Very often on a particular site you can see a field for entering information, which is called a “subscription form”. Resource administrators strongly encourage users to enter their data (in particular, address email), after which to the one indicated in this form mailbox Various letters begin to arrive with information about certain materials, promotions, and news from this resource. Have you noticed this?
All this is a form of working with site visitors and participants in various online communities. It assumes the presence of some kind of “response” in the form of collecting a database of people who visit your resource, as well as the ability to send information about your site to those who left their mailing address.
If you have your own resource and would like to know how to make a subscription on the site, this article will be useful to you. In it we will look at the basics of creating subscriptions and mailing lists: what they are and why they are used.
What is subscription and mailing?
So let's start with definitions. Subscription is the voluntary consent of the user to receive a character on behalf of the resource. In such letters (and they are sent by e-mail), the site administration, as already noted, can publish portal news, some promotions (if we're talking about about the online store), information about competitions (for example, those held on the blog). By subscribing, a person leaves his address and, in fact, gives a sign that he is ready to read a letter sent to him from this or that site. Subscription is organized using a special form. It is placed in a prominent place on the website; This form can take different forms, but its essence is always the same - collect an email address and transfer it to the server. Sometimes a newsletter subscription for a site also contains a “Name” field.
Mailing is a form of notifying users via email, which is expressed in mass mailing of letters. As already mentioned, this could be news, promotions, new products, and so on. The mailing is carried out in order, firstly, to notify users about something, and secondly, to attract their attention both to a particular event and to the resource as a whole, reminding them of its existence.
In fact, the newsletter follows the subscription: the site administrator (using special tools) sends a newsletter with information about his site to the email addresses collected using the form. This is how subscribing to site news works.
Why is this necessary?
Subscription is an effective marketing tool that can increase the popularity of a site and attract new users to it. With its help, you can “collect” the attention of those who subscribed earlier, as well as increase your audience through new visitors, simply by publishing interesting materials.
Another subscription form for the site allows you to create a core of loyal, regular customers who will be guaranteed to be interested in your updates. With the help of such people, you can, for example, organize sales of your information products or even real goods delivered by mail. Examples of successful businesses built solely on subscriptions and mass mailings, held among regular visitors, quite a lot, both among Western and domestic bloggers and webmasters. Monetization of the list of subscribed users is limited solely by your imagination.
Ways to organize a subscription to the newsletter
If you already have your own resource, and you are interested in the opportunity to create your own database of contact information of loyal users, then you will probably be interested in how to make a subscription on the site. We talk about possible methods its creation and methods of application.
So, if we talk about collecting email addresses, then you essentially have two options - creating your own and using someone else’s platform for the subscription operation. The first option is, of course, more complex from an implementation point of view, but it provides greater opportunities for visual settings of the subscription form. The second one can be set up to work within a few minutes after the site is launched. This is done easily and simply. However, as a rule, the resources providing such services make restrictions on the issue appearance subscription forms.
How the subscription form works
Let's start with a description of how to make a subscription on the site yourself. This is of course a little difficult for beginners. In addition, your hosting must support PHP scripts.
The way such a subscription works is very simple: an HTML form is inserted into the site page, which transfers data to the script. He, in turn, fulfills the condition, which ends with recording the user’s address in text file or sending its data to another service (depending on the wishes of the administrator). The most difficult thing in this bunch can be called the work of a PHP script, since the HTML form is extremely simple, but the script may have some problems, for example, incorrect installed encoding. If you do not have basic programming skills, we recommend asking someone to help with this issue.
True, the advantage of working with your own form is the fact that, having configured it once, you can forget about it and simply collect user data automatically.
We are looking for services to create a subscription
Services that provide services for compiling a user base using subscriptions, as well as sending mailings to collected addresses, are well known, so there is no need to look for them. These are SmartResponder and GoogleFeedBurner. There are also small projects that teach you how to make a subscription on the site, but whether to use them or not is up to you to decide; their activities can be called secondary.
Those projects mentioned above do the following: the first allows you to intelligently maintain a list of user email addresses and send messages to them at a certain frequency (for a fee). The second has a slightly different focus: with its help you can collect the necessary addresses, but you can send notifications with news from your blog to them. Thus, the first service is rather an advertising tool, while the second is an opportunity to “feed” subscribers with fresh content.
We create a subscription form with our own hands
In fact, it is much more useful and interesting to develop your own mechanism for processing data received from users. If we describe this process step by step, it looks like this:
- Step 1. Create a PHP script for processing the received data (user name and email address) and place it at the root of your site. If you don’t know a programming language, we recommend turning to a freelancer; they will sketch out such a solution for you for a nominal fee.
- Step 2. It is necessary to integrate the script with the HTML page. This is done simply: you only need basic knowledge of the language HTML markup and a little diligence. In order for everything to work out, you need to create it, design it visually (CSS to help) and connect it with a script: register sending data (post) to your PHP file.
- Step 3. It includes setting up a data processing script. In it, in addition to the code itself, you need to write down information about which file the received information will be sent to. Essentially, the subscription script for the site is ready. It’s realistic to do it in a couple of hours for a beginner, and in half an hour (or faster) if you have similar experience.
Mailing to the database
Next, only you decide what to do with the received email addresses. You can use them to publish updates on the site, or as addresses for sending marketing offers. Do not forget that for the user, a subscription is access to a site that he may have already forgotten about. Do not spam visitors with links to your resource - otherwise they will simply put you on the mail “blacklist”!
Regarding how the mailing is done, I would like to give the following tips. First, publish only the most interesting and useful material. Secondly, regularly hold some interactive events (promotions, competitions) with the help of which you can attract new users. Thirdly, do not forget to create instructions on how to disable your subscription to the site. Give your customers the opportunity to unsubscribe from your updates and don’t be intrusive.
Another operator: after clicking this button while surfing mobile, you will be subscribed to a paid service
The system itself was originally thought up perfectly: pay for anything on the Internet in one action, or pay for anything outside the network in one SMS. But quite quickly, various unscrupulous companies, whose activities can be classified as fraud, became hooked on these paid subscriptions.
Considering the operator’s more than significant commission, you can go in two ways:
- Create an ecosystem that allows abuse and generates profit.
- Or do the opposite and lose money.
Since February 2014, we have greatly reduced the ranks of content providers thanks to your help, data analysis and investigations by our security team. In two months, we returned 30.2 million rubles to subscribers’ accounts and, in addition, transferred fines received from content providers as moral compensation to those who suffered from dishonest charges.
Informing subscribers
May 1, 2014 came into force Federal law dated July 23, 2013 N 229-FZ “On amendments to the Federal Law “On Communications”, requiring operators to provide a new scheme for providing content services. In particular, it is mandatory to indicate the cost of services before activation.Back in the summer of 2013, we began work on a whole range of measures:
1. In October, subscriptions activated in mobile internet on modems and tablets.
The fact is that this subscription form involves clicking on a button on the site as acceptance and receiving SMS with what exactly and how it is connected. It is not always possible to read this SMS on a modem or tablet, and it is not always obvious to subscribers that when they click something on a computer, they are interacting with the balance of their phone.
2. In November, we began to always indicate the cost of the service on the button itself, and introduced standards for its appearance.
Here is one of our buttons, where the fulfillment of our requirements is already “on the verge”:
And this is what a button from another operator might look like. Notice how well it disguises itself as a button on a standard player:
The requirement of the law has been formally fulfilled - the conditions are written in fine light gray on white. You won't be able to see them the first time.
3. From December 25, we introduced additional confirmation via SMS for all services over 100 rubles.
That is, connecting something accidentally or not consciously enough has become very, very problematic.
Here is the format of our message:
But the format of another operator. Find 3 differences:
5. We then introduced the following procedures:
- To the existing SMS before activation and SMS informing about the action and how to disable it after, a monthly SMS about connected services and how to disable them was added.
- We have limited the term of any subscription to a maximum of 5 months, after which we send an SMS asking to confirm the renewal, and if the subscriber does nothing, it is forcibly disconnected.
- The possibility of default provider services on the “First Children’s”, “Veteran” and “Mobile Pensioner” tariff plans has been closed.
6. Since February, a rule has been introduced that the fine collected from the content provider is distributed among all subscribers affected by its actions.
For example, if you were debited 50 rubles due to fraud, we return these funds to you, plus you receive a 50-200 ruble share of the fine from this provider (though not immediately, but after 1-2 months, after a fine has been issued).
Here are the SMS you will receive:
7. They began to make returns without recourse.
Thanks to the new rules for working with content providers, if fraud was detected, our security specialists checked all payments made through this short number, and we made a refund, regardless of whether the subscriber complained or not.
8. With the help of our data analysis department, we went through all the providers and their websites, and also identified profiles of clearly “bad” use of the subscription.
Well, for example, when subscribers make multiple attempts to send SMS to different short numbers within a few seconds (a virus or malware is clearly at work here). Ultimately, this led to serious fines for many players in the content services market.
9. Considering that a fairly large share of write-offs was accounted for by Android viruses that can send SMS and send reply SMS with confirmation of subscription, we launched free antivirus for this platform.
It automatically updates anti-virus databases. Set it and forget it – your smartphone or tablet is protected.
Let us note that according to the law we were absolutely not obliged to do this, and could continue to make money on “accidentally attached” subscriptions. However, we want to set standards for fair play in this market because, again, the payment method itself could be very convenient in the future.
Appeals
One of the most painful areas is the inaccuracy of the reported data. As a rule, out of 200-250 subscribers who contacted, only one person is able to provide an accurate picture sufficient to instantly understand that this is really fraud and respond.The first problem is that the actions of scammers are extremely unobvious to the average subscriber. For example, there was voice spam from IVR in the spirit: “You have received a voice card, do this and that to receive it.” The victim did as told, but received a subscription instead of a postcard. To understand what was happening, to put it mildly, far from voluntary subscription to the service, I had to spend quite a lot of time. But in the end, the source of the fraud was found.
The second problem is that many subscriptions belong to the 18+ group, and people are simply embarrassed to indicate with sufficient accuracy where and how they “picked up” them.
The third problem is that subscribers are not always technically literate to understand what happened.
Return
During this time, we returned 30.2 million rubles to subscribers. Presumably, over the next similar period we will return about 4 times less, since the most prominent violators left the market or realized that we are playing seriously and it is better not to mess with us for a long time.Procedure
After receiving the claim, the refund is made directly during the call to contact center or within a couple of days after contacting, if a more detailed check is required.When there is no application, but the data comes from our monitoring system, each case is analyzed and all victims are identified, this can take about a month - there are legal difficulties that cannot be automated. Once we have identified all affected subscribers, we issue a refund.
Fair play
Our position is this: we are for fair play. We find the actions of operators who formally and minimally comply with the requirements of the law, but at the same time striving to increase the turnover of their paid subscriptions, unethical. For our part, we (it should be noted, with difficulty) gave up a significant part of the profit in favor of honest relations with the subscriber. We plan to compensate for these and other similar aspects of lost revenue by increasing our subscriber base in the future. We still have work to do in many areas. We do it slowly in places, but we do it. And we are for fair play.How to create a paid website?
The cost of any web page is determined by the possibility
receive income from demonstrating its content to an Internet user.
.
This article is about what has the greatest effect in terms of profitability. It was written by one copywriter with. I myself (Seoded) have never worked with sites with paid content. And this article was very interesting to me in terms of my own self-education.
In addition, questions about (meaning a site whose main content is accessed for money) come to me regularly.. Yes, and in general, it’s just interesting to read.
I want to warn you right away that this article does not describe technical points creating a paid website. “Ideological” issues are discussed here: development strategy, psychological nuances of working with users, etc. Moreover, technical issues can be easily clarified with the help, but no one will just tell you how to develop a paid site.
§ 1. Terms
Let’s start by throwing away all the “husks” and clearly defining for ourselves the fundamental concepts of this business. For a better understanding, draw some parallels with what we see in real life. For example, visiting a regular supermarket.
And so, today we will look “behind the scenes” of the work of paid sites and affiliate programs. Everything that will be said here is based on personal experience, which I have obtained over the past few years of work, through numerous studies and experiments. If you already have your own paid sites or are just about to get them, then my article will help you avoid a number of mistakes, as well as improve your productivity.
- Content- a product for which people pay money.
Indeed, the ultimate goal of your visitor is . The more interesting, qualitatively better, technically advanced, uniquely created and more conveniently consumed your content, the easier it will be to sell it. Undeniable. - Amount of content- the volume of your product in the proposed package.
In addition to qualitative properties, any product also has a quantitative component. If this is a membership ( membership, title - approx. by Seoded) - then you can “package” it into packages, say 3-day trial, monthly subscription, three-month subscription, 6-month, etc. Or you can create several packages like “starter membership” - with full access and, for example, “VIP membership” - with exclusive features. In any case, the availability of packages of different capacities makes it possible to increase the profitability of a paid site with proper pricing, conduct special promotions and expand the audience. Try to create sites with the ability to create packages with a variety of content. - Sayn (signup, subscription, signup - approx. by Seoded) - the fact of selling access to an area with paid content, a sold subscription to services, to access to the site.
The entire adult business, all dealings, submitters, affiliates, posters, owners of webmaster resources - everyone feeds on the existence of this life-giving source. If the flow dries up or loses efficiency, then everyone will die out or mutate, including cheaters and scammers. Don't spit in the well! - Paid site- your brand and your showcase.
The more well-known your brand is in the environment where your potential customers live, the more likely they are to choose your products over those of your competitors. For example, when approaching the counter, you probably know what brand of powder, shampoo, ketchup or beer you will buy, without even paying attention to the products of companies unknown to you. Online business is a little simpler, there are a lot of competitors, and there are no clear brands yet (with rare exceptions). Therefore, just doing good can do half the job. - Design, texts, promos, slogans, tour, samples, etc.- product packaging.
The most difficult and responsible part of working on the project. It is the “packaging” that is sold, and this is a fact that you cannot argue with. Moreover, for some products and categories of buyers, simple packaging with clear, concise packaging works better; for others, glamorous packaging, with loud slogans and loud presentation; for others, some other packaging options. Anyone who finds the best in this direction and does everything as expected becomes a contender for industry leaders. This is difficult to teach. Everyone goes through this, trial and error. - Traffic- people seeing your showcase (paid site) and packaging.
An arithmetic quantity that has a qualitative component. By traffic quality I mean “three main pillars”:- ~ targeting your product;
- ~ solvency;
- ~ and sophistication in obtaining such products for free.
- Traffic on landing page
(landing page, landing page, selling page - a website page whose purpose is to attract potential customers and sell them goods or services - approx. by Seoded) - people who are able to buy and are considering whether to add your product to their cart or move on.
Landing page is the holy of holies of a paid site. This is where sains are born. The moment of making a purchase decision and parting with money is extremely difficult for any person. Every word, every symbol on the landing page can affect the outcome of events. Not to mention the prices and your special offers that the surfer sees. , specializing in creating a landing page. Below we will look at the issue of pricing in more detail. - Members- people who have removed the packaging and are consuming the product.
This is the most valuable traffic that definitely needs your product and is definitely able and willing to pay. Your task is to create all the conditions and make the member a regular customer. And even better - a “connoisseur” of all your products. Along with the supply of fresh and high-quality products, this can be achieved using special promotions and exclusive offers for “old customers”. - Unpopulated members- people who have already removed the packaging and tried your product.
It is much easier to attract a person who has already bought your products and had a positive experience to buy again than for the first time. 8 times easier when applied to offline business. I think that for online the figure will be more modest due to hyper-competition and the “love” of some surfers for constantly trying new and new paid sites. But this does not eliminate the need to send new offers and special promotions of your payer to the replenished members.
It was not without reason that I drew the parallel between creating a paid website and selling products in a supermarket. Market laws apply the same in both online and offline businesses. I regularly visit supermarkets and notice how marketing and economic principles that have been used successfully for a long time work. We have a lot to learn from them.
§ 2. Closer to the point
And so, we sorted everything out and realized all the main components of a paid site that we need to work on.
With content, everything is clear: either high-quality, or a lot, or better yet, a lot of quality.
Everything is clear with the brand - either a lot of money, if there is any, or just a good domain, if there is none.
With design, texts, promos, slogans, tours, samples and other things, it is also obvious - the bigger and better, the more effective for the site.
Traffic - we use our own, plus we attract webmasters to.
O realized the importance of updates quality content- to retain members and receive rebills ( repeat purchases, payments, registrations, etc. - approx. by Seoded)?
Did you understand that we need to do special promotions for both active and uncanceled members of our paid site?
Have you realized this? Have you digested and taken note? This is already good, however, the above is just a banal repetition of the axioms of proper business conduct in the online industry. This has been said thousands of times already.
The essence of this article is to describe techniques leading to an increase in profitability on a paid site that is already well-made in all the above points. And you can increase profitability through optimal packaging and competent pricing of the product. Increase it significantly!
I have been studying this question for more than 2 years, experimenting on my own paid sites. I analyze statistics and use . I must say that we have achieved good results. But the optimization process is endless due to changes in market realities, and what was good for 2005 no longer works so well in 2006. Next, I will share a little of my experience with you.
§ 3. Looking for optimal prices
For the purposes of this article, we will limit ourselves to a superficial consideration of the principles of linear pricing under conditions of an ideal monopoly. Fans of a large number of graphs and formulas for nonlinear pricing in a competitive environment can find a lot of useful information in the book “Effective Pricing” by Robert Dolan and Hermann Simon. I recommend it.
So, what do most owners of paid sites do in search of reasonable prices? The answer is simple - they look at competitors’ prices and set their prices lower or equal to the market average prices for similar products. The decision is correct if there is no desire to push the maximum. The product and packaging are different for everyone, and the motivation for purchasing on each site varies. By choosing more optimal prices for packages, you automatically come out ahead of your competitors. What will bring you and your webmasters more income.
We will consider the average daily traffic entering the paysite to be uniform in quality and quantity. Also, let’s not pay attention to the rising costs of bendwich ( throughput channel on a server with a paid site - approx. Seoded) when the number of members increases. For a more or less large project this is the norm. Within the framework of the article, we will consider the situation with only one package - a monthly membership with recurrence ( recurring purchase - approx. Seoded).
We introduce a new value:
S= Average initial sale price + average sum of all rebills – sum of all refunds / sales ratio
T . e. this is the amount of money left on average by a buyer on the site based on the amount of incoming traffic required for one purchase. It is to increase this S indicator that we will fight.
The primary sales schedule for a membership will look something like this (pic.1):
Point A is the maximum demand for free product. Point B - the feasibility of purchasing at this price disappears. The slope of the graph and, accordingly, points A and B are different for each paid site and depend on the quality of the product packaging, the average quality of traffic and brand recognition. They need to be calculated empirically. Sites that have a larger product of the legs of the resulting triangle will sell better.
It is clear that the maximum amount of money will be at the point where a rectangle inscribed in this resulting triangle will give the maximum area.
And from the geometry course we remember that this should be the point of intersection of the midline of the triangle with the hypotenuse (pic.2):
As a result, we received the optimal price that brings the greatest income on primary sales. But that's not all.
Since we have recurring sales ( repeating with a certain frequency - approx. Seoded), then it is clear that at a higher price there will be a larger number of cancels ( failures - approx. Seoded), and it is possible that it is more profitable for us to keep the price lower if rebills ( subscription renewal - approx. Seoded) will it be longer?
The graph of the number of rebills for the second month looks something like this (pic.3):
Where the height of point A is determined by the passing capacity of billing, as well as the number of surfers who unsubscribe immediately, without even looking at the member and regardless of the price - many people do not like recurrence. Point B, as you can see, does not cross the axis on the graph, because there will be members who will forget to unsubscribe, no matter what prices you set. In reality, point B is limited by the maximum rebill allowed by billing and point B on the primary sales chart (pic.1). The convexity of the curve depends on the correspondence of the content and site updates to the required price and is measured empirically.
The graphs of the third and subsequent months will differ only in the lower point A and the less convexity of the graph until point A is equal in height to point B, this will mean that we only have “forgetful” millionaires left.
By summing up the functions of rebills for the second, third, etc. month, we can easily calculate the optimal price for rebills by inscribing a rectangle of maximum area. Paid sites with good updates and content will have a more convex curve, so a larger rectangle will fit in... that’s why such sites “rebill better.”
It would seem that, knowing the optimal price of the initial sale, knowing the optimal price of rebills, it is possible to calculate the overall efficiency?
No! That's not all. As the price increases, another function increases - refunds and chargebacks ( refusal of services with a refund to the client - approx. Seoded).
The return schedule looks something like this (pic.4):
As we see, point A does not intersect the horizontal axis, i.e. there will always be returns, no matter how low the price is. The height of point B and the concavity of our hyperbola depend on the compliance of the content of the paid site with the required price.
Starting from a certain price, the growth of returns goes up sharply. This is why most adult billing services limit the maximum transaction amounts for the initial subscription and for rebills, so as not to operate in this dangerous zone.
Now we can calculate the optimal sign and rebill price that generate the most income on the same traffic on the paid site we created.
If we want to keep the price of the primary subscription and rebills equal, then we must add the function from pic.1 with the sum of the rebill functions and subtract the return functions, and inscribe a rectangle of the maximum area into the resulting figure - and the optimal price is ready!
Homework: How can we find the optimal prices if the cost of the initial sign and rebills may vary? :)
That's it, enough mathematics and geometry. I'm afraid that many have already fallen asleep from boredom at these simple tasks. I'd rather give you another ten general advice to increase productivity when creating a paid website, without formulas and evidence. Simply based on personal experience.
- 1). Make 4-6 packages of different prices and contents, people love choice, this way you will sell more.
- 2). Be sure to offer regular and seasonal specials. It's a good idea to have specials on weekends, and seasonal ones on major holidays such as Christmas and New Year. Summer discounts also won't hurt during slow times.
- 3). Make expensive trials if you offer trialists everything. Or limit the products in the member until you receive a full subscription (of course, informing them about this). People who buy trials, as a rule, simply want to save money. If you give them everything and on a cheap trial, many will unsubscribe and you won’t earn much money, you need to motivate them to renew.
- 4). Lately people have been having a hard time buying recurring packages. Offer a more expensive package, but without recurrence as an option. There is a category of people who will spend like that more money on your website.
- 5). Introduce bonus and point systems for members who are active. For example, with each month of membership, their rank in the system increases and more and more bonus plugins are opened. This will give you rebills.
- 6). Every package on your paysite needs to be in demand. Look at the statistics and change prices or services in unclaimed packages.
- 7). On Saturday, Sunday and the first week of each new year, purchasing power increases by one and a half times. Don't offer cheap packages these days. Offer more expensive, with a discount and for a larger volume of services.
- 8). Regularly, all unsubscribed members receive special offers that are not freely available on the site. Offer via a special link.
- 9). Use geo-targeted marketing. Those prices that are good for an American will not be suitable for a European and will certainly be completely unsuitable for a Chinese.
- 10). Hire a good specialist who will think for you if you yourself are not able to conduct all this marketing research and come up with new promotions. This will quickly pay for itself due to the increase in site profitability. Otherwise you will lose money!
§ 5. Conclusion
The main thing is to remember, no matter how well the paid sites you create sell, you can do even more!
This article will summarize the information presented in previous articles. A step-by-step plan for further action will be drawn up.
Let's list it again important conditions for the success of a site with a paid subscription:
Clear niche;
. Unique information;
. Practical information;
. Availability of free content.
1. Define and analyze a niche
First of all, you need to determine the niche you will work with.
The topics for websites and the choice of niche are discussed in as much detail as possible in previous articles.
After determining the niche of the site, we conduct a brainstorming session.
We analyze the needs of the audience. We study what exactly our potential clients need. We read questions and answers on thematic forums, look at comments on materials from your niche. We collect and identify topics, information and questions that will be of interest to your potential clients.
Let's get to know our competitors. If there are sites on similar topics, information products or membership ships, then study how they are structured, all their advantages and disadvantages. We translate their disadvantages and inconveniences into our advantages. Just don’t copy your competitor’s information under any circumstances, it can only backfire. If a competitor did not do something or did something poorly, then you need to do better.
Possible prospects. Think about what else you can implement. What people don’t seem to be asking for now, but what they might need.
2. Site structure
Detailed description of all sections. Do detailed description each section on your future website, what information and on what topics will be included there, what it will look like.
Material format. Decide on the format in which the material will be presented. Will you protect paid material or not?
What's paid, what's free. Determine which sections will be paid and which will be free. Divide them according to the characteristics that are important to you.
Addition frequency. Determine how often and how frequently materials will be added to the site.
List of topics. Make a list of topics, titles for the first ten free and paid materials. During the website development process, write these materials. It is advisable that at the end of site development not a single section is left empty.
Tariff plans. Think it over tariff plans and demand motivators. Write everything down in detail and think it over.
3. Appearance.
Schematic structure. Draw a schematic structure of the site and determine the arrangement of elements for your pages.
Sample. On at the moment There are a large number of Joomla templates available. Decide which templates in the best possible way suitable for your site. You can purchase templates from the developers or download them on the Internet.
Design elements and logos in the finished template can be changed. Layout of templates from scratch has not yet been discussed on the site, but in the future this topic will be covered in detail.
Don't get hung up on the little things, the little things aren't important yet. They can always be corrected in the future.
After that you need to do technical work to create a website with paid access. This will be discussed in detail in the following articles.
For now, let's go over the general plan of action. This information is for general information. All this will be discussed in detail in the following sections.
First we install Denwer, then we install Joomla and all the necessary extensions.
Content types;
. Fields;
. Sections;
. Menu;
. Modules;
. We bring in materials.
1. We enter tariff plans and their description;
2. We close access to materials;
3. We make the necessary settings;
4. Check the functionality.
Let's start the project.
1. We buy domain name;
2. We transfer the site to hosting;
3. We conclude agreements with payment systems;
4. Test the site, checking each section.
We are drawing up a plan for adding materials.
In the first stages, you need to fill out the site so that you have something to sell. For efficient work You need to make a schedule for yourself. For example, add 10 useful materials per week to the site. Of course, the quantity here depends on the amount of information provided and the format of the materials.
An individual plan for adding materials is required!
Try to strictly adhere to your plan.
While the technical intricacies of creating a website with paid access have not yet been discussed here, you can conduct a detailed analysis of your niche and draw up a detailed structure for your future website.
Be sure to write down and sketch everything about your niche analysis and desired structure.
From the author: No matter what kind of business you have, creating a paid zone is a very profitable business. You can realize recurring income, receive ongoing support from your audience, and expand your brand's audience. Paid access can be used to sell online courses, trainings, etc. Surprisingly enough, a full-fledged paywalled website can be created very easily using WordPress. In fact, you can create a paywalled website with just one plugin in less than an hour. In this article I will tell you about various ways creating a WP website with a paywall, and then I'll show you how to set it up.
Which WordPress paywall plugin is right for you?
There are several reliable paywall plugins on the market, and they all have a ton of features. Below is presented to you brief overview the most popular.
s2member
The s2member plugin provides you with everything you need to run a paywalled website on WP. You get a wide range of customizable options, great integration with PayPal, and shortcodes to make the process as easy as possible for you. There is a paid and free version, but the free version is enough for you to get started.
Membership 2
The Membership plugin team has remade their brainchild into Membership 2. It has all the functionality you'd expect from a paid access plugin: access to downloads, automated recurring payments, paid access options, several types of paid access, including access to content that comes out on a regular basis. You won't pay a penny for excellent free version, although there is a paid option.
Simple Membership
As the name suggests, the plugin offers an easy way to create a paywalled website on WP. The plugin has unique options, as well as various paywall levels, recurring payments, and PayPal integration. One of the unique features of the plugin is the authorization widget, which can be placed in the sidebar so that users can easily access their account.
There are many more plugins, but these three are the most popular. For the purposes of our tutorial, we will choose the s2member plugin. However, any paywall plugin should have similar features.
Let's get started
After installing and activating the plugin, you need to set up a basic paid access level. At this stage, several important questions need to be answered:
How many paywall levels will you have?
What will you call these levels? (silver, gold, etc.)
How much will each level cost?
Once you answer these questions, you can move on to making them a reality. You can complete the steps below in any order. As I said above, in the tutorial we will work with the s2member plugin.
Step 1: Modify the paywall page
A paywall page is a page on your site where readers can purchase paid access. To do this you will need to create new page. The s2member plugin recommends calling it Membership Signup, but you can choose any name that suits you.
After creating the page, you can configure the options in the Membership Options Page section of the plugin. Go to s2member > General Options > Membership Options Page. Check if the page has opened, then move on to the next step.
Step 2: modification of the welcome page with authorization
Go to s2member > General Options > Login Welcome Page. Just like with a paywall page, you can create a new page that your customers will go to after logging in. Or you can set a redirect. If you're confused, s2member has a great one on the basics.
Step 3: Set up registration
Go to s2member > General Options > Registration/Profile Fields & Options. In this section you can configure the registration process for new users. You can create custom fields, change user passwords, set a minimum password length, force the user to provide a personal email, etc.
Step 4: Registration Page Design
This step is optional. You can change the design of the authorization interface. Users will log in to your site, just like you, through the page http://yoursite.com/wp-login.php. If you want to embellish the page, you can change fonts, colors, insert your logo, or create a custom footer.
Step 5: Create Paywalls
It's time to create paywall tiers. In s2members2 you can do this by going to member > General Options > Membership Levels/Labels. In this section, you can create profiles with rights for different access levels. The s2member plugin has a free and 4 paid levels. Below you will see how they work.
At this point, you are required to choose how many levels of paid access you will have. Then decide what type of content will be provided at each level. This information will be useful to you a little later.
Step 6: Integrating Payment Methods
The s2member plugin works with PayPal, one of the most popular payment systems among paywall plugins. You can link your PayPal account in the s2member > PayPal Options section. In the PayPal Account Details tab, you must provide information about yourself, including your PayPal email address, ID, and API login information.
Now go to PayPal PDT/Auto-Return Integration. On the PayPal website you need to find your PDT Identity Token. The s2member plugin will kindly tell you where to find it.
You can also change the settings for confirmation of registration by email, confirmation of posts/pages by email, as well as those actions that will be taken after the end of the paid subscription period. Changing the settings for the end of a paid subscription is very important point, as this affects what happens when the user's paid subscription ends.
Step 7: Create a Custom Buy Button
Now you need to create special button purchases with which the user registers on the site. Go to s2member > PayPal Buttons. s2member does everything for you: the plugin has a custom button generator for each paid access level.
To create a first level button, click on Buttons for Level #1 Access. The button generator will open. Change the settings for your first access level and click on Generate Button Code. The code will appear in the WP shortcodes section below the form. Copy it and paste it into the new user registration page. When a user visits the page, they will see a PayPal button. You need to write text to describe the access levels.
For levels 2, 3 and 4 you can repeat the same thing. All PayPal buttons can be placed on one page, or you can create individual pages for each paid access level.
Step 8: Finish
Open the pages you created: registration and login page. Check that you like everything.
Step 9: Create and Protect Content
When creating pages or posts, the s2member protection section will be located in the upper right corner. This section allows you to configure visibility for different paywall levels. Because custom functions are beyond the scope of this lesson, you will be interested in options for restricting access.
It's important to understand that if you make content available to one tier, users at the tier above will also have access to that content. That is, if you publish an article with access level 3, then level 4 users will also see this post.
s2member's security options give you a variety of settings for how you display your content. You can create a completely paid site that requires users to register to access content, or you can publish both regular and paid content.
Conclusion
That's it: you've got a fully functional paywalled website in less than an hour. I didn’t tell you about all the possibilities, there are too many settings. However, now you have a fully working website in your hands, waiting for new users. Write in the comments about your favorite paywall plugins. Why did you choose them?
