s a “forgot my password” feature here.  You want to make sure there are some good “self-service” features (otherwise, your members may get annoyed using the site!).  There should also be a link to go back to the main site…it’s always handy.

I’m going to log in as a member to give a tour of the site.  Users arrive at the dashboard, as I call it.  I’ve had my graphic artist create a little visual image for each course offered.  You’ll then see which courses you have access to.  Some, we have access to, but then others which are “grayed out” are the ones we cannot access.

On this site I provide access for free.  Upgrading to access new content is at not charge.  So to access the “grayed” content, the users don’t go to an order form or sales page.  Instead, they go to another page where, with the click of a button and get access to additional resources.

So you need a good login page which takes users to a dashboard where they’ll go and find what they want.  Let’s pick a course and enter it.

This course is “Building and Selling Your Online Course Profitably”.  It’s a five-part course where each piece has its own video followed by some copy.  If you click around the parts you’ll see a video accompanied by some copy, then another video, and more copy.

Again, this is a free course just to get our users oriented on membership sites.  It’s quite a simple course not rocket science!

You can also see how you’d typically build a site with the LearnDash theme.  The site will have its own dashboard, and the user will learn the course by using LearnDash, which is within the course.

My main point is don't get caught up on theme selection.  We’re big fans of ThriveThemes, and there’s a lot of reasons why they’re a good idea.  Below I’m including a review of ThriveThemes which Daniel Bussius put together.  It’s a good in-depth explanation why ThriveThemes is a good place to start when choosing a theme.  This is not the themes themselves that makes is so valuable.  It's the additional things that provide needed features and make building sites easier.

If you prefer other themes like Divi or Genesis, that’s fine.  The key is making a site like the one I show in the video – one which makes it easy to log in, access content and get even more content.

• Larry Jacob FREE Membership site referenced in the video. https://members.jorged66.sg-host.com
• Daniel Bussius ThriveThemes review. https://danielbussius.com/the-ultimate-thrivethemes-review/