I’m an educational content creator looking to set up a website, and WordPress seems to be the most suitable to my needs. However I’m kinda lost on what to do and if what I’m looking for is even possible, for what price etc. Essentially, I want to build a reliable (not sluggish) website with a traffic of (max.) 1K per day, that has educational content up for sale. The educational content will be videos embedded for viewing but not available for download, with PDF’s available for download after purchase. The entire content is around 8 hours of 1080p, so I imagine it will be north of 30 GB. I am aware of the Woocommerce plug-in, but other than that I don’t know if what I’m looking for is possible? Are there any plugins or 3d party software allowing me to embed video with some functionality? (slowing it down, rewind, fast forward etc). Can I even have that level of control (i.e. Course videos unlock once they’re paid for, pdf’s can be sent to user via email). I’d appreciate if anyone has any recommendations for routes I can take, and what all that would approximately cost. I have purchased my own domain name so I don’t need a new one if that somehow adds to the cost too much.
P.S. The safety of customers transactions is of utmost importance, as is the ability to have backups and recover quickly from crashing with minimal downtime.
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Yes, all of this is possible, hire a developer.
Don’t host 1080p videos on your web server – you’ll chew up all your bandwidth. Use a purpose build platform like Vimeo.
And don’t use [Wordpress.com](https://Wordpress.com). There are thousands of better hosts that use the full open source version of WordPress ([wordpress.com](https://wordpress.com)’s version is paywall-crippled).
I think you are looking for something like Moodle, it is a LMS that can help you to achieve exactly what you are describing.
If you are asking if all of this can be achievable on a WordPress website? Absolutely, with the right tools and a bit of understanding and enough patience.
If you are asking what exactly you should do? I mean of course the obvious answer here is to hire a developer.
However if you are looking for having this set up by yourself through ready to use plugins, although I would strongly advice against it, but here you go:
A Vimeo account to host your videos
WooCommerce
WordPress Download Manager or WooCommerce Custom Email to handle the pdf side.
(optional) a membership plugin, WooCommerce membership could work or any plugin that makes specific pages only available for specific memberships.
Steps :
Host the videos on Vimeo and have them either protected with a password or private for your website’s domain if you choose to make it membership based.
Set up the product.
Either set up the custom email to send the pdf and the video’s password when the order is completed or make them available through the download manager.
If you decide to go with the membership route embed them in a membership protected page so when the order is completed, users get access.
Good luck!
I just recently wrote an article on how to build an online course website.
Everything you said is possible with WordPress.org
Go for astra theme, learndash or learnpress (free) plugin, memberpress plugin. Host the videos on private YouTube channel and embed them on wordpress. The videos will only unlock when paid for
I have an educational website with paid courses, and I’ve been using Learndash which has proven to be amazing. But you might need something less robust like a membership plugin to grant access to the certain files/media.
I host my site on WP Engine, and their customer service has been great too. Some people might opt for cheaper hosting or free plugins, but investing in quality services will save you from future headache. Trust me, I’ve been there.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I have been in a similar situation and can help you out.
I have built something similar. My client had tutorials too. His blog and freebies were on WordPress, landing pages also. Payment was done using Stripe (you just set it up using a plugin) and all content was uploaded on Teachable.
I am not sure how much of this you can do by yourself. But if you would hire a developer and he uses Elementor for building pages and do a training for you how to use it – you can keep mainteaning the website by yourself.
There are LMS (learning management systems) plugins you can use that will give you most of the functionality you want. There are hosts in the sidebar.
The heavy lift will be determined by your video content – if you try to deliver video content right from your website to 1000 people a day, you’ll kill your bandwidth and likely get your hosting account suspended (depending on the host). Web hosting servers aren’t optimized for video delivery, they’re optimized for website delivery. I don’t know a solution for that which still allows you to protect the content, so you’ll have to do some research to be sure.
“The educational content will be videos embedded for viewing but not available for download” that’s isn’t possible you can disable it but people with plug ins can still download it
There are several LMS plugins for WordPress, like LearnDash (which is pretty robust, and pretty heavy as well) and TutorLMS (that is the “new kid in the block, trying to knock out LearnDash”).
Those kinds of plugins will do some groundwork for you, however you will need to learn how to set up and use them.
Another option could be using a Membership plugin and set it up to allow access to specific content and do some drip content and such.
And of course the WooCommerce route. Which I think would be the least suitable for your needs.
Now, for protecting the videos from download. You can’t… Completely. You can make it more difficult, by having a provider that has got that capability. But be aware that all the files you publish online are subject to be downloaded.
I have set/published several sites with those builds, for what I read. You are looking to have a site with infoproducts not an eLearning site. And that is a huge point to take into consideration.
I’d look for a funnel builder and/or a membership plugin that gives you the liberty of enabling/protecting content based on the plans the user has got.
Feel free to message me if you need more help or have more sensitive questions regarding your site needs.
If this is your first website it’s a more difficult one to build and maintain in your own. But yea, you can do this with WordPress.
You forgot to include the most important detail, are you in any shape or form a web developer ?
If the answer is yes WordPress can offer enough out of box with additions to achieve what you want which is gated content and transactions.
When it comes to performance, generally speaking there are a set of best practices for the front end (media sizes mostly), back-end (how complex the queries get) and the server load (how much computational power, traffic etc).
Generally speaking you will be fine with the first two, but don’t skimp on web hosting it makes a big difference.