In the past I talk about membership sites and how it can help you with your online income. I did a comparison between 2 membership platforms I used in the past, Wishlist and aMember. Lately I have been using Wishlist more so because it easily incorporates with WordPress. Today, I just want to talk about 2 themes that I think are the most easiest and simplest to use when creating a membership site.
In the past I have been using the Socrates Theme for quite a while now because it is easy, clean, and has a lot of options when it comes to customizing. It also allows you to incorporate social and banner ads within the theme as well. I have used Socrates on several info base membership sites and it is very easy and simple to use. You literally can have a membership site running in about 15 minutes.
Socrates also comes with several pre-defined headers as well, so there will be an image waiting for you when you grab Socrates. Another big reason why I like it is it integrates with Wishlist Member with ease.
With the Socrates Theme I can create a separate page for Optins, Sales Page, Contact form, etc - this theme was intended for online marketers. Having these pre built functions helps with your membership site out of the box. Create a site and then create a sales page all in Socrates and all in WordPress.
Then there is the Genesis framework, which is a theme by itself. The theme is really simple to use and the framework is easy to use, there isn't much backend coding you need to do. Install and configure via the Genesis backend configurations. For membership sites, this is a very easy and very clean theme to utilize.
This specific framework is very straight forward, this blog itself uses the Genesis Framework. With genesis you can quickly switch the style, from 3 column, 2 column or just 1 column. There are a lot of options within the posts as well as the SEO side of this theme/framework.
To go along with this framework and a very familiar theme is the Twenty Diez theme. I stumbled on this theme from Twitter and found out Jared was behind this theme. This specific theme is the original Twenty Ten theme when you first install WordPress. I like this theme for my membership sites because it is also simple, but it is a bit bolder than the Genesis Theme. Bolder meaning fonts and navigation seems to stick out more. Either or they compliment each other very well. Both look exactly a like, just one looks a bit bolder.
Each theme is going to be base on you and how easy you want to customize the theme. In both cases there is rarely any customization besides putting up your logo. Both themes allows you to use widgets which makes everything much easier. Again I use both these themes because it easily integrates and looks good with the Wishlist Membership plugin.
Simplicity is key, having something that is too complicated can deter your user base or you may be spending too much time on design than your actual members. Remember Keep It Simple Stupid! (KISS) Both Socrates Theme and the Genesis Framework are simple and easy to use.
