You have to enable push notifications on your WordPress website immediately if you are still using old and uncool pop-ups.
People are now immune to popups, and they even get annoyed if they see a popup right off the bat when they visit a website. So, you have to use something like a push notification that’s less intrusive and doesn’t annoy the user that much.
Unlike pop-ups, push notifications can be controlled by a user and a website cannot enable/show a push notification without the user’s consent. This makes push notification one of the most ethical ways of showing latest updates, deals and attract people to your WordPress website.
In this WordPress tutorial, I will walk you through my process of setting up push notifications within 10 minutes. You don’t have to spend any money. Also, this is the easiest way to enable push notification on WordPress.
Let’s get started.
Step #1: Head over to the plugin dashboard of your WordPress website and search with the term “Web Push Notifications“.
Make sure to install the one developed by Webpushr. I have been using their plugin for quite a while and can vouch for the reliability.
Step #2: Once you activate the plugin, it will take you to a one-time installation and registration page. Click on the “1-Step Registration” option and proceed.
Clicking the button will trigger a modal window with a simple signup form. Fill in your details and click on the “Register” button.
Step #3: After your registration is complete, you will be able to set up your push notification settings. Unless you have specific marketing needs and want to use this plugin to alert people to visit your website whenever you publish an article, leave everything as default.
Below this settings panel, you will also find two other panels that’ll let you customize the appearance of your push notification. Click on the option that you need.
Step #4: Setting up the welcome push notification.
As you can see, they’ve already filled in a common welcome push notification details. If you want, you can easily change them. I would change the “Icon” and “Image” of the welcome push notification. Furthermore, you can also set appearance for multiple operating System.
Step #5: Setting up the opt-in notification
Although there aren’t many setting and tweaks that you can do in this step, you can still customize this opt-in box to compliment the overall design of your website.
There are various other settings and options that you can easily enable and tweak depending on your marketing needs.
If you’ve completed the above setup, any future visitor coming to your WordPress website will see an opt-in notification similar to the one shown in the image above. If the visitor, clicks on the “Yes” button, they will receive a push notification whenever you send one.
Let’s answer a few FAQs related to push notifications.
Why push notifications and not pop-ups?
Pop-ups are intrusive to the overall user-experience. Some pop-up windows won’t let you scroll or view the content on the website unless you take a specific action. Assuming that most people are going to visit your website using a smartphone, having these pop-ups will result in high-bounce rates.
So, in place of these pop-ups, many brands and online magazines have started using push notifications. Once disabled, browsers will not let the website show push notifications unless enabled from the client side. This gives the user the ultimate power of choice.
What type of push notifications should you send?
You can use push notifications to inform your users of new blog post updates, latest deals or important announcements. Make sure to not send multiple push notifications in a single day, as it may irritate the user and force them to block your website from sending further notifications.
How many notifications per day?
How many notifications would you tolerate? I would send more than 1 push notifications on a single day. To be honest, I don’t send more than 2 push notifications in a week. This helps to keep the CTR high and bounce rates low.
Are push notifications bad for user-experience?
Yes, push notifications are not good for user-experience. Pay attention to any startup website that’s gone “Unicorn” in the last decade. You will not find any such push notification on their website. They mostly do this via their smartphone apps, which doesn’t interfere with the overall user-experience.
So, long story short, if you are an UX purist who deeply cares about providing seamless browsing and content-consuming experience to the user, stay away from using push notifications.
I don’t use any form of push notification on some of my authority blogs. But that’s my opinion. Give it a try and see how your users behave and react. Remember, A/B testing is the key to better ROI in marketing.