Simplero membership sites are access-restricted sites that you can build on the Simplero platform to generate leads, offer premium services, and build customer loyalty.
Key Takeaways:
- Simplero membership sites are websites that can be made accessible only for members of your course to build brand loyalty and community
- You can include a variety of page types on your membership site, including membership directories, courses and curriculums, and blog/forum pages
- You create a membership site from the Simplero dashboard and provide access with the purchase of any of your products
What are Simplero Membership Sites?
A membership site is a site only accessible after a subscription. In other words, it has a barrier to access in the form of a paid or free sign-up.
Simplero enables you to create membership sites for your customers, using easy to build templates. Because Simplero also allows you to build your own website using the same page-editor on the platform, the membership site will be consistent with your brand.
Your Simplero membership site can include any number of standard web pages, such as a course page, blog, member directory, and forum.
Why Set Up a Membership Site?
A membership site can offer a number of benefits to your business, including:
- Being able to offer premium and exclusive content to loyal customers in your area of expertise
- Sharing information and media (photos, video, etc.) to subscribers only
- Being a safe space to connect and engage with your members. This allows you to not only build a positive relationship, but also obtain valuable feedback from your target audience to improve your product and research creating new courses
Simplero Membership Site Examples
Below are examples of membership sites created by Simplero users.
An expert in pediatric acupuncture, Robin Ray Green’s Reversing Pediatric Asthma with Chinese Medicine is a membership only site. The site contains a number of tabs which include course training modules for members, a bonus section, and a page to see and amend your own membership settings.
Emma Churchman’s Project Breakthrough membership site is restricted to paying customers. A coach and spiritual advisor to business leaders, the site’s focus is on bringing together like-minded individuals seeking mentorship to take their companies to the next level.
The pages available to members include Community Calls and Weekly training.
Total Choir Resources offers warm-up exercises, online events, and mentorship for choir directors. Their membership site links to a private Facebook group.
Members can access online events, printable resource documents, warm-up exercises, and a forum, among other spaces.
Individuals can sign-up for a free trial of the site before deciding if they wish to take out a subscription.
The Yogi Club by Yogi Aron is a Simplero membership site for yoga students and aspiring teachers with a focus on meditation and yoga for pain relief.
Non-paying members can access previews of the courses on the site to get a flavor of its contents. A 15-day free trial is available for members who are interested in the premium subscription.
How to Create a Simplero Membership Site
1. Create a Simplero Membership Site
To create a Simplero membership site from your dashboard, go to Content, then Membership Sites.
In the new tab, click on the New Membership site button. You’ll be shown customizable fields – edit this section, and then click Create site.
You should now have a Simplero membership site, which you can edit and customize before launching.
2. Add Pages to Your Membership Site
You can now add pages to your Simplero membership site:
- From your Simplero dashboard select Content.
- A drop-down menu will appear. Select Membership Sites.
- Select the site you’d like to add pages to.
- Select the Pages tab.
- Find the Edit Menu & Pages button in the upper right corner, which will direct you to the site editor page.
- Select the +Add button to add a page. A pop-up screen will appear.
- Choose your page type from the selections, add a title, and then click the +Add button. Your new page is now created.
- If you wish to add a subpage to any of your pages, select the + button next to the title of your chosen page and repeat step 7.
| Type of Page | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Standard web page | Simple web page – can include content such as a welcome page, testimonial wall, or course catalog, among other uses. |
| Blog/Forum | Give access to your blog or open the discussion with a forum. |
| Member Directory | Let members see each other. |
| External Link | Link to an outside page that isn’t available on your membership site, such as a Facebook group page, or scheduling page. |
| Terms and Conditions | Grants users access to view the terms and conditions of your membership site. |
| Customer Service | A contact page that allows your members to access your email address for support issues. |
Editing an existing page:
- From your Simplero dashboard, select Content to open a drop-down menu, then select Membership Sites.
- Select the Pages tab.
- Click the Editor button next to the page you wish to edit. This will direct you to an editor screen.
- The options under the Sections tab will allow you to add or delete sections, edit the content of the sections, or rearrange the order in which they are displayed (Make sure to click the Save Changes button after editing).
- The options under the Settings tab lets you change the page name, URL, or publish status (again, remember to click the Save Changes button after editing this section).
Removing a page:
- From the Simplero dashboard, select Content, then Membership Sites from the dropdown menu.
- Select the Pages tab.
- There are 3 ways to remove a page:
- Click on the page name of the page you want to delete, or the Editor button next to it.
- An editor screen will pop up. Click the Delete page hyperlink in the bottom left corner, then click OK to confirm the action to delete.
- Select the box next to the page name and Editor button.
- When the page(s) has been selected, click the Select Action… dropdown arrow, select the Delete… option from the dropdown menu, and click OK to confirm.
- Select the box next to the page name and Editor button.
- Click the trashcan icon (located on the same row as the Select Action dropdown arrow), and then click OK to confirm your action.
3. Customize Your Membership Site Domain
If you own a domain, you can add it to your Simplero membership site:
- Access your membership site dashboard (From the Simplero dashboard: Content -> Membership Sites -> Your chosen membership site).
- Select the Configure tab.
- Scroll to the Custom domain section and click the + Add Domain button.
- In the pop-up screen, enter your custom domain name, then click the Save changes button.
4. Edit the Settings of Your Membership Site
You may want to edit some of the settings of your membership site before launch. Here are a few ways to do so from your settings menu:
- Logout redirect: your membership site will usually be accessed by members via a sign-up page. You can edit/change the web destination they’ll land on after logging out.
By default, the logout redirect is your website homepage. Customize your logout redirect by scrolling to the Advanced Settings section, and enable the Redirect after logout option. When you enable this, you’ll be given a section to write the URL of the page you’d like the member to be redirected to.
- Control site access: you can make your membership site publicly accessible, or control who can see it, such as only admin or those with login details. You can do this by scrolling to the Site URL section. If you want to make your membership site publicly accessible, enable the toggle next to Make this site publicly available to anyone without login or access control.
- Enable/disable member directory: if this is disabled, members cannot tag each other in comments. Enabling this feature allows you to add a member directory as a section in your page editor.
Scroll to the Community features section and enable the toggle next to Disable member directory, member profiles, and mentioning of other members in posts & comments.
5. Customize Email Settings and Meta data
By default, any email settings you have in place will apply to your members as well. You can edit email settings for your membership site subscribers from the membership site editor if you want to customize or change them exclusively for your members.
You can also enable sharing of SEO meta data for Facebook. This means that when you share a URL from your membership site to Facebook, you can edit how the title, image, and description will be displayed.
6. Launch Your Simplero Membership Site
Now that you’ve added your pages and customized your settings, you should be able to launch your membership site! You’ll notice how easy it is within Simplero to do this step. Once your membership site is launched, you can connect it to a product or products. Here’s how:
- Open the Simplero dashboard.
- Select Sales.
- Select Products.
- Choose the product that you want to attach to your membership site access.
- From the product dashboard, select the Content tab.
- Under this tab, scroll to the Courses & Sites section.
- You should be able to see an unchecked box next to the name of your newly created membership site – tick the box.
- Click Save Changes. Whoever buys or has bought this product will be able to access your membership site.
Free and Paid Simplero Membership Site Access Options
You have the option to grant free access to your Simplero membership site. Doing so can allow you to package the access as an opt-in gift to add leads to your sales funnel.
If you wish to do so, you can give access to both free and paying members, then restrict certain premium courses and sections to be accessed by paying members only.
To create limited access within your membership site, first create, design, and launch your site. Make sure that it works for both free and paid members. Then follow the instructions below:
- Add any additional pages you want both free and paid members to have access to, and publish them.
- Create and publish any courses that you want both free and paid members to have access to.
- Connect your products to the membership site
- Go to the Content tab within each product and check the box next to the membership site you want to grant access to.
- To create premium content within your membership site, first go to the membership site, and add a new course.
- At the Access Control section of your course, select the option Only available to customers who purchased the following product(s), then check the corresponding product from the list.
- Repeat this process for each of the paid courses you want on the membership site.
Limiting Who Can View a Page on Your Simplero Membership Site
You can limit who can view a page on your membership site by setting the page to be dripped i.e. making it available to certain individuals or groups.
After you’ve created a Simplero membership site and published the courses and pages you want freely available, go to the dashboard of your membership site.
- Open the page editor.
- Create and add a page to your membership site.
- Go to the page settings and set the page to be dripped.
- find the Published section under the Settings tab, and select the option Dripped.
- Then add a trigger, set up an auto-responder, and create an automation to give page access to the desired product or list.
Bottom Line
Building a Simplero membership site is simple, but they can be a powerful marketing tool to build loyalty and increase sales of premium content. They can be particularly useful if your business is in a niche market, where similar online spaces are rare.
With dozens of customizations available, you can make your Simplero membership site unique to you and the needs of your business.
