[ad_1] Lots of WordPress site owners see their content as more than information – it’s money. Taking your hard work and charging for it is a natural progression for many. Because the ecosystem is able to help you bolt on almost any functionality you need, a WordPress paywall is straightforward to implement. You’ll know a paywall through lots of different names, but regardless, it lets you restrict access to your content unless a user pays up. The form of this payment doesn’t have to be cash though: emails, social media mentions, and more can be the currency. There are lots of plugins to help you implement all manner of paywalls on your site too – good news if you have a specific need in mind. In this article, we’ll look at a few options to help you create a WordPress paywall. Before this though, we’re going to give you the lowdown on what a paywall is, the positives and perils to consider, and how to choose the right style of paywall for your site. What a Paywall Is In short, a paywall is a way to restrict access to content on your site. You’ll see this type of content restriction have different names depending on the use case, branding of the company, and more. For example, you might see this called a content locker, gated content, and other terms. It all helps you achieve the same goal. Your content sits on your site as normal, while a plugin locks a certain set of users out of the content you set. You’ll often find this sort of restriction suits informational content, such as a course or tutorial style blog. In contrast, you could also use a WordPress paywall for time-limited and relevant content, such as news and current affairs. Later on, we’ll talk about the different ways you can implement a WordPress paywall. For now, let’s discuss the benefits something like this can give you. Why a Paywall Is Fantastic For Monetizing Your Content and Cultivating a User Community You can see the evolution of self-hosted WordPress through the companion subscription site, WordPress.com. This platform has a free tier for users, which harks back to the early days of blogging: The reason this is relevant is because lots of these blogs went from being personal diary entries to information hubs. At some point, the blogs with heavy traffic and users began to monetize their content. This precipitated the evolution of WordPress from a blogging platform into a Content Management System (CMS). When these sites switch to a premium subscription model, the users (or some of them) will come along for the ride. However, it’s a fallacy to think that a paywall will decimate traffic and income. It might seem counter-intuitive, but a paywall can give you a greater sense of community and better quality traffic. Here’s why: The new users you bring in will want to be there, because they have paid to do so. Your existing users will offer greater loyalty to your brand and site, again because they are paying to stick around. Combined, you have two groups of users who see enough value in your content that they will shell out for it. This gives more value to any hits you get behind the paywall, and drips through to your comments sections, social media engagement and promotion, and much more. However, there are some definite negatives to consider if you want to implement a WordPress paywall. We’ll go over some of these next. The Drawbacks of Using a Paywall for Your WordPress Website You’ll want to note a few of the cons when it comes to WordPress paywalls. No system is perfect, and this one comes with its own unique challenges: First, you will have less traffic. However, as we note in the previous section, the numbers hitting your site will be of a higher-quality. Because that traffic expects more from your content, you’ll have to deliver. This can change how you create and deliver content, and will also affect your expenditure. You’ll have to mind that you don’t affect your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) when you implement your paywall. Because the visibility of this content is less, you’ll see fewer backlinks as a result. Advertising on your site can go either way. On the one hand, your paywall and resultant lower traffic might mean ad revenue isn’t as straightforward to come by. However, ads within locked content should perform well because it will offer high targeting. We’d argue that the positives outweigh the negatives in most cases. In fact, you’d likely already know if you want to use a paywall, or if one isn’t right for you. For instance, if your site’s revenue is based around advertising, a paywall doesn’t make much sense. For the classic blog transforming into an information site, you’ll likely want to consider content restriction. How to Choose a WordPress Paywall Model and Architecture for Your Site As you might expect, there are different types of paywall you can implement, and in some cases you can also decide on the architecture you use. For WordPress users, the latter is simple. You’ll use a plugin to implement the paywall, so this will dictate the architecture you use. In most cases, it will be a local setup. This means the functionality to lock content will live on your server. Cloud-based paywalls won’t, of course. As for the paywall model you choose, there are a few to note: Free trials. You’ll often sign up to receive a few days free of unrestricted access. From there, you’ll need to choose a plan. Subscriptions. This is the classic approach to gated content. You’ll ask the user to pay a set amount over a designated period for access to the content. Pay-Per-View. Some sites will let you purchase access to a single article, yet restrict the rest. It’s arguably the least sustainable paywall strategy, but it can help a user to read the content they want. Free trials
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