Search Engines and content behind members area

No, not really. You see, the search engine spider is treated as any other visitor, and if the content is protected then the spider will be sent to the Membership Options Page as the rest.

And letting the spider through when you don’t let regular visitors, would possibly upset Google, and also make your premium content available through their cache.

What I’d recommend is using the WP <!–more–> tag (https://en.support.wordpress.com/splitting-content/more-tag/) to have an excerpt of the post, that’ll be shown in the posts list/archive, but the post itself will be protected by s2. You may need to adjust your settings here a bit: WP Admin -> s2Member -> Restrictions -> Alt. Views

Or instead of using a restriction for the post/page, use a conditional in its body, showing a part (like the excerpt) to visitors, and the rest only to the level you want to require. WP Admin -> s2Member -> Scripting -> Conditionals

I hope that helps. ??

Thanks for the response and information.

I am building a social network style membership site where members can share information around the niche as well as I will be providing some premium content. I am also planning on purchasing the pro version of this plugin.

Where I am on the fence with the membership I am about to create is here.

I plan to have $4.95 monthly price. The thought was to keep in low price and high value to try and work on volume and with the lower price hopefully have a better retention.

The thought was originally to have a site that was free with this upgrade level with some better content. Then allow them to upgrade on their own if they choose. In this case the problem about search engines would not be an issue.

However the other thought was maybe it would be better with a 30 day trial and they upgrade if they want. In this case I would need to think about the search engine indexing on content that I did not mind being free and the community would create and share. I need search as part of the growth for the site. I know that.

I am not new to working online but new to building membership sites. I just am not sure if you give them something free then ask to pay for some greater options if more or less will want to vs trial and have to if they wish to continue.

I know every product can be different. But can you share any kind of experience or knowledge that could help me through this.

Thanks,

Gary

I think I see what you mean.

Well, about search engine indexing I answered above. You can use those methods (‘more’ tag or conditionals) to achieve indexing with a well SEO’ed copy, while still protecting the rest of the premium content.

About free vs trial, here’s what I think:

Trial can work well but is also problematic to deal with those that get the trial and then don’t remain or their payment fails, and how easily they could do that over and over. I’ve seen this complaint from site owners a few times, asking how to avoid it, but in the end it’s very hard to fully protect against it. You could just not care about some doing it.

The other approach, good free content and let them know there’s the premium content they can get to, seems simpler. Instead of excerpts of the premium content, they get a taste of your content’s quality through the free material they got from you. That can work well, and you could give actual excerpts of the paid content too.

Both can work very well, or not. I guess there are several factors at play, e.g.: your preference, your niche, how you implement it.

Maybe I didn’t even understand your question correctly. I hope I did and that the answer helped.

Thanks Cristian yes that was a help.

So you have you seen the “good free content and let them know there’s the premium content” model convert to premium work well for others?

I am leaning towards this approach.

Any good resources that you can refer me to help with understanding how to build a better membership site as well how best to get the targeted traffic to membership site that converts best for good cost would be great too.

Thanks,

Gary

Yes, I’ve seen it work in the past. For example, every internet marketing product launch seems to do that: put out good content for free so the visitor feels confident about paying for the premium content.

I’m sure that with a few good Google searches you can find great internet marketing articles on that topic for free out there.

A friend of mine just told me that this model we are talking about is referred to as “freemium” and you can search for this term as it relates to information around this model.

I also found a great article here https://hbr.org/2014/05/making-freemium-work/ar/1

Cool. ??