Setting up a paywall in WordPress using Steady and Advanced Ads

A paywall is a system that restricts access to certain content on a website, making it available only to paying subscribers. It’s a popular tool for publishers looking to monetize their work, allowing them to offer exclusive content to loyal readers. By implementing a paywall, you can protect high-profile material and generate a steady income stream from those who value your content the most. Usually, the idea is to create a balance where some content is free to attract new readers, while premium content is behind the paywall, enticing users to subscribe.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through setting up a flexible paywall in WordPress using Steady. We’ll also explore how to manage it effortlessly with Advanced Ads. This combination ensures that you can protect new content and existing articles automatically. By the end of this guide, you’ll have an easy-to-handle paywall integration that works across your entire site, enhancing your revenue potential.

What is Steady?

Steady is a platform that helps publishers monetize their content by offering memberships. It’s initially free to use, but Steady takes a commission from your earnings. Steady handles the entire payment process, including recurring payments, making financial management simple for publishers. 

While Steady provides multiple tools, my guide focuses on its paywall feature. This component offers more flexibility than traditional content restriction plugins, which is perfect for websites with considerable existing content.

Example of a Steady paywall
Example of a Steady paywall appearing after the 2nd paragraph of a blog post

Setting up your Steady account

To start with Steady, sign up and create a new project by entering your website’s URL. After setting up your project, you can explore the platform’s various tools.

Create memberships

Head to Business > Plans to configure the details of your paid memberships:

  • Name: Enter a name for your membership offer.
  • Pricing: Specify the monthly or annual costs for accessing your exclusive content.
Editing Steady memberships
Specify the name and costs of your membership plan

Customizing paywall settings

Navigate to the Integrations > Steady Paywall to configure your paywall:

  • Wording: Define the message users will see when encountering protected content.
  • Image: Upload a logo to personalize your paywall interface.
  • Skip options: Choose whether to allow users to close the paywall notification.
Customize Steady paywall layout
Customize the texts and the logo file of the paywall widget

Integrating the Steady paywall into WordPress

To integrate Steady with WordPress, head over to Integrations > Setup

Choosing the paywall integration

There, you must first choose between two methods to integrate the paywall into your site:

  1. With a dedicated WordPress plugin
  2. With a custom script you manually insert into your website’s header
Options to integrate Steady Paywall into WordPress
Choose the option to insert the Steady header code manually into your website’s header

For a more efficient and scalable solution, opt for the code-based integration instead of the WordPress plugin. This approach allows the automatic insertion of paywall codes across your site.

In contrast, using the WordPress plugin requires manually editing each post to add a block for protected content. This process can quickly become tedious, especially if your website already contains numerous published pages.

Now, copy the header script code from the setup page.

Implementing the paywall in WordPress

Including Steady on your website and in your articles follows a two-step process. First, you need to include a header script that enables Steady in general. This alone won’t have any effect until you place the paywall trigger, which I will go into further down this guide.

This header script will place Steady’s upsell box which you had customized through their dashboard, as well as cause the content to blur around the box. The paywall trigger cuts off your premium content and works on the server level—which is good since it will protect your prime material even if the visitor manages to remove the upsell box and blur with their browser tools.

Navigate to your WordPress dashboard and open Advanced Ads. Create a new ad with the type “Plain Text and Code,” paste the copied header script into the code parameter field, and publish the ad.

Example of an ad unit with the Steady header code
Copy the header code into a new ad unit

Afterward, go to Advanced Ads > Placements, create a new one, and choose the /head placement. Finally, apply the ad unit from the previous step to this placement and save your settings. Advanced Ads will now automatically include this script on every page of your website.

Placement to embed the Steady header code
Assign this ad unit to the /head placement

If you want to limit the script’s execution to specific pages, such as posts in certain categories or tags, you can add display conditions to the ad or the /head placement. This limitation ensures that the script runs only on those pages where you intend to actually use the paywall. For optimal site performance, restrict the header script injection to these pages.

Setting up the Steady paywall code

For the second step, after enabling Steady on your site in general, a piece of custom code in your content will trigger its paywall protection. To set up such a trigger, create a new ad unit in Advanced Ads and choose the “Plain Text and Code” ad type. 

Then, insert the following code snippet:

<div id="steady_paywall" style="display: none;"></div>Code language: HTML, XML (xml)

Finally, publish the ad. Now, wherever you place this “trigger” ad on your website, the Steady paywall widget will appear, effectively restricting access to the content below the ad.

Steady paywall trigger code
Copy the trigger code into a new ad unit in Advanced Ads

Managing Steady paywalls in content

Now, it’s time to integrate the paywall into your content. Begin by creating a new placement—such as a content placement—and assigning the ad containing the paywall code. In the placement settings, you can precisely configure where the content protection will begin. For this example, I set the placement to appear automatically after the second paragraph.

Placement to inject the code that triggers the paywall
Add the ad unit with the trigger code to a content placement and fine-tune its appearance

Targeting the paywall to specific content

At the beginning of this article, I mentioned that many publishers who employ paywalls opt to offer some fully accessible and free content next to their premium material. To achieve this selective protection, add Display Conditions to the ad unit or to the placement.

This approach allows you to specify which types of content will be protected by the paywall. For instance, you can define conditions to protect only specific posts or articles in certain categories or with selected tags while leaving other content unrestricted. 

In my example, I decided to protect finance-related content by targeting the ad unit to content that contains a specific keyword in its URL slug.

Example of how to target the paywall to the content
Example of using Display Conditions to limit the paywall to content whose URL slug contains “finance”

Once you save the placement, Advanced Ads will automatically inject the ad, activating the Steady paywall at the designated point.

One key advantage of using Advanced Ads for this setup is quickly applying paywalls across your entire site or to specific sections without manually editing each post. If you later decide to remove or adjust the paywall or modify or turn off the placements, there won’t be any need for manual post-by-post editing.

Embedding a paywall by content age

Another effective targeting strategy involves using the Content Age condition. This allows you to make articles freely accessible for a set period and move them behind a paywall once they reach a certain age. For example, you could offer new articles for free during their first two days, encouraging engagement and building trust with readers before restricting access to paying subscribers afterward. 

Content age condition
Targeting ads by the age of the content

And if your content monetization strategy demands the condition to work the other way around, just switch to ‘younger than’ and protect your freshest articles.

This dynamic approach increases the likelihood of subscriptions by exposing users to paywalls more consistently compared to protecting only selected articles, while still balancing free and premium content effectively.

Tips for effective paywall use

Here are some tips to make your paywall more effective:

  • Selective content protection: Protect only high-value content, such as exclusive analyses or popular articles, while freeing some material to attract new readers.
  • Flexible payment options: Offer various pricing tiers, such as micro-payments for single articles to accommodate reader needs.
  • Teaser strategy: Allow readers to see the first 20% of an article to encourage subscriptions.
  • Clear value proposition: Ensure your paid content offers unique value, such as in-depth insights, critical guides, thorough reviews, or additional features.

Conclusion

Integrating a paywall is an effective way for website owners to monetize their content and build a sustainable revenue stream. Steady offers a straightforward and low-cost starting point, making setting up and managing your paywall easy without initial financial commitment.

Leveraging Advanced Ads gives you significant flexibility and efficiency when implementing a paywall system, especially for content-rich websites. The tool automates content protection and allows quick adjustments to your paywall setup without manual edits to individual posts. This scalable solution ensures you can focus on creating valuable content while maximizing your site’s earning potential.

Author image Joachim

Joachim started marketing his first local news website in 2009. Shortly after, he successfully monetized his travel blogs about Morocco. He is an expert in affiliate marketing in the tourism and travel industry. When he's not writing tutorials for Advanced Ads or supporting other users, he prefers staying in Marrakech or at the Baltic Sea.

With over a decade of industry expertise, Advanced Ads is your surefooted ally in the ad tech realm. Their array of WordPress ad manager plugins enhances your advertising strategy, ensuring effective ad placements. Rely on their ad tech proficiency to stay ahead in the dynamic world of digital advertising. Contact info

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