Top 20+ Tools for Membership Site Owners

Top Tools for Membership Site Owners

Did you catch the WishList Products, Top Tools for Membership Site Owners webinar, on 17 July 2014, hosted by Stu McLaren, WishList Products Co-Founder?

• This seminar was an update of one of WishList Members most popular presentations from a few years ago.

Well if you didn’t catch the webinar, or if you just want a refresher, here are the Top 20+ Tools for Membership Site Owners which were discussed plus a few notes.

According to Stu McLaren, all of the tools and services presented are used by WishList Products in their business either every day or on every site they develop.

Tool Categories

The tools have been broken down into 3 categories, Setup Tools, Marketing Tools and Management Tools.

1) Setup Tools

These are tremendously useful if you are creating a new site because they help make the process easier and a LOT faster.

1.1) Duplicate Menu (free)

Easily duplicate your WordPress menus with one click.

Some WordPress installs use very elaborate navigation systems powered by core Menus. They’re a fantastic feature that can often make or break a theme. Menus aren’t very portable out of the box, however. If you’re looking to make a change to a Menu you’re pretty much working live without a quick way to revert back to an old version. That’s where Duplicate Menu comes in.

Duplicate Menu will allow you to create a second (or third, or fourth, etc.) copy of an existing Menu to do with what you will. It generates the clone on a programmatic level and recreates all necessary relationships to ensure the structure is retained as well.

This plugin is particularly useful where you have a modular course, with menus targeted for the different levels or modules. It makes it really easy to copy a menu then add or remove items as necessary.

1.2) Duplicate Post (free)

Duplicate post is great for cloning posts and pages. As the name suggests, this plugin allows to clone a post or page, or edit it as a new draft.

Why would you want to do this? Well, if each of your lessons are setup in the same manner, i.e., top navigation, introduction text, video lesson, lesson resources and an action plan. You can quickly replicate the page and then change the text and video, etc. ready for the next lesson.

1.3) Shortcodes Ultimate (free)

Shortcodes Ultimate is WordPress plugin that provides mega pack of shortcodes. This is really a premium plugin that you can get absolutely for free! Basically this gives you a really quick menu to dropdown and insert any of the key things you might need for page design. It has a shortcode generator with over 50 amazing modern responsive shortcodes. Well worth checking out.

1.4) Disable WP Admin Bar Removal (free)

This plugin disables the WordPress admin bar for all user roles in your members area. Members should have no requirement for the admin bar, so remove it from sight.

1.5) WishList Smartnav

With the WishList Smartnav plugin you can change the top navigation bar based on the membership level someone belongs to. So you could have a navigation bar for your “Silver” level, “Gold” level and “Platinum” level – and they could all be different! This plugin makes it SUPER easy to customize the experience for your members.

1.6) WishList Widget Control

This WishList Widget Control plugin will give you the ability to easily display different sidebar widgets to members of different levels. So if you have a “Silver” level, you could display sidebar widgets just for them. Likewise, you could display sidebar widgets just for your “Gold” members. It’s an awesome way to tailor the look of your site based on the level someone belongs to.

1.7) WishList Quiz 2.0

The WishList Quiz 2.0 is a plugin that allows you to create quizzes for your members. Quizzes are an awesome way to give members plenty of value and increase their engagement to your membership site. You can, for example, have different actions happen as a result of someone passing or failing a quiz. If a quiz is passed you could move them on to the next module. A fail could give them a more in-depth lesson.

WishList Quiz 2.0 is actually an improved version of WishList Quiz 1.0 that was released by the WishList team as November 2012 bonus plugin (bet you didn’t guess that!).

1.8) WishList Points (Points/credits)

WishList Points is a very powerful plugin, maybe even the most powerful one the WishList team has released so far.

WishList Points is a gamification plugin that allows your members to earn points based on different actions they perform inside your membership site.

Gamification has a huge psychological effect on the human mind, it drives people to perform different actions in order to be granted with points.

1.9) Leadpages

Turn your next idea into a published landing page in less than five minutes with LeadPages. LeadPages have engineered the simplest landing page builder in the industry, so you can create, edit and deploy your next high-converting page without touching a single line of code.

2) Marketing Tools

The marketing tools help you attract more people, sell more memberships, create a better experience for your members and build a better community.

2.1) Samcart

2.2) KingSumo Giveaway

2.3) Meet Edgar

2.4) WishList Variables

WishList Variables is one of the best bonus plugins given away by the WishList team so far. WL Variables allows you, as the membership site’s owner, to create and show different variable content to different membership levels by creating simple shortcodes and adding them inside posts and pages.

The possibilities with WL variables are really endless, you can be vary creative with this plugin. For example, you can use it to create a date/time limited announcement or a special offer only to certain membership levels, i.e., you could say display this message to Gold level members only for the next week.

2.5) WishList Selector

WishList Selector (choose your own adventure) allows you to present various pieces of content your members can choose from. Each choice a member makes customizes their experience and ensure they are getting the content they want.

WishList Selector is an amazing plugin that will allow you to create “paths” for your members to follow and present them with content that is relevant for them according to the “paths” they chose.

You will actually be able to guide them through the site and point them to a specific result according to a series of questions you ask them and according to the answers they choose.

2.6) WishList Links

WishList Links allows you to login to a links’ management system and create your own traceable links.

You can customize your links:

• Create regular links that will be shortened (like bit.ly service).
• Create scheduled links that will be activated from a specific date.
• Create informational links.
• Create expiring links that will expire in a specific fate or after X number of clicks.
• Set a 404 error page redirection, Expired page redirection and time zone for your links.
• View different statistic information about the links: Total / unique / failed visits.

2.7) Swiftly

3) Management Tools

The management tools save TONS of time managing and growing your site (so you have more time to focus on what you do best).

3.1) Rhino Support

A customer friendly support desk that is easy to use, priced well and helps you minimize time spent providing support to your customers.

3.2) Slack

3.3) Fancy Hands

3.4) Fiverr

3.5) FollowUp.cc

3.6) BananaTag

If you’re interested in starting your own membership site then hurry over to the WishList Member site and see what they have to offer. Now you too can easily create a membership site by using WordPress and this powerful new membership software. The best part is, you don’t have to be “technical” to get going!

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