How to Restrict Access to WordPress Pages: Creating a Members-Only Area

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Written By: author avatar Chris Hadley Reviewed By: reviewer avatar Shankar Chavan
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Are you looking to build a member’s only area with WordPress website?

Maybe it for:

  • Locking premium content behind log-in or subscription
  • To collect email addresses or leads
  • Internal resources
  • Offering premium support
  • Restricting digital downloads access

Even if it’s for something else, we got you covered!

There are so many ways of restricting access to WordPress content. The trouble is…deciding on which is the right solution for your project.

In this guide, we will cover some of the easiest methods you can use to restrict access to WordPress pages (or posts), or restrict access to certain directories to create a member only area.

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What Exactly Is a Members-Only Area With Restricted Access?

A members-only area of a website is made up of pages that hold content which are accessed by permission only (granted by the site administrator).

The site structure (how these pages link together) should favor users discovering what they need quickly and accurately.

It is generally accepted by web experts that a flat site architecture works best.

i.e. one where the content the user wants to find is easily found and isn’t deeply buried.

Here’s a model example of what an effective flat site architecture might look like:

flat site architecture

The golden rule governing flat site architecture says that pages should never be more than 2 clicks away from the home page.

Plus, the link to the any desired page should be easy to find on the referring page.

Features like: automated related article links, listed categorical homepage links, breadcrumb link, related page sidebar links, jump links to relevant sub-headings etc…achieve this goal well.

Though the most critical page to get right in this kind of set-up is the homepage. This is because it acts as a gateway or hub for accessing all other content on your site. It’s often where the journey begins (and also where you should go if you get lost.)

Flat site architecture is a best practice approach that leads to optimal user experience leading to retention of membership accounts.

Definitely worth sticking to.

WordPress Members-Only Area Examples

It’s always a good idea to look into real life examples. This will allow you to check your options and choose the right path ahead.

1. Barn2 Knowledge Base Example

Want a frontend example of how that would look?

Take this example from Barn2 Plugins, they’re a premium WordPress and WooCommerce plugin company.

The screenshot below is of their custom designed Plugins Knowledge Base for users (they used the Heroic Knowledge Base Plugin to achieve their result):

Barn2 custom designed Knowledge Base

I’m sure you’d agree – an inviting set up.

No matter the context of your members-only area:

…it’s obvious how a simple, yet effective, presentation like this would serve your site members (or subscribers) beautifully.

2. Smart Insights Members-Only Area Case Study

As with any practical exercise, building a members-only area is made much easier when we have an example to follow.

A solid standard to model might be the Smart Insights website.

If you don’t already know, Smart Insights is a leading online training provider for marketing professionals, led by the bestselling author Dr. Dave Chaffey.

Their training business serves 150,000 members who all gain their subscription value by accessing content via the Smart Insights ‘members-only’ web portal.

Their site is built using WordPress.

Not too long ago, Dr. Dave and his team radically upgraded their member’s area.

And in true content marketing authoritative style – blogged on their success story.

What’s new in our upgraded members’

The article is called: What’s new in our upgraded members’ area? A guide to the 5 main new features.

To summaries the reason for their member-only area upheaval, Dr. Dave mentions his team was prompted to make the changes following…

“…frustrations with the UX (user experience), rather than about the content.”

In addition he reveals:

“Essentially, the issue was a findability issue stemming from a previous initiative…

…the main problem was that after finding a resource…

…the previous UX required them [members] to find the resource again within a grouping of the toolkit requiring multiple clicks.“

It seems the navigational flow of pages was making users work unnecessarily hard to find their answers. This obstructed the learning experience.

So what did they do?

They opted for a flatter (and more user friendly) site architecture.

Deep site architecture vs flat site architecture

Want a front-end screenshot?

Smart Insights members only area example

Look familiar?

Strikingly similar to the Barn2 Knowledge Base don’t you think?

A simple array of topic-based cards that mirrors the member’s need and links to the related content.

Very easy for the user. And partly because it’s so flat. Any content piece can be conveniently landed upon within a couple of clicks.

What this also proves is that regardless of the type of business, the same fundamental UX (user experience) principles apply to having success with your members-only area website.

Pro tip

Generate user feedback via your restricted content members-only area

But the case study doesn’t end there.

A highly valuable tip that Dr. Dave Chaffey revealed within the article which will massively increase your project ROI was user feedback.

He explains:

Feedback from members has been the main driver for this change. We use many techniques and channels to get feedback and in all of these, we have had regular prompts from members suggesting a need to improve the usability of the members’ area.”

Sounds very reasonable that being user directed on design and architecture will deliver better results on member satisfaction.

But this begs the question:

“What were the tools and techniques used by Smart Insights to generate this valuable info?”

Dr. Dave lists them as:

  • Contextual email marketing surveys
  • Contextual feedback tool on pages (inc. voting)
  • Customer feedback contact forms plugged into HelpScout

Admittedly, Dr. Dave reports the most effective channel for member feedback was the customer contact forms (which alone generate over 100 questions or comments each month).

The advantage for Smart Insights is unpicking the user experience ‘pain-points’.

This in turn increases their membership satisfaction, subscription retention and ROI.

You only have to multiply the benefit by 150,000 members and we can soon see why Dr. Dave and his team stress the importance of generating user feedback for their online training business.

Pro tip: Rapid content search ability

A quality search function does one better than great navigation.

Hence why Dr. Dave et al. invested in a new Algolia-powered search function in their members-only area.

Take a look:

Algolia-powered search function

This new improved search brings a customer order straight to the table.

Much like a ‘table service’ restaurant saves your legs having to run around collecting your dishes at a buffet counter…

.. search also does all the hard work by bringing your online members EXACTLY what they need – ON DEMAND.

And as we said before, enhanced information discovery enhances member engagement and customer satisfaction.

Method 1: Restricting Access to WordPress Pages, or Posts Without Any Plugin

By default you get controls to make any particular WordPress page or post:

  1. Private: Only visible to site admins and editors
  2. Password protected: Only visible to those who know the password

To follow along, edit a page or post that you want to make private (you can find all your pages from WordPress website dashboard).

  1. On the top toolbar, on the right side you can find the post Setting icon. Click on it.
  2. In the post settings
  3. Click on the Status settings
  4. Here you will find options to make a post private or password protected.
restricting WordPress post or page access, making it private

Method 2: Creating WordPress Members’ Only Area

We looked at how we can make pages or posts private. But how about making a specific directory or whole system private?

For examples:

  • Knowledge base, or a support portal
  • Courses section
  • Download section

To achieve this we will need a plugin with membership features. Heroic Knowledge Base can be one the solution you are looking for.

With Heroic KB you can create a member only area to create an internal knowledge base, documentation, or create a specific directory that can be made private.

Here are the steps you need to follow:

Step 1: Create a Custom Directory With Heroic KB

We need a separate directory where we can block user access behind the login screen.

We are going to use the Heroic KB plugin to create a separate directory, as it also provides necessary functionality to lock that directory behind user login.

Heroic KB is a premium only plugin that you can purchase from the link below.

Once you have access to the plugin files:

  • Download the Heroic KB plugin from your account dashboard.
  • Install the plugin by uploading it in your WordPress website plugins section.
steps to install Heroic KB in WordPress manually
  • Activate, and complete the setup wizard (this will import the demo site settings and content).
Heroic KB setup wizard

By default this will create a custom directory on your WordPress website at yourwebsite.com/knowledge-base/ location.

Based on your requirements, you can change everything from Heroic KB plugin settings.

  • Default directory slug (from knowledge-base to something else)
  • Content options
  • Default heading texts, colors and so on.

Step 2: Restricting User Access to the Directory, Creating Members-Only Area

Now that we have a separate directory ready, it’s time to restrict users’ access to it.

By default all users will be able to access it with a URL.

To restrict access:

  1. Go to your Website dashboard → Heroic KB → Settings.
  2. Click on the General Settings tab, and scroll down to find Restrict Access settings.
  3. Set the Restrict Access setting to the ‘Logged In’.
  4. Save the Changes.
Creating members only area in WordPress with Heroic KB

Test it with and without logging in to check if it’s working as intended (I’m sure it’s working just fine if you followed steps correctly).

There you have it! Your very own members only area on your WordPress website.

Step 3: Add Your Content

You can skip this step if you know WordPress a little bit (like creating blog posts, categories, tags).

Heroic Knowledge Base articles are like WordPress Posts. And likewise, they come under the Categories umbrella. Plus, you can assign Tags to them.

To begin with, here’s how you produce an article:

Head over to the WordPress sidebar menu again, locating ‘Heroic KB’, under which you’ll find the sub-heading ‘Add New Article’.

Click that link and find a new article open in the editor:

Heroic KB post editing screen

In the same way in which you would create and publish a WordPress Post, do the same here.

There are some slight differences found in the Heroic KB Add New Article editor vs. the traditional WordPress Post editor, namely:

  • Article Stats
  • Article Attachments
  • Voting Options
  • Voting Feedback

But we’ll skip the details on this for now and address this within a later chapter called “Generate User Feedback”.

Assigning the newly published articles to Heroic KB Categories and Tags in the Add New Article editor works the same as with WordPress Posts.

Simply follow suit.

The great thing about how Heroic KB handles new content is that it:

  • Immediately fills up the category buckets on the members’ area home page
  • Selects posts to feature immediately in the ‘Popular Articles’ sidebar widget
  • Adds new articles to the search results using the search bar

It’s an effortless process having it all link up together.

This leaves you to simply focus on adding new content without the distraction of endlessly tweaking plugin settings.

Job done.

Members-Only Area Best Practices

Considering you might be creating this type of system for end users(customers) and your business might depend on it.

Here are a few tips that will help you with your membership site.

1. WordPress Password Protected vs. Private Log-In Restriction

The simplest way to restrict access to a specific page (or other post content) is to use the default visibility settings that WordPress gives by default.

You can find these options on the right-hand panel wherever you add a new page or post:

WordPress status and visibility settings

Under the Visibility settings, there are 2 options to make your page (or post) password protected or private:

  1. Password protected: Here, only the readers with the page’s (or post’s) password can unlock access to the content
  2. Private: This option grants access to specific users based on their role

Let’s see how this work:

1. Password Protecting Pages/Posts

This is a very straightforward option giving you the ability to password protect individual pages and posts simply by assigning a password to that page (or post).

Anyone who knows the password(s) can access the content.

Now, this option works if you have a page or two that you’d like to hide from the general public.

However, you can imagine that if you have 100s of articles to protect, you’ll have to maintain and distribute 100s of passwords with all the eligible readers.

Another problem with this method is that if a user finds such content or clicks on a link to such a password protected page, they will see a screen asking for a password, so they’ll know that there’s some protected or exclusive content on your site.

So, if you don’t want the people who don’t have access to learn about this content, then this method won’t solve your purpose.

The following screenshot shows an example of a password protected resource:

Front end view of password protected WordPress article

Furthermore, password protecting a page doesn’t remove that page from the website if you don’t have permission to view it.

Instead, the word ‘Protected‘ is added to the beginning of the title, which does have its uses, but it’s not ideal if you don’t want people to know there is private content on the website.

Related article widget

2. Marking Pages/Posts Private

Private Pages don’t require individual passwords for getting unlocked. Access to such pages is granted after checking a user’s role. Typically, only site admins or editors can view such private pages.

Here’s how a page marked private looks like:

Private page front end view

The other big difference between password protected and private pages is that if you don’t have sufficient privileges to view a page, then it won’t display on the website anywhere.

This is especially useful if you don’t want the average website visitor to know there is additional content on the website.

Related articles widget

Left: Private articles are completely hidden if you are not logged in or don’t have the correct permissions. Right: The same articles publicly available.

It’s clear:

Of the two options, only the Private visibility setting makes sense if you want to restrict a lot of content on your site.

But as you can tell, you can’t possibly give every user admin or editor level access on your site. Which means you need to introduce another membership level (subscribers).

And then set the private pages’ visibility level to that of subscribers. This way, all your subscribers will be able to access all the restricted content.

This is how you might go one step further and set a more sophisticated (but equally easy to assign and manage) restriction of access to members’ only content in your WordPress website.

2. Generate User Feedback Within the Members’ Only Area

User demand should be the driver for all content and service investment.

The Smart Insights case study earlier shows that successful large scale membership websites literally make decisions based on what users say.

Sure, you need an aggregate picture.

It’s not worth getting tied up in the knots of every user’s opinion, but getting a top-level estimation for what would add the most value is critical to staying on track with ROI.

Here’s how to collect user generated feedback within your WordPress member’s only area:

  1. (Direct) Voting System
  2. (Direct) Feedback Form
  3. (Indirect) Search

And they can be split up into two types:

Direct User Feedback Generators

  • Voting system: users vote for the content type as either helpful, or not
  • Open feedback: free text form where users are encouraged to add detail to their vote

Indirect User Feedback Generators

  • Search: users type a query into the search bar. Every user search query is recorded in the admin area for you to analyze.

Although quite different, based on whether the user ‘intended’ to communicate with you or not, the two types of feedback systems can be neatly integrated into your site.

Here’s how the systems work in detail:

Voting System

I’m sure you’ve seen this kind of system used by websites throughout your online experience:

Voting system for knowledge base articles

An article voting system is a quick and non-pushy way of asking users and members to share their opinion on how the content was received.

Presumption kills excellence – and in service businesses, like members’ only websites, you cannot afford to guess whether content hits the mark. You’ve got to ask to be sure.

Here’s how to simply set up an article voting system using the Heroic Knowledge Base plugin.

It’s engineered to help you to identify demand for prioritizing your members’ area content production:

Voting With Heroic Knowledge Base Plugin

User feedback is made both easy and effortless – both for you and your members with the Heroic Knowledge Base plugin.

Voting is the quickest and most painless way of members giving you insight into their experience.

And for this reason, it is good practice to offer on every article the opportunity for members to give a thumbs up, or thumbs down.

Every member’s only article you publish via the plugin, by default has user voting included.

Keeping your content production workflow uninterrupted in the editor.

That said, you do have the option within the meta boxes in the article’s editor of switching voting off (or, ‘disable voting’).

Voting system options

Open Feedback

The opportunity for open-ended user feedback is offered to every voter. But not at first.

Getting good conversion rates of user feedback is a balance.

Neglecting a call to engagement (or making it ‘hard to find’ invite) simply leads to no feedback. Whereas pressurizing your members with what looks like hard work on their behalf, breeds avoidance.

So, the process of voting feedback eases in the user with a simple ‘thumbs up or down’ and then upon clicking either thumb symbol, a text box appears below asking ‘that little bit more’:

Getting customer feedback on knowledge base articles

In the WordPress admin panel, the voting feedback is neatly aggregated by Heroic Knowledge Base plugin and summarized like this:

Feedback stats at the WordPress backend

A simple gauge gives an overall score for your members’ only area. Plus you are presented with individual feedback in cards beneath – along with an ID of the article and comments.

The most valuable and insightful source of actionable members’ area feedback should ALWAYS be ‘Search’.

As Google well knows, search is actually a mutually beneficial relationship.

Users benefit from instant answers to critical questions.

And the provider benefits from knowing what users want.

This way providers always stay on top of relevance – and become the de facto choice and channel for users.

This is the key to success for your members’ only area.

Here’s how you do that within your WordPress website:

As mentioned earlier on, ‘Search’ is a default function in the Heroic Knowledge Base plugin.

And is one of the most popular features in such websites.

This is a member’s typical search journey…

Let’s say, a member has a question and types in a query into the LIVE search bar:

Heroic KB LIVE search bar

As the member types their query, LIVE search offers up a list of the most relevant articles by title and description.

If the member doesn’t select an article from the list, nor find any match in the results – this shows up:

Heroic KB LIVE search bar if no results found

‘No Results’.

The member then has the option of either:

(a) asking for help (‘Contact Support’), or;

(b) continuing their search elsewhere.

If a member opts to ‘Contact Support’, your benefit is that they tip you off for what information that they needed, which you did not have.

This is a heads up for what you could add to fill the gap in your members’ only area content.

Will this gap in your content turn paying members away?

Customer experience expert, Estaban Kolsky, claims:

Customer experience stats

Estaban also shares from experience that:

Customer experience stats by estaban

What response should you have to this?

Get proactive and fill in your content gaps.

And this is where the Heroic Knowledge Base plugin ‘search’ intelligence (aka. Analytics) helps.

Heroic KB analytics of popular searches

A null search is when a user types in a search that ends up with a ‘No Results’ response from the LIVE search.

The system logs the search phrase and how many times users have queried this within a selected period e.g. Last 12 months.

The advantage for you, the publisher, is a user-generated, data-driven list of priority content topics that is instantly actionable.

Get filling in your content gap.

3. Help Desk Integration for Better Member Satisfaction

There are, of course, those occasions where (even with the best of intentions) – your content just doesn’t cut it.

Which is where customer support comes in.

Ultimately, even a low touch sales environment still needs even very limited hands-on help.

In such cases, customer support is the front line of your battle against member dissatisfaction and churn (cancellations).

According to customer service experience author and thought leader, Shep Hyken, 96.2% of customers will leave for bad customer service.

customer service experience stats

And being prompt in ‘letting members know instantly that they were heard’, counts massively in your favor.

letting members know instantly that they were heard

This is why integrating your members’ only area with a solid help desk software is key to keeping members happy.

Here’s how to do that in WordPress:

Using the Heroic Inbox plugin it’s really simple to set-up a fully featured help desk software directly inside your WordPress admin area.

  • No extra log-ins
  • No opening up other tabs in your browser
  • WordPress controlled access for all your support staff

3 steps is all you need:

Getting started with Heroic KB in three steps

And your inbox is LIVE within only minutes.

No sweat.

Heroic Inbox WordPress plugin

What does Heroic Inbox do to help you to achieve customer amazement?

Amongst many other things…

  • Send and receive customer support emails right inside WordPress: reduces workflow friction, saving time, by allowing you to perform all of your customer support whilst in the WordPress back-end.
  • Keep an auditable history of all support tickets: never risk getting customer support threads buried under ‘other’ emails by using this ‘ring-fenced’ ticketing system.
  • Produce a CRM-like profile summary for every enquirer: equip your support staff with a CRM customer profile of every inquiring member.
  • Assign requests to any number of registered support staff: there’s no limit to the number of registered support staff the system can cope with. And the system also supports staff collaboration on individual tickets.
  • Line up auto responders: have canned responses to fill in for you on those replicable messages to smoothen out any kinks in response timing.

In addition to all of these, Heroic Inbox is available at a single one-off price. The cost savings against the nearest SaaS solution are huge, year-on-year.

WordPress Content Restriction Plugins

Here are some plugins that we highly recommend you to restrict WordPress pages or to create members only areas.

1. Heroic Knowledge Base

Directory created with Heroic KB

You already know this one if you followed the above tutorial. This is the plugin we will recommend to create private directories with WordPress.

Just don’t go for the name (knowledge base), it is way more capable than you think.

It will allow you to easily create:

  1. Internal documentation
  2. Internal directories or private content hubs
  3. Internal Wikis

Any content system that you can think of locking behind login access.

2. bbPress

bbPress plugin to create member only communities

bbPress is a very good plugin if you are looking to create private communities.

In fact, we also have a guide where we showcased WordPress forum examples created with bbPress.

The functionality it offers is really outstanding considering it is a free plugin.

Take Home Points

Restricting users’ access to pages (or posts), or building members’ only area in WordPress needn’t be a stressful experience. Nor simply academic.

Members’ only areas should be highly engaging 2-way knowledge transfer environments.

Places where both members and providers learn better ways of working together.

The end results should be an ever-increasing depth and breadth of useful content that:

  1. Has a flat site architecture for easy navigation
  2. Is shaped by reliable, data-driven user feedback
  3. Stands alone as a leading information resource in the marketplace

Using smart membership software with built in analytics, like Heroic Knowledge Base plugin for WordPress – literally puts actionable insights on a plate for your team.

By staying on trend with demand, your website will always remain relevant and will not be in want of loyal users.

Are you currently setting up a WordPress restricted access members’ only area?

Are you looking to change your members’ only area software?

Either way, we’d be interested to hear from you.

Leave a comment below.

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