re: displaying home page to sell memberships

[dmortimer]

I am completely baffled at this point, as I want potential members to go to my site to look it over before even joining. There they can see the teaser posts and what my site looks like. I have a drop down menu that allows them to go to a page that explains membership levels. If they click on something I have labeled as "for members only," they are automatically sent to the sign up page for membership.

Here's my issue. S2 Member wants me to designate a Login Page, but I cannot use my home page for that. Additionally, even if I were to redirect to my home page by putting in a url for the redirect, this page won't be viewable by the public, and I am counting on them being able to see my home page before they even join. Otherwise, I am merely writing a squeeze page or sales page to get them to join first, and since my site has nothing to do with Internet Marketing but Education, I would rather not do it that way.

Can anyone offer me any suggestions as to what I can do if I still want to commit to S2Member for my membership site plugin?

Thanks.

Doug
Fresno, CA

http://correctivereading.org

[Cristián Lávaque]

Hi Doug.

So, let me see if I got it right: You want to have people be sent to the homepage after logging in, is that it? Or what do you mean by "S2 Member wants me to designate a Login Page"? I imagine you're talking about the Login Welcome Page, the one where people are sent after logging in. And yes, this would be a protected page that people not logged in would not have access to, so the homepage doesn't work for that.

If I understand your problem correctly, may I ask why you don't want to create a page that will work as a Login Welcome one, where you can talk to the member as a member, and not in the general terms you have to use in the homepage because those are open to everyone?

If I didn't understand, could you please explain it some more? Thanks!

[dmortimer]

Cristian:

To clarify things, if I set things up the way I think S2member allows, I can designate pages and posts that I don't want people to have access to, so if they have paid for their membership, then they are allowed to read the posts and do anything they want. If they are not a member, then when they click on a post or try to access a video, they won't have access. I don't see the need to have a seperate page for members when it can be eliminated by just having a home page. Everything is just done from the home page. I don't want to have to try and recreate all the items I have there, as I am not that good with code in the first place.

Does that help? Hopefully I am offering a better explanation now as to my problem. I also am using Thesis, so that may complicate things even more.

Thanks for responding to my post.

Doug

[Cristián Lávaque]

Yeah, I see what you mean, you don't want to have a special page to welcome members after logging in, you want the website's home page to do that for them too.

OK, try this: change the link to your login page adding ?redirect_to=/ at the end. So intead of http://example.com/wp-login.php you'll have http://example.com/wp-login.php?redirect_to=/ Try logging in and see if you go to the homepage now.

Let me know if that helps.

[dmortimer]

Well, an issue I have with my site is that if I activate the s2 plugin, when I go to my home page, I don't get a login screen. My site is still there, but the sidebar goes way over to the left and the posts disappear. So maybe something else needs to be fixed first before I add what you suggested?

Thanks again for your reply.

Doug

[Cristián Lávaque]

Hmm... You don't have that problem without s2Member?

Do you have the same problem with the default theme TwentyTen?

Have you checked that the CSS and JS files are loading properly?

[dmortimer]

No, I don't have the problem whenever S2Member is deactivated.

I am not sure how to even make sure whether the CSS or JS is loading properly. How does one check that?

[Cristián Lávaque]

Even if you found that the CSS or JS aren't loading properly, it'll most probably be a conflict with another plugin or the theme, so it may be best to just go check those first.

Try disabling other plugins one by one and check if the problem goes away, if it does then you know which one is conflicting. If you're left with just s2Member active and the problem is still there, please try changing the theme to TwentyTen and see if the problem goes away.

Please let us know what you find, if there's a conflict we'll try to look at how it could be solved.

[dmortimer]

I am using thesis as my wordpress blog, so it has some different rules than ordinary wordpress blogs. I will check on the theme you told me to try out and see if I can isolate the plugin that might be causing the problem.

Thanks again.

[Cristián Lávaque]

Cool.

[dmortimer]

I checked every plugin to isolate the one causing the problem, and I couldn't find any.

So could the settings of the S2member plugin be causing the problem?
Additionally, I am using Thesis and Thesis Open Hook. Could some of my html
or custom css be causing the problem?

[Cristián Lávaque]

It could... Watch this video and see if it helps you find a JS conflict http://www.s2member.com/options-page-di ... ing-video/

[edjassociates]

I'm looking for the same answer. How do you un-restrict the index page?

[Cristián Lávaque]

I would maybe try a combination of Page/Post Access Restriction set to all, plus the right setting for Alternative View Protection.

WP Admin -> s2Member -> General Options -> Post Access Restrictions
WP Admin -> s2Member -> General Options -> Page Access Restrictions
WP Admin -> s2Member -> General Options -> Alternative View Protection
http://www.s2member.com/general-options-overview-video/