The AccessAlly Client Guide
A membership site is a complex ecosystem, and it takes time to implement the vision you have in your mind.
This step-by-step guide will walk you through your initial setup.
The checklist items are listed in chronological order. Please make sure that you follow each step sequentially. Jumping between steps often results in complex setup errors that waste time and resources.
The first step in your membership site and online course setup is the WordPress site itself. The quality of this foundation will determine how well your site can grow and expand with your business.
- Select an LMS hosting provider
- Create a new WordPress.org install on a subdomain
- Add an SSL certificate to your site
- Choose & install a WordPress theme on your site: Get our free templates here & read the How to choose membership site themes blog post.
Note:
Designing a website requires an entirely separate skillset, and can cause frustrations and confusion unrelated to the functionality of your courses.
While you should install your WordPress theme in this step, we highly recommend NOT implementing page-specific designs until the appropriate step (indicated further down the list).
Ideally, you would already have your course or membership content planned, prepared, and ready to go before you invest in the tools needed to implement it. Content creation is the longest part of any website, membership, or online course build.
Don't set an aggressive launch date if your content isn't ready to go yet!
- Create a map of your online course or membership content
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Prepare your content material
This might include written content, videos or video scripts, checklists, quiz questions, etc.
Now it's time to install the AccessAlly plugin on your WordPress website.
- Install the AccessAlly plugin (and ProgressAlly for the full AccessAlly Pro experience) on your subdomain
AccessAlly’s Setup Wizard provides an easy-to-follow, 3-step process that activates your plugin license, integrates with your CRM, and integrates with your payment processor (Stripe and/or PayPal).
The Setup Wizard will also create key pages and make sure they’re set up properly.
Review the Setup Wizard tutorial here.
Note: You may wish to use a different payment processor instead of using AccessAlly's order forms.
If you opt for an alternative system, PLEASE BE CERTAIN THAT IT INTEGRATES WITH YOUR CRM. The integration must be able to create users and issue tags in the CRM itself if you want it to work with your AccessAlly membership site. We do not provide support for alternative options.
If you're moving to AccessAlly from another plugin or hosted platform, you'll want to take advantage of our "Migration Wizard".
- Click here to follow the steps for installing the Migration Wizard plugin and migrating members.
- Migrating content can be done using one of our course plugin converters, or directly in the Course Wizard which is explained in the next step.
The Offering Wizard takes care of creating the pages, permission tags, opt-in and order forms. You can use the templates to quickly create:
- Free or paid courses
- Drip-released courses
- Membership programs
- Affiliate systems
- Team programs for bulk enrollment
In the previous stage, you created the structure of your offering. Now, it's time to add the content to these pages.
- Upload course videos to: Vimeo, YouTube, or Wistia
- Add content to your pages
- Once done, publish the pages.
The Offering wizard automatically creates opt-in forms and order forms for you. Now it's time to customize these, and add any additional entry points into your content.
- Customize opt-in forms for free courses
- Customize order forms for paid programs
*There are many ways you can customize an order form to sell your content (promos, upsells, toggles, etc.) Click here to learn more about The AccessAlly Workflow.
Using AccessAlly Pro? Once your pages are published, it's time to configure the LMS features:
After you have content mapped out and created, it's time to implement the design (look & feel) through your WordPress theme.
Start with the free AccessAlly theme to get up and running faster!
Design Resources:
- Guide to Membership Website Design
- Get our free theme templates here
- Plan your course template look and feel
- Design your course icons: Download our Icon Templates or use the built-in icons from the Offering Wizard
Not sure what theme to use? We recommend both Elementor and Beaver Builder. We offer a suite of free templates that you can use on your AccessAlly site. These are affiliate links and we will earn a commission if you decide to purchase one of these options.
Emails and automation can be handled natively within AccessAlly, or through your email marketing or CRM platform.
To set up built-in AccessAlly emails, follow the email guide.
To set up emails and automation in your CRM, please read this tutorial for more information: Your Guide To Creating CRM Automations
Start with our pre-built automations, to shortcut the process.
We currently have free automation templates available for:
Don't invite people to your site until you're sure everything is working. Click here to test your setup before you go live.
As a final check, please make sure you've run through a thorough testing sequence so that you don't run into any issues as your site goes live. Make sure:
- There are no tech issues with the setup of your WordPress.org website on the subdomain (with a careful check for plugin conflicts)
- All order forms are working (and showing up in the AccessAlly Sales area)
- All free opt-ins are functioning properly
- New members are created promptly, with the correct permission tags
- Offerings can be accessed by the test users who have corresponding permissions
- All progress tracking and other “special” setup (like affiliate systems, point systems, etc.) function as intended
