How to Make Memberships for a Website
- 1). Create a website membership sign-up page where website visitors input basic information. Include mandatory input fields such as email address, username and password. Include optional input fields such as first name, last name, contact information or education. Add a "Become a member" submit button to the bottom of the page for visits to submit their sign-up form.
- 2). Create an email autoresponder that automatically sends a confirmation email when a sign-up form is submitted. Send the email to the email address provided in the sign-up form. Add text welcoming them to your site and include a link for the user to click on to confirm his membership. When the link is clicked on, the user should be added to your membership database.
- 3). Review the membership application before sending a confirmation email if you want to prequalify members. You may only want to give memberships to those with a college degree or only those who live in a certain country or state. Read through each membership application to determine if members qualify. If they do not qualify, send an email explaining that membership is not open to them at this time. If they do qualify, send a membership confirmation email.
- 4). Create tiered membership levels through the website administrative area. The admin area of the website is where you administer the website and general visitors do not have access. When members sign up themselves, they are created as regular members. Inside the administrative area you can give members advanced membership. For example, using the administrative area, make select members "moderators" who are allowed to not only create their own content, but also edit other members' content. CMS programs often make changing membership types easy by enabling you to make changes by simply pressing a drop-down or checking a check box.
- 5). Add members manually through the website administrative area if you do not want membership available to the general public. In this case, there would be no membership sign-up form on your website; only you will sign up new members. Adding members can be done one-by-one through a web page-type interface or fed directly to a database if there are many members. This type of membership can be used for a school website, for example, where a school administrator adds all school staff to the school's membership database.
- 6). Create paid-for memberships where visitors need to pay in order to become members. In this case, you will use a shopping cart program that allows visitors to make purchases and pay for them online. Define the product you are selling as the website membership and give the membership a price. Website visitors fill out a sign-up form, but after clicking the "submit" button they must submit payment information in order to complete the membership process.
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