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How-to 11 min read August 20, 2019

How to create a subscription to website updates

Various options of subscriptions to website updates are an effective way to return the target audience to the resource and increase the conversion. Visitors are usually returned via email marketing, push notifications, and RSS feed subscriptions.
Thousands of users will visit the resource only once and leave it irrevocably if the ability to subscribe to updates on the site is missing.

How to create a subscription on your website

E-mail marketing is an effective way to build trust among users and turn them into customers. Many visitors are not ready to make a purchase or order a service when they visit a new resource for the first time, but some users make purchases or orders when they regularly receive the mailing materials.

Make sure that the form of subscription to the newsletter is harmoniously combined with the design of the website, but at the same time, stand out against the general background, focusing on itself. The main condition that must be met is the availability of the subscription form for users: it should not be hidden in the internal sections of the site or hidden under banners.

By way of displaying the forms of subscriptions are divided into static, pop-up windows and widgets called by clicking. From a technical point of view, forms are classified into subscriptions without confirming of the e-mail address - Single Opt-in - and subscriptions with confirmation - Double Opt-in.

To maximize the conversion, you need to pay attention to finding the best form option and drawing up a selling text on it.

Static subscription form

In this case, you need to add a form to the main page and make the subscription on the website visible and eye-catching. For this purpose, motivating text is used.

There are various options for placing a subscription form to the news of your website:

  • during promotions and special offers, place a large subscription form in the center of the main page. Formulate in the form of a profitable offer for your new subscribers:
How to make a subscription on website
  • place the form in the side of the page to the left or to the right, for unobtrusive informing of your visitors about the possibility of a subscription. Avoid too concise offers to subscribe to your website, which do not provide information about the benefits of a subscription.

    The user must understand what exactly he will receive by sending his data - discounts, promo code, regular newsletter. A simple call to subscribe will attract fewer visitors:
Ineffective call to subscribe to updates
Write a brief description of exactly what benefits the site visitor will receive from the subscription and what is her frequency:
How to create a subscription on website
  • add the "Subscribe to website" menu item in the top panel so that the interested user being in any section of the portal can subscribe at any time:
How to make a subscription form on your website using the menu button
  • the bottom of the page is another neutral place for the subscription form, which does not prevent the user from accessing the main content of the website. After reviewing all the contents of the page and making sure that the website is interesting for him, the visitor will be able to subscribe to updates.
Form newsletter in footer

Pop-up window

Pop-up windows are a more efficient and more annoying user subscription tool at the same time. The number of subscribers in the presence of a profitable offer in the pop-up window will double.

Display the pop-up window for a few seconds after the user has accessed on your site. At the same time, make sure that the window is easy to close from different devices, otherwise most visitors can leave your website:
Popup Subscription Form

Subscription widget

To subscribe using the widget, the user must click on a specific place in the website interface - a button or a picture, while opening the subscription form. Using a widget is one of the most effective ways to attract the user's attention and motivate to subscribe by offering a gift or a special discount on the first purchase:
A gift for the newsletter subscription
Subscription discount code

Single opt-in

Subscription on the site that does not require confirmation of the email address. A faster way to design an email subscription, the disadvantage of which is obtaining a high percentage of invalid user addresses.

When choosing this type of subscription, use the <input type = "email"> field in the form to automatically check the entered data for compliance with the format of the email address. In order to have incorrect addresses in the database, it is preferable to use the Double opt-in subscription option.

Double opt-in

Type of subscription with email confirmation. With this option, the user must confirm the subscription by clicking the button or link in the letter sent to the specified address. This method adds additional actions to the subscription process for the user, however, it allows you to get only the correct addresses of real site visitors to the database.

Push notifications

What are push notifications

Push notifications are the easiest and fastest way to subscribe. Push messages are divided into browser, computer and mobile - sent by applications installed on the smartphone.

The user does not need to fill out the form and leave his data, after clicking "Allow" he will regularly receive Push-notifications from the website.
Push notifications request
This method allows you to collect the maximum audience, but at the same time it will also include users who are not interested in the offers of your website, clicking on the permission button automatically.

After confirming the permission, the user will receive Push notifications on behalf of the website in this format:
Subscribe to push notifications
When clicking on a message, the user gets to the specified address of the website.

You can unsubscribe and block push notifications in your browser settings.

Configure Push Notifications

Push notifications can be configured in two ways: on your own and using third-party services.
1
For self-implementation on the site, you must have an SSL certificate, since the Push technology setting is available only in the https protocol.

To write code, you need to create a project in Google Firebase in order to use Firebase Cloud Messaging as a message server. Then, the client and JS scripts are created to subscribe and send notifications from the server.
2
When using third-party services, adding Push-notifications to the website is easier and does not require programming knowledge. Let's take a look at the Gravitec.net Push message service for example.
Gravitec.net push notification service
After registering with the service, we will enter data about the site and its protocol, add an icon:
How to create push notifications on website
After adding the site, we will integrate it with the service. To do this, copy the code with the received identifier and add the resulting SDK files to the website folder:
Integration of Gravitec.net notifications with website
After that, you can proceed to the mailing settings. Enter the title, the mailing text and see how the notification will look in various operating systems:
Setting push-notifications in Gravitec.net

RSS feed

RSS is a website feed that allows you to quickly broadcast updated materials of the resource, published on the RSS feed. The RSS feed is configured using the XML file and the feedburner.google.com service.
1
To add news to the RSS feed, create in the root directory of the site a file with the .xml extension, in which we write the following code:
<? xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<rss version = "2.0">
<channel>
<title> RSS Feed Title </ title>
<link> Site URL </ link>
<description> Description of the RSS feed </ description>
<lastBuildDate> Last Modified Date </ lastBuildDate>
<item>
<title> First News Title </ title>
<link> URL of the first news </ link>
<description> Description of the first news </ description>
<pubDate> First news posting date </ pubDate>
</ item>
<item>
<title> Second News Title</ title>
<link> Second news URL </ link>
<description> Description of the second news </ description>
<pubDate> Date of publication of the second news </ pubDate>
</ item>
...
<item>
<title> Some News Headline </ title>
<link> URL of some news </ link>
<description> Description of some News </ description>
<pubDate> Some-News posting date </ pubDate>
</ item>
</ channel>
</ rss>
2
Add an RSS feed file to the broadcast service. To do this, enter the feed address in the format site address / xml-filename.xml:
Adding RSS feeds to the broadcast service
After this, the XML file is checked and, if everything is correct, a welcome message appears:
Setting RSS feeds of website
Enter the name of the feed, change the address if necessary, and click "Next". As a result, we obtain the contents of the compiled XML file to the specified self-specified or automatically generated address:
RSS Feed at FeedBurner
3
At the final stage of configuration, we will add a link to the RSS feed in the right place of the HTML code of the website:
<p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/com/Ciup" target="_blank">RSS</a></p>

Conclusion

Use various tools to return the target audience to your site and maximize interaction with each site visitor:
1
Add a static form of email subscription to the site, place it in such a way that the user immediately paid attention to it and saw the reasoned advantages of the subscription.
2
During the promotional period and special offers, use a dynamic form in the form of a pop-up window or widget with a bright design and a gift offer for a subscription.
3
Prefer the option of a subscription with confirmation - Double Opt-in - to receive correct email addresses of subscribers.
4
Customize Push-notifications with interesting materials of the site to attract the maximum number of subscribers.
5
Create an RSS feed subscription form with the most popular resource articles.

This article is a part of Serpstat's Checklist tool
Checklist at Serpstat" title = "How to create a subscription to website updates 16261788319154" />
Checklist is a ready-to-do list that helps to keep reporting of the work progress on a specific project. The tool contains templates with an extensive list of project development parameters where you can also add your own items and plans.
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