Years ago, seriously in 1995, I built one of the first online educational systems at Berkeley Lab (and even demonstrated it to a group of guys that would later build Blackboard). So I’ve watched as learning management systems (LMS) have risen and sank on the promises of ease: ease of use & ease of development. From my perspective, nothing is easier than doing e-learning on WordPress. So I thought I’d give it a go and build this version of Leveraging Trust (coming soon!) in WordPress as an online course.
While there are options for using , and a , it seemed like a lot of configuration and I feared that meant a lot of upkeep. So I went a different route.
So here are my 20 steps.
I’ve written about memberships a bit before, and so many great people write so much about them that I don’t really focus there. But here’s the main thing you should know. Other than Justin Tadlock’s version, most others are overly complex – even when (and maybe especially when) they’re free. But to satisfy the curious, let me make sure you know the ones I own and have tried:
So we’re clear: I bought each of these (that had cost) and tested them all out. Just for you. Ok, back to the message….
And the last one and maybe only one you need:
You can see that with only 5 tabs, this must be the easiest membership plugin known to mankind. Most of them have 10-15 tabs, which can be daunting. And what’s nice here is that you can create a membership level that acts like a course. So each level can function as a course you are selling. Some plugins don’t work this way. This post isn’t about those other plugins, but let me just say, Paid Membership Pro works exactly as I hoped it would – letting me charge people to get access to my content. You see here that you can fill in some quick basics and then put down a price (note: this price is a sample – at 10% the normal cost of the program). It also lets you mark it as a subscription course if you like, and determine if it membership will expire.
Did you like that? Sure, I could have said you had to create pages that would support your membership program, but that takes a lot of space and Paid Memberships Pro does it for you. I like this approach, so I just went to the bottom of the page and clicked “save”.
I know we’re only four steps in but have you noticed how each step is taking literally seconds? That’s why I’m positive that you can create this entire course in less than 20 minutes if you have your content ready.
Whenever someone doesn’t have access to the course, you’re going to want to tell them something. Here’s your chance. Edit the message if you like. For me, it was almost perfect. No time wasted at all. I did, however, decide to make sure that a non-member couldn’t see anything, not even an excerpt. That’s one of the drop downs below.
If you think you’re going to see my discount codes so you can get this program cheaper, you have another thing coming! For you, sure I’ll get you a code. Just sign up on the right, so you are getting my notices sent to your inbox and you’ll see when I do specials. Plus, I like you. I really really like you.
Notice that I didn’t mark anything or hit save. Alas, that is a fake code. But what I like is that Paid Memberships Pro auto-creates ones for you. Nice.
By now you’ve noticed that you’ve created an entire membership site on your site without spending a penny. So now it’s time to make you pay up. But here’s the thing, , is priced at $67 for a single site. That’s a deal for what you’re going to see.
Once you buy it, upload it to your site (Plugins > Add New) and activate it. That simple.
Notice how only the first unit has a link. The rest aren’t linked up yet because of that setting that I marked to sequentially release the units. But you could change your setting if you want.
Additionally WP Courseware comes with a widget that lets you put course progress in the sidebar if you want.
So log back out, and go to the url. You’ll see that earlier screen from Step Fourteen. Click on the registration, and you’ll see the list of memberships (or course) that you can buy. Click on the “I want…” link for the next step.
Now that you’ve clicked on “I want…” you’ll get to the registration screen. You’ll be creating a new user, as well as giving them the membership role needed to get access to the course.
I love how you’re flying thru these steps. It takes me longer to write them and you to read them, than for you to do them. But let’s do this…(on your own site)…Fill in your payment details and sign up. If you’re using Stripe, it doesn’t take you off the page. I already wrote , so if you’re not using Stripe, go get yourself an account.
If you’ve done everything right, you should be able to see the confirmation link that takes you to the launch page that lets you see unit one that has a link that lets you in to see the special video content that can only be seen on this page. Say that fast without breathing. It makes you giddy. As it should!
Assuming that you’ve finished your own unit one, and marked it complete, there’s one more cool thing to check out. That’s when you go to your user screen. Now you’ll see all the students and exactly where they are in the course journey.