You you consider Wordpress a poor mans choice of membership?

If it works well, I wouldn't care.

But personally, if it was using Wordpress I wouldn't want it to LOOK like a normal Wordpress blog - but I wouldn't mind it being on the WP platform.

You're thinking about it too much

I use Wordpress for a number of sites. One is a membership that sells for $497, I explicitly tell the members it's a Wordpress site and no one has an issue.

Ryan Deiss uses it for a number of his membership sites as well, I don't think it's affected him too much either.

Hi Andy

For a membership site I've just created in the education market I've used Wordpress protected by DLguard, and I think it works pretty well.

I've used the Pro Revolution theme to make the site look less like a blog and more like a magazine, and then had someone make some tiny changes such as removing the dates from each posts.

The site looks better than anything I could have done cheaply using a html template from scratch, plus the site is easy to update and manage.

I say go for it!

I hope this helps

Lee McIntyre

Wordpress is so robust Andy... you could manipulate it enough so that it doesn't even feel like a WP..

Not that I would care anyhow... it's the content and value that count..

Peace

Jay

sounds to me like you're worrying about it too much, if I would the membership benefits are worth it, who cares what platform it uses? But like Platinum said, I wouldn't want it to look like a normal wordpress blog so use a professional design.

Make certain blog posts only visible to your friends - The WordPress Magazine

I think it's a great idea, Wordpress is great and I really wouldn't think it would be a problem. I certainly wouldn't think any differently of a membership site just because it was Wordpress.

Wordpress rocks for all sorts of stuff. Go for it...as mentioned previously, content is king.

Wordpress is great, I use it for regular site design.

My only concern are the number of 'upgrades' issued, and deemed necessary by the developers.

One of the latest was an essential security upgrade...so how secure were the previous versions? You do hear of folk having their WP sites hacked. (although this could happen with any site)

Plus there are still extra security measures you should take with 2.6.2.

WP upgrades can, and often do, create incompatabilities with already installed plugins on your site. So until the plugin author sorts their plugin out you may have a problem.

Since I use over a dozen what I would consider to be absolutely 'essential'
plugins it can take a couple of weeks for all them to be upgraded by the authors. I know these guys provide the stuff for free, I'm not complaining, but it's just a fact.

With non-membership sites these hassles are annoying and can be very time-consuming when putting right. With membership sites, would (or do) these issues cause more of a problem?

I agree with everyone else; if it works for you, use it.
If you outgrow it, parlay your proceeds and purchase
something better.

Wordpress is fine...Eban Pagen's Wake Up Productive membership is WP

Andy, I've had my eye on this Wordpress Membership plugin for some time. I plan on using it for one of my membership sites. I also have a developers license to all the Revolution Themes in case you've been eyeing those. From that I understand about DLGuard, it will protect an entire page and not specific content. So you won't be able to show 'teaser text' with DLGuard. With the solution above you will.

Well Andy you got the Marketers point of view so I guess I will toss mine in here for what it is worth.

Depends upon what type of membership you are selling, if you are trying to sell someone on making money online and using a free script then some may be wanting to turn away from the site.

It's like the old age question that ran around for years "Should I use tripod.com free webpage or get my own domain name ?" Well this is a simple answer, get your own domain name as it looks more professional (plus many other reasons).

Creating a totally unique secured membership that caters to your users vs having a free open source unsecured platform, there is a huge difference here. To many this may not matter but there are some that it does matter, which could cost you in the long run of leaving those ones out that it does matter too...

A Very excellent post by Cherilyn

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...tml#post193604

This same concept applies here also. What if those few visitors (let's say a very small amount) 2%, do care about the platform you choose to use and those 2% happen to be people that actually spend money. I am not talking about the normal member, I am talking about 2% that are highly active.. Depending upon your business model and what type of membership you have that 2% loss could turn into a huge amount of money just as explained on Cherilyn's post.

Really do not want to bore you to death though, just wanted to give you a different opinion to think about. Could be the developer in me but I personally prefer custom built all the way.

To answer your question, would most care about it being wordpress ? Probably not but do you care about leaving money on the table is what you should ask yourself...

James

The link makes lots of sense: opt-in is important in sales page. Thanks!

They can upgrade until the cows come home, will not make a difference unless you take control of your blog and secure it yourself. What you got to realize is the platform although upgraded still uses the same exact code and this same exact code including the upgrade hackers have access too..

Plug-ins created by third parties, most dont know what security is and if they do they are not going to worry about it very much because they have been programmed to think "Update and Backup then your safe" this is one of the most lame excuses I have ever seen in my 20+ years online.

The above is the reason why I included on my wp secured product how to secure plug-ins..

What people don't realize is that OLD or NEW wordpress is still being hacked by the hundreds (if not thousands) every single day..

James

Andy,

I use WP for my membership site and used wp-Member.com Advanced Wordpress Membership Plugin for the membership script. WP-member is run by a Warrior named Dave that provides top-notch support if your looking for a good membership script.

Yeah and be sure you make it hacker free too ...

James

There is so much you can do to NOT look like a standard blog and still retain the ease of content update - Mobile Advertising For Small Business | Marketing With SMS | Mobile Marketing is WP but just about everything that you see on a blog (comments, date of post etc) except the RSS has been taken out. Links to page and posts are gone - the menu is actually the blogroll widget. It's not quite done yet - but you get the point.

I travel a lot and for me - the ability to add/change content on the fly from anywhere is very important, and WP lets me do this.

I have two new membership sites starting shortly and I am using the WishList plugin from wpwishlist.com Home because it has the membership features along with sequential content delivery, membership levels, etc.

Still in the early stages of playing with it - but it seems pretty good for the price.

Trust me Shay people can spot a WordPress Blog a mile away ... No matter how much you change the looks, this is why hackers still hack then even when you do add a custom theme..

James

I've used Joomla for a membership site for over a year and since alot of my other sites are in WP, I'm switching over.

There are some terrific plugins out there for member sites now, and with the availability of so many great themes now, you can make the site look just about any way you want.

Joomla was ok and basically did the job, but just seemed kind of complicated and not so user friendly at points along the way. Wordpress has really come into its own in the last year or so. I doubt I will go back to Joomla again.

I don't think that Wordpress is a poor man's choice of membership site..

The important thing is your content. Provide quality content and I don't think people will mind if you use a membership script or wordpress.

But customise your wordpress theme to make it nicer!

The WakeUpProductive blog is not WordPress - it's Movable Type (one of WordPress's pay competitors). Personally I prefer WordPress. I"ve used both.

A properly done WordPress site often looks, and works, better than a regular static site. The problem is that a lot of people just use 'out of the box' templates and go from there.

Tweak those designs a bit and no one (other than me and a few other nerds :p) will be able to tell if it's Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, MovableType, Dreamweaver or Notepad.

In fact, some may prefer using a friendly and familia service.

Andy, if you don't mind me asking, are you using a paid script or free plugin?

Looking to set up a similar project. I use E-Junkie for digital downloads but don't think they handle memberships etc.

Louis