MemberMouse offers a range of membership site building features that allow you to create a great looking membership area for delivering your private content, training courses and digital products.
In this section we will cover steps to get MemberMouse installed as well as offer tips about hosting and minimum system requirements.
- WordPress Installation
- Your Domain & Hosting
- Hosting / Server Minimum Requirements
- Hosting : Do I Need to Upgrade?
- Hosting : Plans to Avoid
- MemberMouse Platform Download & Installation
WordPress Installation
MemberMouse requires the WordPress platform to run. The WordPress platform is 100% free and can be installed on most hosting through the hosting control panels. If you need assistance installing WordPress, this handy guide will walk you through the quick installation process.
Please note that you must have the WordPress available at WordPress.org installed on a compatible Hosting Provider. This is different from the version of WordPress found at WordPress.com. The version of WordPress hosted at WordPress.com is a multisite based on a single main installation and limits the themes and plugins that can be used. MemberMouse is not compatible with WordPress.com or other multisite installations.
Your Domain & Hosting
MemberMouse requires you to have your own web hosting and domain. Our platform does not run on the free WordPress.com hosted service, you must have your own web hosting which is linked to a domain you have purchased.
If you’re in need of hosting, we’ve prepared a list of recommended web hosts.
Hosting / Server Minimum Requirements
Whichever hosting you choose, you need to ensure that the server has the following:
- WordPress 5.0 or above
- PHP 7.4 - 8.1 are supported
- MySQL 5.6 - 8.0 OR MariaDB 10.1 and greater
- Nginx OR Apache with mod_rewrite module
- HTTPS support
- PHP shortcodes must be enabled
- cURL must be enabled
- cURL, JSON, and Multibyte String PHP extensions installed
- Support for TLS 1.2 encryption protocol
- Support for the SHA-256 encryption algorithm and the hash_hmac function
- PHP memory limit of 256MB
- Firewall exceptions for our licensing and billing servers
- If the server has a caching mechanism, you need the ability to control caching to omit pages and functions
- Write permissions to the WordPress plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins/)
- Script execution permissions in the WordPress plugins folder
Hosting : Do I Need to Upgrade?
Running a membership site requires more processing power and memory than running a traditional website. MemberMouse needs to make a check for a member’s permission before it loads most of your pages, and this can take some time. Also, things like gateway API calls, email vendor API calls, checking on a coupon code, pulling a user’s membership information, etc, all require activity behind the scenes.
Many of the lower level shared hosting plans (and even the better shared hosting plans) rely on aggressive caching to get you the performance you need at the price you are paying. (Read this article to learn what caching is). You cannot cache a membership site like you can a normal site. MemberMouse is constantly trying to stay in front of the best practices of caching, to allow you to run the most efficient site. But in the meantime, any membership site will require that you have slightly more robust hosting plan.
Hosting : Plans to Avoid
As far as considering hosting providers, a good rule of thumb is the more the provider pre-configures the server environment in order to “increase performance” or “increase security” the more possibility there is that they will inadvertently cause issues with any software that runs on their servers. Providers that specifically advertise themselves as a “WordPress Hosting Provider” are usually doing this to varying degrees. Also be wary of plans that are “managed WordPress” plans because the customer has no control over the core installation files or when anything is updated.
We’ve seen issues with GoDaddy’s and HostGator’s shared hosting plans, including GoDaddy’s Managed WP. Upgrading to GoDaddy’s or HostGator’s lower tiered VPS plans has fixed the problems and was a painless upgrade for our customers. (Some people in the comments have had issues with HostGator’s VPS, including having to manage a server themselves.)
MemberMouse Platform Download & Installation
Register your site URL with MemberMouse
Before attempting to activate the MemberMouse Platform, it is necessary to register your main site URL in the License Management section of the My Account page.
1. Login using the username and password you created when purchasing your MemberMouse account, go to Dashboard and click on the My Account tab.
2. In the License Management section at the top of the page you’ll see that a license has been created for you with the default URL http://yoursitegoeshere.com.
3. In the Manage column click Change URL. This will make the URL field editable.
4. In the Authorized URL field, enter the URL for your WordPress site. It’s important that the URL you enter matches the URL of your WordPress site exactly. The best way to ensure that you’re entering in the URL correctly is to log into your WordPress site, go to the General Settings page and copy the WordPress Address (URL).
5. Once you’ve entered in your URL, click on the SUBMIT button to save it. You should see a message informing you that the license was updated successfully. At this point you’ll be able to activate the MemberMouse Platform on your WordPress site.
Installing the MemberMouse Platform
| READ THIS BEFORE INSTALLING Are you installing MemberMouse on a localhost? If so, follow these instructions for installing MemberMouse locally. |
1. Download the latest version of the MemberMouse plugin and save it in a location on your computer that you can find later.
2. Log into your WordPress site and go to the Plugins page.
3. Click the ‘Add New’ button at the top of the page.
4. Click on the Upload link at the top of the page.
5. Under where it says Install a plugin in .zip format, click the Browse button and navigate to the place where you saved the MemberMouse plugin.
6. Click the SUBMIT button.
7. On most servers, clicking the ‘Install Now’ button will start the process automatically. However, sometimes additional security is required by the server and WordPress will ask for your FTP credentials. Just fill out the form and click ‘Proceed’.
8. After the installation has completed, click the Activate Plugin link to activate MemberMouse.
9. After the plugin has been activated, you may see a yellow bar with a message that says that MemberMouse can’t use the cache.
MemberMouse utilizes a directory on your server to cache files in order to increase performance. When this message displays it means that MemberMouse can’t write to that directory because of a permissions issue. To correct this and allow MemberMouse to utilize the cache directory, just click the Click here to correct this link. Depending on your server configuration, WordPress may ask you for your FTP credentials in order to proceed.