Diving into the world of membership sites might seem a bit like learning to sail in stormy weather. But don’t worry, we’re going to smooth those waves together.
The simplest way to get started with a membership site on WordPress.com is with Site privacy or Password protection.
Consider your site like a fancy ship you’ve built. The site privacy setting lets you decide who gets to board your ship, whereas password protection is like a key to a treasure chest that only certain crew members can open. And if you’re looking to charge visitors for a VIP experience on your site, that’s like creating a first-class cabin for select passengers. With a bit of patience and practice, you’ll be the master and commander of your website in no time. Ready to set sail? Let’s go!
The site privacy option on WordPress.com is perfect for those who want a private corner on the web – perhaps for a club, a family, or a private organization. This setting makes your entire site private, meaning search engines won’t be able to index it and visitors will need to log in to view the content.
Let’s take a look at how this works:
- Go to Settings > General↗︎
- In the Privacy section, select Private
- Click Save
Note
If your site hasn’t been launched yet, you’ll need to click the “Launch Site” button to access the Privacy Settings.
Pro Tip
Don’t forget to visit the included links throughout the lessons anytime you need clarification or the step-by-step instructions for a given task. Right click to choose open in a new tab. Links with an arrow ↗︎ will automatically open in a new tab.
When someone tries to access your site while it’s set to private, they’ll either have to log in or request access from you. You can also manually invite people to have access, and remove a user’s access from the Users section.
Here are a couple of screenshots to help you visualize this process:
View our support document to learn more about the options for site Privacy Settings.
You can consider creating a private site with restricted access to content to which members will be invited. This site can be considered your membership area and separate from your main site.
Here are the main things to consider with each site:
🌏 Main site
On your public site, create a membership signup page with the following:
- a contact form for people to sign-up for access and/or
- a payment button, if you want to charge for access
Add a link to the second site (for members-only) in the menu.
🔒 Second site – Members area
Create a new site in your account and:
Once members accept their invitations, they can access any content shared on this members-only site.
Password protection is your buddy when you want a public site, but have some pages or posts you’d like to keep reserved for a specific audience. Visitors will need to input a password to access this content.
Here’s an example of what visitors see when they stumble upon a password protected page or post:
- Open or create the page or post you want to protect in the editor.
- If the right sidebar is not visible, click the Settings icon in the top right corner of the screen.
- Make sure the Settings sidebar is on the tab for Page or Post.
- In the Summary section, click on the word next to Visibility.
- Select Password protected in the Visibility dialog box.
- Enter a password of your choosing.
- Click Update to save your changes.
This feature works across all WordPress.com sites, even the ones on the Free plan. For more information, check out our support guide on Post & Page Visibility.
Pro tip: Our Support site is full of guides that cover the use and details of specific tools and features. Our courses focus on how to use these features within your site, and how to bring the pieces together. Learning to lean into our Support site for further instruction will help deepen your understanding of what you can do with your site.
Password protection is an excellent way for clubs, groups, or anyone else to quickly set up a simple site with a few pieces of content reserved just for members.
However, keep in mind that this method, while easy to set up, involves manually emailing passwords to new members and isn’t the most secure since anyone can share the password. If you ever need to revoke someone’s access, you’ll have to change the password for each page or post manually and distribute the new password to remaining members. Therefore, this method works best for small audiences and limited content.
For larger, public sites, or if you want to collect subscriptions or payments for this protected content, we recommend using the Paid Content Block or setting up a Membership Plugin which we cover in our other lessons.
So there you have it – your first steps towards mastering membership sites with WordPress.com. Remember, we’re all learning and it’s okay if you don’t get everything right away. Take your time, practice, and before you know it, you’ll be navigating these settings like a pro.
What is the purpose of the site privacy option on WordPress.com?
In WordPress.com, you can set the privacy of your entire site by going to Settings > General↗︎ where you can choose from Coming Soon, Public, or Private. Setting the site to Private will restrict access to your entire site so that only people you grant access to will be able to view it.
Whoops! That’s not the purpose of the site privacy option in WordPress.com that you find by going to Settings > General↗︎ . You can click Reset below to try again, or review the Understanding site privacy section of the lesson.
Which situation is best suited for using password protection on your WordPress.com site?
That’s right! The Password Protection feature of WordPress.com allows you to set a password per page or post.
Whoops! The Password Protection feature of WordPress.com wouldn’t be the best way to achieve this. You can click Reset below to try again, or review the Navigating password protection section of this lesson.
How can you set up password protection for a specific page or post?
You got it! You’ll find the WordPress.com Password Protection feature in the Visibility section of the Settings sidebar of the editor for a page or post.
Whoops! That’s not how you’ll find the Password Protection feature in WordPress.com. You can click Reset below to try again, or review the How to set up password protection section of this lesson.
What happens when someone tries to access a password-protected page or post?
Nailed it! So long as they have the correct password for the page or post, they’ll gain immediate access to the content once they’ve entered it correctly and clicked the Enter button.
Whoops! That might not be the best outcome for password-protected content. You can click Reset below to try again, or review the Navigating password protection section of this lesson.
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