Do you need to enable user registration in WordPress to streamline the user signup and management process?
You’re in the right place! This article will discuss the two methods of enabling front-end user registration.
You can either use:
- The default membership option in WordPress
- A WordPress plugin like User Registration
Let’s discuss the details below.
Method 1: Default WordPress Membership Feature
Allowing user registration for your WordPress website through the default method is easier than you can imagine. We’ve made it simpler with the easy-to-understand steps below.
Step 1: To start things off, log in to your WordPress site as admin.
Step 2: From the General section of the Settings tab, enable the “Membership” option. When disabled, this option prevents users from registering themselves on your website.
Step 3: Click on the New User Default Role dropdown and select the user role you want to assign to your users. You can choose from Subscriber, Contributor, Author, Editor, and Administrator.
Step 4: Hit the Save Changes button.
And that’s it! Your users will now be able to access the registration form on your website. All that’s left for you to do is decide where to display it.
Although this method is the simplest, it has limitations. That’s because the default registration form in WordPress has minimal fields and functionalities.
Furthermore, customization is out of the question unless you’re familiar with coding.
What if we told you there’s an alternative way to enable user registration while creating amazing registration forms?
Method 2: Using a WordPress Plugin
Yes, the User Registration plugin is your key to enabling user registration and setting up a complete registration system with advanced features at the same time.
With this powerful tool, you can build a custom registration form, assign user roles through forms, restrict user access, monitor user registrations through a separate dashboard, etc.
Below is a tutorial on how to use User Registration to enable front-end registration and create a custom registration form for users.
1. Install and Activate User Registration
First of all, you’ll need to install and activate the plugin on your site. You can directly install the plugin from the admin dashboard or download it from the WordPress repository, and then install it.
Refer to this complete guide on properly installing the plugin if you need guidance.
2. Set Up the Plugin
Once the installation is complete, you’ll be greeted with a welcome page. From here, you can choose to Get Started.
This option helps you set up your plugin settings, such as enabling user registration.
Simply press the Get Started button to start. You’ll arrive at the Install Pages step first. The plugin automatically installs the in-built Default Registration Form on your website.
Once you hit the Install & Proceed button, the Registration Page and My Account Page will be installed as well.
You can find the pages in the Pages tab of your dashboard. This means you won’t need to create a user profile page and registration page from scratch; you can use these sample pages instead.
After the installation is complete, click on Next to go to the General options.
As you can see, the Anyone can register option is enabled by default. Keep this on to enable user registration for frontend forms you’ll create using User Registration.
The Anyone can register option is synced with the Membership option in WordPress settings. So, you won’t have to revisit and configure the default settings again after this.
Once you’re done with the General options, click Next. Likewise, configure the remaining settings for Registration, Login, and My Account to move on to the Final Step.
Finally, you can visit the dashboard, edit the default form, or visit the registration page.
3. Create a New Custom Registration Form
You’re now fully equipped to create a new custom user registration form.
Go to User Registration >> Add New from your WordPress dashboard.
Here, you can choose among pre-built form templates and customize them on your own. Or, you can simply build one from scratch.
For a full tutorial, refer to this article on creating a custom registration form with User Registration.
4. Configure the Registration Form Settings
Next up is the registration form settings configuration. You can set the settings for individual registration forms from the Form Settings tab of the form builder.
Here, you’ll be able to set a user login option, choose a default user role, and change form templates.
Moreover, you can enable reCaptcha protection, change the success message position, and set custom success message text.
After you’ve completely customized your registration form, you can click on the Update form button.
And with that, the registration form is ready to be displayed on your website.
5. Add the Registration Form to Your Site
To display the form on your website, click the Embed button at the builder’s top.
This lets you directly create a new page or choose an existing page to add the registration form.
Let’s select Create New Page for now. Then, give the page a name and proceed ahead.
The plugin automatically creates a page with the form embedded.
Once you publish the page, it will display the registration form in the front end, through which users can register.
Wrapping Up!
In conclusion, enabling the option for users to register themselves is crucial since the admin alone can’t create all the users themselves.
For that, you can adopt any of these two methods:
- Enabling the default WordPress membership feature for front-end registration.
- Enabling registration through the User Registration plugin and adding custom registration forms to your site.
And that’s all in our article on how to enable user registration in WordPress. What’s next?
Visit our blog to read more articles on the User Registration plugin. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated on new posts.
