Allow main site to not be public or allow locking down certain pages
under review
Ryan Sullivan
This caused a massive amount of confusion for me, probably for everyone who has used this platform and probably everyone using in the future since this is not explicitly explained anywhere and is totally antithetical to how a normal site setup would be.
As it sits right now, the main site has to be public, which means if I am using Simplero for a membership site or courses or whatever (which literally is the main focus of the software), I am then forced to have a second domain or forced to use a subdomain to actually house the locked down content on a separate membership site instance to house my membership content. Why?? If I have one domain and pay for Simplero to host my membership site, why can my main domain not actually be my locked down membership site? I know of no other software that makes the main site as virtually useless as this software seems to make it where it basically has to be a glorified splash page and forces your real business on a subdomain or alternate domain. Again perfectly fine if I am building a normal website for information that is free and then people buy, great, but for a course or membership site that the system is built for I actually cannot do that on my main domain. What?
Why do I have to have mysite.com and then be forced to have lockeddown.mydomain.com Why? Why not allow locking pages down and let me have mydomain.com/lockeddown be the members only content? So I get it is not the end of the world, and by no means a real stumbling block assuming you understand the need to use a subdomain. I have a ton of domains I can use a subdomain I get it but seems really weird to not be able to use my main domain for its God given purpose. Maybe I'm not the only one that is confused by this limitation.
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Lis Alvarez
under review
Calvin Correli
I totally see your point, Ryan, and I agree with what you say.
And yet the way you say it, it hurts to read.
Ryan Sullivan
Calvin Correli Not the intent sorry, it was more in retrospect for the support people who had to try and explain it to me that I couldn't use the main domain for the membership site. It took many calls/chats to event explain how it worked, so like I said now that I inderstand I can work withing the constraints of the system, but honestly my head was about to explode as I thought they were just not understanding my question. It was like telling people that thought the earth was flat that it was actually round and they have to wrap their brain around the fact but once they realized how it worked they were fine. I think I am good with how it is setup as I can adapt with domains was more concerned for the business you might be losing for the guy with one domain looking to do one membership site.
Calvin Correli
Ryan Sullivan Thank you Ryan.
I totally get your point. When I did this originally, the idea was a clear separation between website & membership site. In part because a website and a membership site typically have different looks and different navigation styles (top nav vs left nav).
But it absolutely doesn't have to be that way. I noticed Joe Dispenza does it this way, and it works quite well. I think Wim Hof does something similar.
We'll look at how easy/hard it would be to just remove that distinction, and have everything in one site.
I appreciate you sharing your experience.
Ryan Sullivan
Calvin Correli Another thing that just hit me on separation is whether there is a need to have everything tied to the main domain. IE I would really like my checkout or payment pages to be directorycheckout but it is tied to my main domain and I don't want the main site to be that, and there may be other main page ties like that that not sure if that is required.
Calvin Correli
Ryan Sullivan That went right over my head. Can you try again? What's directorycheckout?
Ryan Sullivan
Calvin Correli Sorry directorycheckout.com IE the checkout or purchase pages not tied to the mnain Simplero domain.
Calvin Correli
Ryan Sullivan So a custom domain?
You want a separate custom domain for checkout and another for your website?
Why?
Ryan Sullivan
Calvin Correli Yes so same thing with the affiliate as well, so toallow directoryaffiliate.com instead of main domain. But there are any multitude of reasons:
- Providing a shorter or more recognizable domain
- Having a domain for the cart that would be focused on only products so if they went to the main domain it would be only products not the rest of the main site
- having a more generic domain for affilaites to more likely share the purchase link vs "somone elses" domain or allow a more whitelabled type cart domain
- Allowing adding third party integrations such as support widgets only on the shopping domain
- Allow for easier transition for users on another platform where customers are used to a particular checkout domain
- allow for easier campaign targeting optimized for e-commerce-specific keywords and campaigns.
- Enhanced SEO from separating e-commerce SEO strategies from informational content SEO.
- Security assurance as some users are reassured by a dedicated, secure checkout URL, especially if it is visually distinct.
- Allows for main website maintenance or takedown for editing etc whiel still allowing the shopping cart to remain functional, ensuring minimal disruption to revenue.
- many more I couldn't think of probably
Teresa Sigmon
I agree with what you say here. I've had Simplero for several years and barely use my main Simplero website because I have mostly membership sites for which I have created multiple domain names and/or I use my company name to tie it all together -- followed by simplerosites.com (see the image.
My main Simplero website I only use on occasion when hosting a live class that for which I offer the replays. But then if I want to sell the replay course, I clone them and move them to my paid membership sites because of the limitations you described above.
Richard Scharfenberg
Ryan Sullivan I like that we can have different coaches or community sites on different sub-domains, but ideally they should be mapped to the main site (domain). I guess we need some better integration between the Main site and Community- and Membership sites.
Ryan Sullivan
Richard Scharfenberg May have something to do with the segmented site search or something not sure of the reason to be honest no one seems to know. Love the multisite integration and seperability but handicapping the main site doesn't seem to make sense.