First-time visitors to your site don’t necessarily need to see the same stuff in your navigation as regular – or logged in – visitors. The solution? Personalized navigation tailored to your users.
In this scenario, when members of your site log in, custom links would appear in the navigation to take them to special pages, like their profile or account page, a forum, or even a member’s area. Meanwhile, new users who aren’t logged in would see your primary set of navigation links and not pages intended for members eyes only.
With our Membership 2 Pro and Custom Sidebars Pro plugins, you can create a membership site with ease and add custom navigation tailored to your users and what you want them to see – or not see.
In this post, I’ll walk you through how to set up both plugins and show you how you can create custom sidebar navigation that automatically updates based on the pages users visit on your site or if they’re logged in.
Easily create and dynamically display custom sidebars on posts and pages to supercharge your widgets.
Before You Get Started
It’s important to backup your entire site before making any changes to your site so if something goes wrong you can easily restore it.
Now that you have the basics of Membership 2 Pro set up, it’s time to add your content to pages and posts, then make them available only to members.
For example, in addition to the actual content pages you would like only your members to see, you can also create the following kinds of navigation pages in Membership 2:
Members’ homepage – Where you have your welcome message and an explanation of the member’s area
Account page – Membership 2 Pro automatically creates an Account page where users can edit their member details.
Contact page – A custom page with details on how members can contact you if they have specific issues relating to their membership.
Registration page – Membership 2 Pro includes an add-on that enables you to allow members to register for multiple memberships at one time. You could create a page for additional memberships, courses or whatever else you would like to create.
You’re only limited by your imagination so you can create any other pages that are relevant to your membership site. It’s important to first create the content you would like to have available to members and protect them as you go.
Once you’ve created your membership content, you can add any relevant links to your member navigation.
If you would like to limit certain categories or posts to members only, start by going to Membership 2 > Add-ons in your dashboard. Next, click on the sliding button to turn on the Category Protection or Individual Posts add-ons depending on your needs.
Choose the additional content you need protected on the Add-ons page.
You can also choose to enable media, shortcodes, specific URL protection and more on this page. Enable all the add-ons you need, then start creating your membership content.
If you want to enable category protection, you can configure the settings under Membership 2 > Protection Rules > Categories.
You can choose to protect any category you have already set up and make it available to specific memberships.
The interface is similar to your All Posts page in the admin where all your categories are listed. You can select them and apply bulk actions, or set options for them individually. To do this, hover over one of the category titles and click on the Modify Access link that appears.
You can set individual membership access by enabling protection on the post or page you’re working on.
If you have the Individual Posts add-on enabled, you should see the same option on the top right in the post editor as you would for new pages.
Clicking the button to Enable Protection reveals the list of your current membership levels. Click the slide button to limit content to the memberships of your choice.
Once you’re done creating your page or post, schedule or publish it as you normally would and your content will become available to the users you chose.
When you’ve finished creating all the pages that you want to make available to your members, you’re ready to create your navigation menu.
Create Your Custom Navigation
Go to Appearance > Widgets in your admin dashboard to start creating new sidebars for your custom navigation. At the top right-hand side of the page, click on the Create a new sidebar button.
An inline pop-up will appear where you can enter the name and description of your new sidebar.
The new sidebar’s name and description isn’t displayed publicly.
You can also click the Advanced checkbox to enter custom HTML wrapper code if you would like, but it’s optional.
Once you’re done, click the Create Sidebar button at the bottom. Your new sidebar should now be displayed on the page. You can now drag widgets across as you normally would.
Just drag and drop your desired widgets into your new sidebar area.
Place the Pages widget in your new sidebar and go ahead and configure it. Even better, create a custom menu through Appearance > Menus, then add the Custom Menu widget to your sidebar.
You could also use the Text widget to further customize your links with HTML and even add images to appear as your links.
No matter which widget you choose, be sure to click the Save button in the widget options after you place them in your sidebar to ensure all your customizations are kept.
Finally, add the [Membership2] Login widget to your sidebar. It will display a login form to regular visitors and a log out button to members who are logged in.
You can customize the pages that users are directed to when they log in and out.
Choose the title you would like to display in your sidebar and then enter the URLs of the pages you want your users to be directed to when they log in and out. You can also enter shortcode options if you like.
You can choose where your new sidebar should appear on your site.
Add Your Navigation and Custom Content
When you’re done entering everything in, click the Save button at the bottom of the widget options.
Next, click the Sidebar Location link displayed at the bottom of the sidebar area. This is where you can choose where your sidebar appears.
On the inline pop-up that appears, select the checkbox for the option called As Widget Area for selected Post Types.
Choose a type of area where your sidebar should appear like posts or pages.
Next, select the Membership2 Memberships option to display your sidebar on all pages that are protected, as well as the Membership2 Invoices option for displaying the sidebar on invoices. You can also select the Posts and Pages options if you would like your sidebar to be displayed on all posts and pages.
You can select multiple options from the list by pressing the command key and clicking on the options for Mac OS X or pressing down the control key and left clicking on the list items for PCs.
You can set the sidebar for specific posts or pages.
Make the selections that best fit your or you can choose the individual pages and posts where you want your sidebar to appear by selecting them in the editor.
To add a sidebar to an individual page, go to Pages > All Pages, then click the Edit button on one of the items listed.
In the Sidebars section, you can select your sidebar from the drop down box. Click Update or Publish to save the post or page and you’re done.
Your new sidebar is now ready for your members to use as a user-friendly navigation area.
Creating a custom sidebar with navigation links only logged in users can see is easy.
Custom Navigation
If you’ve ever wanted to add custom navigation to your website, Membership 2 Pro and Custom Sidebars Pro can help you get it done.
Once set up, your members will see links specific to them, while first-time and logged out visitors will see your primary navigation bar without all the members-only content.
Would you use this kind of custom navigation on your site? What kind of navigation do you currently use? Feel free to share your experience in the comments below.
Today we teamed up with BizzThemes to let you participate in this great giveaway. You have a chance to win 1 of 3 licenses of WooCommerce Appointments plugin.
Here we provide a weekly recap of the biggest stories from torquemag.io. Dedicated to informing new and advanced WordPress users about the industry, Torque is a hub for WordPress news, business, and community. Here are some of last week’s top stories from Torque:
WordPress Multisite is a powerful feature that enables users to run a network of websites from one WordPress install. Read this in-depth guide to learn about the advantages of Multisite, best (and worst) use cases, as well as how to set it up.
Join us Wednesday, November 18 at 11 a.m. CST for a free webinar on how you can kickstart your WordPress site with the help of the dynamic tool that is the WordPress REST API. Read more about it and register here. (Even if you can’t attend, by signing up you’ll still receive a link via email to view the recorded session once over.)
Web developers come in all types — they have different attitudes and take different approaches to accomplishing tasks. Check out this fun article to read about the five types of developers and the superhero that they’d most likely be.
When speaking of groups of people, it can be tempting to fall into a “they all think this way” sort of mentality. That’s how stereotypes are born and if history has taught us anything, it’s that stereotypes are toxic.
When I think of developers, I envision a group of people hell-bent on creating awesome things for people to use and enjoy. There’s a curmudgeonly few in the bunch, of course, but for the most part, the WP community is filled with awesome people.
But that doesn’t mean they aren’t human and don’t have complaints. Or things that drive them up the wall. I recently reached out to developers far and wide to get an idea of what things they are absolutely sick and tired of hearing. Those pseudo words of wisdom. Those throw-away buzzwords. Those oddball semi-infuriating things clients and even other developers say that get on their last nerve.
What follows are real insights from 23 WordPress developers. While there are common threads between many of the responses, I was surprised by the variety captured here. Though this post is very much an “airing of grievances,” it’s also another example of why the WordPress community is so great. Different perspectives and differing opinions help us build great things.
And now, to the list.
Quick and easy… Yeah right.
1. “This should be quick and easy.”
This simple sentence rubs Jason Resnick, WordPress developer and co-host of the podcast WP Dev Table, the wrong way.
“I always think to myself, if it’s so quick and easy, why isn’t it already done?”
2. “We need to rank high in search engines.”
This is something Emily White, a web and graphic designer focusing on the Genesis Framework, hears all the time.
The higher you climb, the harder you fall… or something like that.
“I think clients still really struggle to understand what that means,” she says. While she admits there are things developers can do on the technical side to improve SEO, the rest is up to them.
“Content is king when it comes to rankings and lots of folks don’t want to put in the consistent work to make that happen,” she adds.
Most often, people are looking for a “magic button” to “catapult” them in the rankings.
“Sorry folks, that button doesn’t exist.”
3. “I don’t need to understand the WordPress community to make a plugin.”
Understanding WordPress and the community around it is the first obstacle to developing a great product.
Jean Galea, a WordPress developer and founder of WPMayor.com is most annoyed by developers who don’t take the time required to fully understand the community before diving into development on their own.
“This usually ends up with them creating strange interfaces that users struggle to understand,” he says.
Such developers also tend to have trouble promoting their plugins because they don’t invest the time required to understand the community’s needs or to get to know people who, “can help push their plugin to new audiences.”
4. “The client is stupid.”
Clients aren’t stupid.
Joseph Casabona, a Front-End Developer at Crowd Favorite is tired of hearing these words come from other developer’s mouths.
“There’s a bit of a problem among developers that seems to be a sort of thinking that ‘everyone should be as smart as I am,'” he says, noting it’s the developer’s job to make sure the client understands.
“More often than not it will not be stupidity, it will be miscommunication,” he says, then adds “If you can’t talk to a client (or student/customer/peer/whatever) you may not be in the right field, because teaching (whether we like it or not) is a big part of our job.”
5. “Why do I have to pay more for that?” and “How do I do [x]?”
Chris Wiegman, a Senior Web Engineer with 10up, offered two things he’s sick of hearing, one from clients and one from developers.
On the developer side of things, more often than not, he can reply to the question with a link to Lmgtfy.
6. “I’ll know it when I see it”
Carrie Dils a WordPress developer, consultant, and speaker, kept her response short and to-the-point.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” is her favorite thing she hears to hate, “regarding direction for site design.”
Some clients can be so impatient!
7. “ASAP”
This simple acronym is the main pet peeve of Rhys Wynne, Lead Developer of Winwar Media.
“It puts undue pressure on developers as very few things are an urgency in terms of development,” he says. He also argues it doesn’t make any sense.
“‘As Soon As Possible’ can mean anything from tomorrow, to in three years time…” He argues setting a deadline with a developer is a much better way to manage expectations.
8. “Can you search for this for me?”
Well, that’s not a direct quote but it is the gist of what Kevin Muldoon, a WordPress blogger and Internet marketer, finds the most tiresome. On his Rise Forums, he often sees people who don’t do enough to help themselves.
“There are a lot of people that do not take the initiative to find answers to questions themselves,” he says. For instance, WordPress users won’t search for an answer to their question on Google or Bing before opening a new support thread.
“Frequently, they are asking other members to do the hard work for them because they can’t be bothered to do it themselves,” he says. Help with technical questions, he gets, but something that can be answered with a simple search? That’s just annoying.
“The ones who do well in web development and internet marketing are the ones who try and resolve problems on their own and only ask for help once they have reached a brick wall and do not know how to proceed,” he says.
9. “Well how much less would it be if it’s not responsive?” or “How much less would it be if you removed accessibility features?”
Cutting corners won’t save you money in the long run.
Which is how you end up with those two doozies listed above.
“I get that budgets are tight, but responsiveness and accessibility should not be the first on the chopping block,” he says. “I don’t offer any sort of meaningful discount to cut things like this out, and instead attempt to educate the client on why it’s not a good idea to do so.”
10. “It doesn’t work.”
Both as a developer and Head of Support at WordImpress.com, Matt Cromwell has a lot of trouble with those three words.
“I know it seems so simple to the user sometimes, but man… that’s a really unproductive thing to say.”
More often than not, something “doesn’t work” because there was something happening on a person’s site before his plugin was ever installed.
“It’s like telling the President of the United States ‘The IRS sucks,'” he says, which would of course warrant a sarcastic response like, “Thanks to your input, we know exactly how to fix the IRS for future generations.”
11. *Radio silence*
Sometimes the worst thing a developer can hear is nothing at all.Jill Binder, a WordPress web developer, gets especially irritated when she’s, “…working on a project with another developer and they don’t let me know that they’re unavailable for a week or more.”
That leaves her scrambling for what to tell the client should they inquire.
12. “Pixel perfection.”
“It’s completely ridiculous that I have to overlay the mockup on top of the live site and nudge everything 1 or 2 pixels,” says Amber Weinberg, mobile and WordPress developer.
PIxel perfect?
“The user is NEVER going to notice these differences. Also, it’s going to be off in other browsers anyway,” she says, then adds, “Even if we could get divs to line up perfectly, the fonts themselves will render everything off by a tiny bit.”
A waste of time, for sure.
13. “I need a site as soon as possible, but I won’t have the content ready for you until the day before we launch.”
Though developers and designers like to think how a site looks and functions is the most important aspect of a site, “content is the real key,” says Connor Turner, President of Armadillo Studios, Inc.
“To build a functional WordPress site that truly represents the client and their goals, content needs to be the driving force,” he says. He admits that some decisions regarding layout, plugins, and overall functionality can be made beforehand, but without the content, developers are “just guessing” as to what needs to be done.
The WordPress sites he’s built that “really hit their targets,” had their content complete in the initial stages, allowing it to act as a driving factor for all other decisions.
14. “I want this above the fold.”
“As we know, times have completely changed with the rise of mobile use,” says Brian Gardner, CPO and Partner of Rainmaker Digital and founder of StudioPress, “and the traditional ‘above the fold’ barely exists anymore.”
Add to that the fact that design trends have “moved into a more spacious approach,” and you end up with sites that feature designs that are more spread out anyway, rendering this terminology all but irrelevant.
15. “Hi, I want a website. How much will it cost?”
“That’s like asking a contractor: ‘Hi, I want a house, how much will it cost?” he says.
“Between the countless different styles of houses, the endless types of features which can be added, and each family’s particular set of needs, it’s impossible to properly answer that initial question without some additional info.”
The same holds true for websites, he explains.
“Without knowing a client’s objectives, style preferences, and budget, it’s just not possible to accurately answer that initial question without putting both the client and the developer at risk of being dissatisfied,” he says.
To combat this, he always follows up with a request to complete his Design Brief and schedules a Skype call to make certain he and the client are on the same page before there’s any talk of pricing.
16. “Blind people don’t have time to visit my website”
Rian Rietveld, a WordPress back- and front-end developer who emphasizes accessibility, hears this gem when suggesting a11y improvements to clients for their websites.
Talk about out of touch!
17. “I know you are the expert and advise differently but…”
Do as you’re told or push your WordPress expertise?
Another thing that annoys Rietveld is when people acknowledge her expertise but ultimately want her to do as she’s told.
She offers a mighty example: “You must build a huge slideshow on the front page, an ubermenu, all social media buttons should animate, and after 10 seconds an overlay with a newsletter subscribe form should open, and all the images in my portfolio should slide at the bottom of the screen, and the colors of the pages and headings should change with all categories.”
18. “Hey, you can’t do that!”
Not a direct quote, but a summation of the biggest pet peeve of Justin Tadlock, web developer and owner of ThemeHybrid.com.
“If I had one complaint, it’d be about developers crying foul when someone actually copies, modifies, and/or distributes code when given explicit permission to do so,” he says.
Otherwise, he doesn’t have much to complain about.
“Criticism,” he says, “can help drive innovation,” even if “it’s something I get tired of hearing about.”
18. “WordPress is a technical mess” or “Jetpack is bloated and should never be used.”
Any broad statements like the above get to Brandon Kraft, Happiness Engineer at Automattic. While such statements do tend to offer some truth, they aren’t helpful for finding any sort of solution.
Is WordPress really a mess?
“Jetpack has done a lot in the last few years to improve, both the perception and the reality,” he says. “WordPress might not use the common OOP standards, but has incredible backwards-compatibility and the coding as it is has opened the doors to thousands to participate through plugins and core development.”
This isn’t to say that everything is just perfect, “but I’d much rather take in and give out specific bits of feedback that those project developers could potentially investigate/act upon rather than broad statements that the project developers can’t really do anything with.”
20. “I want to hire you to make a custom add-on for All in One SEO Pack. Since your WordPress plugin is priced at $79, you should make this custom add-on for me for $29.”
A specific complaint, to be sure, but one that is understandably irritating for Michael Torbert, CEO, Semper Fi Web Design, the company behind the SEO plugin.
“I get this a lot for custom work that will take 2, 5, or even 20 hours,” he says. “Some have a hard time understanding why paying half the price of the original plugin (which is sold to many people) for the development of a small add-on (which is sold to one person) isn’t reasonable… My wife would be pretty upset if I worked for $1/hour.”
21. “I want a website exactly like this one [LINK], but better”
Website fail?
“Everyone wants to be original,” says Tim Bowers, head of support here at WPMU DEV, but mimicry is definitely not the way to achieve that.
Another thing he can’t stand to hear? “I have a shoe string budget, and absolutely need…” he says, then finishes the sentence himself, “a realistic budget!”
What Are You Sick of Hearing?
Being annoyed by the little things people say is largely pointless but when compiled, can show commonalities between all developers and clients. It highlights expectations on both sides. And with knowledge like that in hand, maybe we can all work toward anticipating some of these issues.
That’s the hope, anyway.
Now it’s your turn to sound off and let your pet peeves fly. What are you tired of hearing clients or other developers say? Please share below. It’ll be an enlightening experience for us all.
Adding a YouTube videos in WordPress blog posts is very easy. But if you want to add a YouTube video gallery in WordPress, then you will need a plugin for that. These plugins not only display YouTube videos in a gallery, they also optimize video loading for speed and SEO. In this article, we have hand-picked some of the best YouTube video gallery plugins for WordPress.
Each of these YouTube plugins for WordPress come with their own set of features and all of them are available for free.
YouTube Simple Gallery is a very simple and easy to use YouTube gallery plugin. It uses custom post types to add videos and you can even categorize your videos. The plugin comes with a shortcode that you can insert from the post editor screen. Upon activation, it automatically creates a video gallery page containing the shortcode. You can edit this page and shortcode to your own needs.
The plugin opens videos in a nice lightbox popup. You can control the video and thumbnail sizes from the plugin’s settings page. One downside of the plugin is that it displays videos in a plain list format. However, if you know a little bit of CSS you can easily convert it into a responsive grid.
YouTube Showcase is another easy to use YouTube plugin for WordPress. It utilizes custom post types for videos. You can add categories and tags to your videos and add videos as featured. Upon activation, the plugin can automatically setup video gallery page for you. It also comes with two easy to use widgets for featured videos and recent videos.
The default gallery layout is out-of-the box beautiful. It allows your users to browse through all the videos without even leaving the page.
If you manage your own YouTube channel or like curating videos, then YourChannel offers the easiest way to display showcase your videos quickly. Simply enter a user or channel id and it will fetch the videos for you. Not only that, it will also fetch the channel’s banner image, subscriber and view counts, uploads, playlists, etc.
You can easily add showcase your channel on any WordPress post or page using the simple shortcode. It also allows you to choose the thumbnail size, meta data display, play button settings, etc.
WordPress Video Gallery plugin is a powerful and highly customizable YouTube gallery plugin for WordPress. It comes with an HD flv player built-in and it can show your videos in customized skins with HD quality. The default settings should work for most websites but if you want to change them, then you will find plenty of options to do just about anything you want.
The plugin comes with some sample videos and automatically creates video gallery page. You can simply go to the page and see how your gallery would look like. Once you are satisfies you can add the default videos and add your own.
Workbox Video plugin works with YouTube, Vimeo, and Wistia. It allows you to easily create your video galleries by simply adding video URLs. The plugin comes with a comprehensive settings page, allowing you to control and customize your video gallery. You can add the video gallery on any WordPress post or page using shortcodes.
The best part is that you can create multiple galleries with different videos. This allows you to curate your videos into categories, topics, or channels.
uTubeVideo Gallery plugin is a feature rich video gallery plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create multiple galleries and add them to WordPress post and pages. uTubeVideo gallery automatically fetches thumbnails for your videos and caches them on your WordPress site resulting in faster page load.
WPG Cool Gallery is an easy to use responsive gallery plugin for YouTube and Vimeo. It displays video in a nice grid layout. Videos are displayed in a nice popup. You can add gallery into WordPress posts and pages using shortcodes. The plugin also loads videos with ajax calls allowing your users to see all videos on the same page.
Ultimate Video Gallery provides a quick and easier way to manage your YouTube videos in WordPress. Simply paste the video URLs and it will automatically fetch the video details from YouTube. You can create unlimited galleries and easily add those galleries to your WordPress posts or pages using shortcode.
Imagine this: your company has the moment that any entrepreneur in the music business dreams of – Sir Paul McCartney tweets about your website to his more than 2 million followers. While this should be a day to celebrate, for The Vinyl District’s Jon Meyers, it was the day when he finally screamed HELP! I need somebody HELP!
In December of 2012, The Vinyl District (an homage to the vinyl medium and a record store advocate and locator) got a major break. They were set to work with Paul McCartney to release his archive collections. On what should have been the most successful day for The Vinyl District, the site came crashing down.
When Paul shared a link to The Vinyl District, the site experienced an incredible traffic spike and simply couldn’t keep up. Instead of capitalizing on what should have been an incredible moment, Jon felt like “years of hard work were wasted.”
Jon knew this could not happen again. He needed a solution that provided tremendous customer experience while helping his site optimally scale. He was looking for consistency with an emphasis on customer service. WP Engine fit the bill to a T.
Over the two years since The Vinyl District became a WP Engine customer, Jon has noticed a significant difference. With their previous hosting company, a traffic spike would lead to downtime. WP Engine, on the other hand, constantly works to ensure the site is running fast, is secure, and can scale during high-traffic events.
Jon said that when The Vinyl District recently experienced a major traffic spike, WP Engine reached out proactively and was working to ensure the site would scale before Jon even noticed the increase in visits.
Because of this positive experience, The Vinyl District is currently working with WP Engine to completely overhaul their site, set to launch in 2016.
“So far, we have had a seamless migration of a site and experienced incredible customer service,” said Jon. And who says you can’t buy me love.
Want to read more stories from WP Engine customers? Each weekday in November we’ll unveil a new customer story as part of our WP Engine Customer Spotlight series.
BuddyPress is the obvious choice if you want to add social networking to your WordPress site, as it comes with essential features, such as user profiles, activity streams, and user groups. But if you want to create a more personalized experience for your users, you’ll need a few plugins to bolster the basic package.
In this post, I’ll take you through some great plugins for adding interactivity to your community, including live chat, membership, eCommerce, and social sharing.
Live Chat Options
With live chat, you can engage visitors in real-time, answer any of their questions, and provide more detailed explanations about various aspects of your website. Most importantly, you can “humanize” your business by being readily available to serve your site visitors.
Each interaction produces a transcript and you can use that data to further improve your services.
Let’s kick off with our Chat plugin, which enables you to offer customer support or promote group interaction on your website. Chat comes as both a free and premium plugin.
The premium version fully integrates with BuddyPress, and both versions enable you to add a bottom corner chat window to your pages or posts. You can answer user questions directly or let users engage with one another.
Users can join chat with their social media credentials as groups or one-on-one. You can also customize the size and color of your chat box to complement your current theme. Additional features include assigning roles, avatars, archiving chats, polling users, and more.
This cloud-based live chat plugin automatically integrates with BuddyPress, offering speedy chat loads and another layer of interaction to your website. Have users connect through group chat, create a chat room, or offer pop up chat for private or public interaction.
In addition to text and emoticons, community members can post videos, URLs, and images in the chat window.
You can install iFlyChat as you would any other plugin, but you’ll need to create an account and obtain an API key to activate this plugin on your website. Its free version is limited to ten simultaneous chats in one chat room; pricing for the remaining plans vary.
Through the Basic plan, you’d pay $19 per month for 60 simultaneous users in an unlimited number of chat rooms with the option to globally embed them.
For $49 per month, you can moderate 150 users in an unlimited number of chat rooms using the Professional plan. Monitor more than 300 simultaneous chats by enrolling in the monthly Enterprise plan for $99 and up. Both the Professional and Enterprise plans include global and private embeds plus group chat.
Unsure of where you’d like to host your live chat plugin? With WP Live Chat Support, you have the option to self-host or host your live chat on their servers for increased speed and security.
If you choose to self-host, though, it’s unlikely that your website would crash or your live chat stall. Through long polling, this plugin has been programmed to minimize its use of your server’s resources – shared or VPS.
Additional features:
Program quick responses for common questions
Assign an unlimited number of agents (Pro version)
Compatible with all caching plugins
Receive instant notification of an active chat
Access to a log of missed chats
Can be enabled for mobile devices and tablets
Brand the chat window with your company logo (Pro version)
When you’re offline, the chat box becomes a message box in the pro version. And if you find you’re communicating with a menacing individual, there’s an option to block IP addresses from chat.
eCourse or Membership Options
If you’re thinking about adding e-courses or membership options to your community, here are a few plugins that can make design and execution a much more straightforward process.
LearnDash is a premium WordPress plugin with basic ($99) and full ($129) package offerings for small businesses, organizations, larger corporations, or any group that wants to infuse a LMS into their BuddyPress network.
With BuddyPress, LearnDash, and BuddyPress for LearnDash combined, you can create a private group for your course participants. You can also monitor group interaction through an optional activity stream. The group administrator controls course inception and completion, grading, and comments moderation.
Here are some additional LearnDash features:
Sell e-courses as a one-time or subscription payment
Choose when to release course content to your students
Time and/or restrict visibility of lessons
Divide class participants into groups and assign a moderator
Our Membership 2 Pro plugin lets you easily create a popular and profitable membership site with this powerful and scalable membership plugin for WordPress.
Unlike other complicated membership plugins, there’s no guesswork and no messing around with confusing settings when getting started. The setup wizard will guide you through configuring your membership site for the best results. Use simulation mode to quickly verify everything is working properly on your site before you go live.
You can create an unlimited number of memberships with exclusive access to your content in almost every format: audio, digital downloads, images, PDFs, blog posts and pages, video files, forums, and categories.
Although VideoWhisper requires a more complex hosting setup, it still integrates well with BuddyPress through a video presentation tab that enables users to enter a virtual group room to video chat and watch presentations.
This plugin is ideal for those creating real-time eLearning experiences in various formats:
Webcam-supported online collaborations and coaching experiences
Video consultations
Live presentations
Video trainings and webinars
eCommerce and Monetization Options
If you’re building a community with the aim of rallying people for a cause, or just want to create an online store for your users, here are some solid plugins to help you add eCommerce to your network.
Let’s start with MarketPress eCommerce, the free version of our popular premium plugin of the same name. MarketPress lets you sell everything from digital downloads to material goods, with all the features you need for an online store without the need to buy extra extensions or add-ons.
With more than 15 payment processing options available, MarketPress makes it easy to guide customers through browsing your products to adding items to their cart, and then on to checkout and delivery. You can even provide updates on the status of customer orders.
When you turn on MarketPress integration any purchases your users make will appear in their BuddyPress activity feed.
If you’ve used BuddyPress to create a community forum, you have an existing niche community that might benefit from post advertisements. Niche-specific classified ads might complement your group goals as well as present a monetization option for your website. With the Another WordPress Classifieds platform, users can post paid or free advertisements (with or without images) on a secure system.
There’s a long list of features, including:
Geographic, username, or keyword search
Customizable form fields
Social sharing
Option to embed videos
Blind email contact system
Image customization options
The premium module links to BuddyPress. Some of its features include an activity stream, search by user, comments and ratings, ad management from BuddyPress profile, and group editing.
As an example, if real estate investment is your niche, community members can be given access to wholesale property listings available for purchase and/or rehab. Since such lists are solely shared amongst real estate brokers, lawyers, wholesalers and investors, this plugin would be fitting for a BuddyPress community surrounding this topic. Community members can be given exclusive access to listings made visible upon posting.
Collect simple donations or launch a crowdfunding campaign with this Fundraising plugin. You can promote a fundraising event indefinitely or for a predetermined time, track funding progress, generate custom thank you notes, and email confirmation of payment. Choose from various templates and assign roles to your community members. You also have the option of placing a fundraiser panel on your sidebar.
BuddyPress users must create a Fundraisers page to make this plugin visible within their private social network.
Through its step-by-step guide, you can quickly post your campaign and begin raising funds for your cause. If you have a thriving BuddyPress community, you’ll already have warm leads who can support your cause monetarily or by spreading the word outside of your private social network. Set up incentives to reward donors according to their contributions and let contributors take part in your goal accomplishment by displaying a progress bar on your website.
Social Sharing Options
Even if you have a strong private social network in your BuddyPress community, you may want to extend your social reach by offering your users new social sharing options.
Using the Super Socializer plugin, you can fully integrate social media options into your online community, potentially enhancing the viral potential of your web content.
Group members not only have the option to log in with their offsite credentials, but they can easily share thoughts and snippets from your website a the wider audience connected to their social media accounts.
Here are some Super Socializer features:
Floating icons (vertical or horizontal)
Social logins (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Xing, Google, Vkontakte, and Instagram)
Enable social likes and comments
Icon customization
Synchs social profile avatar
As you know, social sharing not only increases the number of visits to your website, it also communicates to website crawlers that your content is share-worthy.
How do you amplify the functionality of your BuddyPress installation? Do you use any of the above plugins or different ones? Let us know your suggestions in the comments below!
