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If you’re currently using Wordpress for your content management system, you can use John’s Little Script in conjunction with it. What you must know is that it is not a Wordpress membership site plugin. That could be a good thing or bad thing. Allow me to explain some differences first, then I’ll go over the process:
4 Major Things That You Should Know About
1) Wordpress plugins require users to upload a “membership site plugin” into the plugin folder, activate it, and configure it. That’s a pretty easy setup if you’re a Wordpress user. If not, then you’ll have to read up on Wordpress, how to use it, and how to install plugins as well. So there is a little learning curve. Some people learn the system in a day…while some people learn it in a few weeks. I’m only talking about the basics of Wordpress…you’ll still need to learn about the membership site techie-stuff.
2) If you’re running a shared server or reseller account, Wordpress membership sites can be slow. Many membership site plugins don’t allow you to use caching plugins. These plugins help improve performance. Without them, visitors will be hitting the database with each request (each time they read a page). That’s pretty demanding, especially if you’re not using a high performance dedicated server (which can run over a hundred bucks).
3) Wordpress membership site plugins protect each file independently, while John’s Little Script protects the whole membership website directory. With the file approach, you’ll have to configure each post or page to include protection. If you’re just starting out or you just want to keep things simple, the directory approach is recommended. So anything you put into that protected directory is protected. There is no need to configure each post. You can upload html web page files, audio files, videos, or even other applications into the protected directory. The choice is yours.
4) John’s Little Script does not offer integrated Wordpress logins. That means that a person needs to login through John’s Little Script first, and then login to Wordpress if they want to post a comment or a Wordpress forum post. There can be other reasons, but those are the most popular reasons why people login the second time. However, users don’t have to do login all of the time. If they select the “remember login” box, then they won’t have to type their login each time they visit the site.
Using John’s Little Script with Wordpress
Some members ask me about driving traffic to a protected site. If you know anything about search engine optimization (SEO), you’ll understand that you should not drive traffic to pages within a protected directory. However, I’ll go over how you can get traffic to a membership site that uses protected directories.
Some people have asked me about using teasers for the purpose of getting traffic. While I have used them in the past, I don’t use them as much. Why? Teasers don’t convert as well as my presell/landing pages. I’d rather drive traffic to a page that is designed to (effectively) convert a visitor into a subscriber. Landing pages are also easier to test and track compared to teaser content. Teasers are somewhat like doorway pages. While they can build some curiosity, a focused landing page is much more effective in my opinion.
If you want to use Wordpress completely, then you would have a free blog and a paid blog. The free blog provides the traffic to the paid blog. Each membership site would at least have 1 sales letter. The free blog will push traffic to the sales letter (or squeeze page). If people want to join, then they subscribe through the sales letter and login to the protected area via John’s Little Script.
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