Choosing a WordPress theme for your membership site can be a daunting task.There are hundreds of thousands of WordPress themes out there to choose from, but very few are actually purpose built for membership sites.The good news is that you don’t need a ‘membership theme’ in order to build your membership site. You just need a theme that will give you the options to create the look and style that you want.(If you’re new to WordPress then your theme is the template that your site uses to give it its look and style. It basically adds the design to your membership plugin’s functionality.)Now, some membership plugins do come with their own theme, like OptimizePress, Zippy Courses and Paid Memberships Pro (available with their Plus package) but most don’t – they’re all about functionality, not style and aren’t built to offer any design features.That’s not actually a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. It keeps your membership plugin focused on the most important tasks (protecting your content and collecting payment for access) and frees you up to be picky in the theme that you choose, opening up a whole world of design possibilities!Technically, any theme should be capable of working with a membership plugin but there are a few things we suggest you consider when making your choice.
Free Membership Sites
StyleWhat kind of website and membership styles do you like?Take a look at some of your favourite sites, especially those that are similar to what you’re planning to do, and make a note of the features and styles that you like. You could even start a Pinterest board or similar to collect your site inspiration.And, whilst we don’t condone copying someone else’s site at all, if you want to see what theme they are using for inspiration you could try to give you a starting point.
Templates For Membership Sites 2017
Page LayoutsWhat page layouts do you actually need for your membership?It’s a good idea to actually sketch out how you envision your site before you start looking at themes, that way you can ensure that everything you want is possible. If you want to have a lot of flexibility in your page layouts then you will want to look for a more feature rich theme which includes a page builder.If you know you want to create a lot of landing pages (typically pages without a header, footer or sidebar) then looking for a theme that includes a landing page template as well can also make your life much easier in the long run.