Haiden Hibbert
As a membership site owner, you know that choosing the right WordPress plugins can have a big impact on your ability to build, manage, and grow your membership community. The good news is that there are some fantastic free plugins out there that can help take your site to the next level!
In this post, we’ll be covering 9 of the best WordPress plugins and tools with freemium plans or free trials to help you scale your membership site.
Table of Contents
1. Elementor
Elementor is a free WordPress website builder that makes it easy for anyone to quickly a create beautiful membership site.
With Elementor, you can easily craft landing pages, blog layouts, contact pages, and more without having to write a single line of code. The page builder allows you to drag and drop elements like text, images, buttons, videos, and other pre-built widgets right onto your page.
There are also hundreds of free and paid templates and plugins that add even more features like pop-ups, slides, counters, and other optimizations to boost conversions.
2. MemberSpace
MemberSpace is an all-in-one WordPress membership plugin that allows you to quickly and easily turn your existing WordPress site into a fully-functional membership community.
With MemberSpace, you can protect members-only content behind a paywall, create unlimited membership levels, integrate with Stripe to collect monthly/annual fees, and so much more. Everything you need to manage members and access is in one place.
The plugin is very intuitive and easy to use even for beginners. And if you do get stuck, MemberSpace offers stellar customer support. It’s totally free for 30 days.
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3. Ninja Forms
As a membership site owner, you want to make it as easy as possible for potential new members to contact you with any questions they might have about your membership. Embeddding a contact form on key pages like your homepage and pricing page using Ninja Forms makes this a breeze.
This free WordPress plugin allows you to build unlimited contact forms using a drag-and-drop editor. You can then embed these forms onto any page or post in seconds.
The free version of Ninja Forms comes with tons of great features like unlimited forms and submissions, templates, anti-spam features, email notifications, and more.
4. Yoast SEO
When it comes to the best free WordPress plugins, Yoast SEO is one of the most popular and highly-rated free options available. This plugin makes it easy to optimize your website pages and posts so you have a better chance of ranking high in search engines like Google.
Yoast SEO analyzes your content and gives you specific tips on how to improve your SEO including how to incorporate your target keyphrases, how to effectively structure copy, how to improve meta descriptions, and so much more. This helps you attract more organic traffic from people searching for what your membership offers.
The free version is plenty to get started, but you can upgrade for even more features if SEO is important for your membership site growth strategy.
If you have an existing social media community like a private Facebook group or engaged following on Instagram or Twitter that you want to leverage, check out Smash Balloon.
This handy free WordPress plugin makes it incredibly easy to pull in and display your social media feeds on your membership website. This allows you to bridge the gap between your external social communities and website to strengthen your brand authority and reach.
For example, you can use Smash Balloon to showcase your private Facebook group activity right on your homepage. This social proof and transparency into the discussions happening there can encourage prospective members to join.
While the free version is a bit limited, it’s a still a great option to use while you’re growing your membership
6. Nudgify
Sticking with the theme of social proof, another great plugin to install is Nudgify. This plugin allows you to configure popups that display when a new member signs up or purchases one of your digital products.
These social proof popups show a message like “Jane S. from Tampa, Florida just signed up” or “12 people have signed up in the last 2 hours.” You can customize the messaging and styling so it matches your brand.
Displaying these real-time pop-ups when users join your membership creates FOMO and social validation. When visitors see that others are actively signing up it encourages them to follow suit so they can be part of the community, too.
While Nudgify doesn’t have a freemium plan, you can test it out totally free for seven days and then sign up for one of their affordable plans (starting at just $9/month).
7. Calendly
For certain types of memberships, like coaching businesses, the ability for clients or members to book calls or sessions directly with you can come in handy.
Calendly is a free tool that allows you to display a calendar with your availability on your membership site. The self-scheduling functionality saves you tons of time and makes it a breeze for your clients or members to claim times that work for their schedule.
While there isn’t a Calendly WordPress plugin you need to install, all you need to do is sign up for a free account and follow a few simple steps to embed a calendar on your site.
Once you have an established business with loyal members, collecting testimonials can be one of the most effective strategies for taking your membership to the next level. Real Testimonials is a free WordPress plugin that helps you do just that. The plugin has features to help you gather new testimonials from your members, as well as functionality to create and display beautiful review sections on your website to attract new members.
9. Pretty Links
Many membership sites promote discount codes or special offers to various third party products and services as an added perk to members. Pretty Links is a free WordPress plugin that helps you shorten, beautify, and manage those external affiliate links.
The plugin also makes it easy to track link clicks so you can see which affiliate offerings are actually resonating with your audience and delivering conversions.
Final Thoughts
These nine best free WordPress plugins all offer free trials or freemium versions that can help scale your membership site! By implementing even just a few of these, you’ll likely see improvements in your ability to build your site, convert visitors, and manage your members.
As your community continues to scale, many of these plugins also offer paid upgrades with even more features to grow your business.
If you’re looking to further develop your membership site strategy, be sure to check out the resources available on MemberSpace University. You can access free tutorials, inspiration, and tips on growing a profitable membership!
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