Why and When You Need a Printer Friendly Option for WordPress Posts?

Some WordPress themes come with a separate CSS stylesheet for printing. This stylesheet is used when a user prints a page. Other WordPress themes, may not change your site’s appearance when a user prints it.

Usually this results into users printing all the images, sidebars, headers, menus, etc. Most of the time it is not very pleasant to read or look at.

You can see how your WordPress theme handles print by pressing CTRL+P when looking at a page from your site. Your browser will show print preview of your site.

If your theme shows your site as it appears in the browser, then it is not handling print any differently.

In that case, you can use a printer friendly option on your WordPress site. It will not only make your content printer friendly, it will also encourage users to print with an on-screen print icon.

We will be showing you two plugins that can add a print option to WordPress, and you can choose the one that best suits your need.

Method 1: Add Print Button in WordPress with Print Post and Page Plugin

This method is recommended for users who do not want to add code to their WordPress theme files.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Print Post and Page plugin.

Upon activation the plugin will add a new menu item labeled ‘Print’ to your WordPress admin bar. Clicking on it will take you to the plugin’s settings page.

Here you can choose the print icon size and color, text to accompany the icon, and print alignment. Optionally, you can add custom CSS that you want to include into your print template.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save and Activate’ button to store your plugin settings.

You can now visit your WordPress site and you will see a print button on your single posts.

However, the plugin does not automatically adds print button to your WordPress pages. You will need to add [printicon align= left ] shortcode to your WordPress pages to display the print icon on pages.

Method 2: Adding Printer Friendly Option Using WP-Print

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP-Print plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Print to configure plugin settings.

You can display print icon with text, just the icon, or just the text. You can choose between two icons, and you also change the text that appears with the icon.

Under print options, you will be asked if you want to print comments, links, images, or videos. By default, the plugin does not print comments and videos. You can change that if you want the plugin to print comments and videos as well.

At the bottom of each printed post, the plugin will add a disclaimer/copyright text. By default, it will show your site’s name. You can change that to anything you want, and you can also use HTML tags inside the disclaimer field.

Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

Now comes the tricky part. The plugin will not actually add the print button into your posts. You will have to manually edit your WordPress theme files to add the button.

Depending on your theme, you may need to add the code into single.php, page.php, archive.php, content.php, etc.

Locate the line in your theme template that looks like this:

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<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

Below this line, you need to add the following code where you want to display the print button:

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<?php if(function_exists( wp_print )) { print_link(); } ?>

That’s all, you can now visit your website and you will be able to see the print button.

Sometimes you may have content that you do not want to be included into the print version. Simply wrap that content between [donotprint] and [/donotprint] shortcode, like this:

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[donotprint]This text will not be displayed when printing[/donotprint]

We hope this article helped you add a printer friendly option to your WordPress posts. You may also want to see our guide on how to add PDF download for posts in WordPress.

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Why and When to Use Relative Dates in WordPress?

As you may have noticed that a lot of social networking websites use relative time to describe how long ago an entry was posted.

For example, two hours ago, yesterday, just now, etc.

Relative dates give users a sense of how much time has passed since something was posted. This is why a lot of WordPress blogs and news sites are adding time ago style relative dates.

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to add relative dates to your WordPress site.

Adding Relative Dates in WordPress Using a Plugin

First, thing you need to do is install and activate the Meks Time Ago plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » General page and scroll down to ‘Meks Time Ago Options’ section.

You can select where and when you want to use relative time. You can choose to show it for date, time. or both. You can also limit it to posts not older than a specific time.

If you run a multilingual site or want to change the text ‘ago’, then you can do that here as well.

Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

That’s all, you can now visit your website to see it in action on your posts and comments.

Adding Relative Dates in WordPress Manually

This method requires you to install a plugin, but you will also have to add code manually to your WordPress theme.

If this is your first time adding code to your WordPress site, then you may want to see our guide on pasting snippets from web into WordPress.

You may also need to see how to use FTP to edit and upload files to WordPress.

Ready? Let’s get started.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP RelativeDate plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will try to replace the default WordPress dates in your theme with relative date and time.

However, since there are so many WordPress themes using different methods to display date and time, it may not be able to work with your theme.

Visit your website to see if it was able to successfully change date and time to relative dates.

If it does not work for your theme, then you may need to edit your WordPress theme files where you want to show relative date and time.

For example, if you want to show relative date on a single post page, then you will need to edit single.php or content-single.php files. For comments, you may need to edit comments.php file.

Basically, you will be looking for any of these lines in your theme’s template files:

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<?php the_date(); ?>

<?php get_the_time(); ?>

<?php get_the_date(); ?>

You will need to replace them with the following line:

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<?php relative_post_the_date(); ?>

You may need to edit multiple files in your WordPress theme depending on where you want to display relative dates on your site.

That’s all, you can now visit your website to see relative dates in action.

We hope this article helped you learn how to display relative dates in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of 25 most useful WordPress widgets for your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Why You Should Optimize Your WordPress Database?

If you have been using WordPress for a while, then there is probably a lot of useless data in your database such as post revisions, spam comments, trash, transient options, orphaned meta data, and so on.

This data increases your WordPress database size, which means your WordPress backups will take more disk space and time to restore.

Cleaning up this unwanted data significantly reduces your WordPress database size, which means faster backups, easier restore, and improved database performance.

Having said that, let’s see how to easily optimize your WordPress database and remove clutter.

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How to Optimize Your WordPress Database

Since you will be working on your WordPress database, you need to make sure that you create a complete WordPress backup before moving forward.

Next, you need to install and activate the WP-Optimize plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

This plugin is built by the same team behind the popular WordPress backup plugin, UpdraftPlus.

Upon activation, the plugin will add a new menu item in your WordPress admin bar labeled WP-Optimize. Clicking on it will take you to plugin’s settings page.

You will see a list of operations that the plugin will perform on your database. Review them carefully and uncheck any item that you don’t want to run at the moment.

Items marked in red require more intensive database operations. If the process is interrupted during the operation, then it may corrupt data. That’s why we strongly recommend that you create a backup of your website before selecting the items in red.

After selecting the items, click on ‘Run on all selected items’ button at the top.

The plugin will now start optimizing your WordPress database and show you the progress.

That’s all, you have successfully optimized your WordPress database.

Note: If your MySQL database tables are using the InnoDB engine, then WP-Optimize will not perform database table optimization. You can perform that operation manually, using phpMyAdmin. See our beginner’s guide on WordPress database management with phpMyAdmin for detailed instructions.

We hope this article helped you optimize WordPress database. You may also want to see our ultimate guide to boost WordPress speed and performance.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Yoast Comment Hacks plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » Comment Hacks page to configure plugin settings.

Yoast Comment Hacks plugin is a combination of many useful hacks to improve the default WordPress comment system. See our guide on how to install and setup Yoast Comment Hacks for WordPress to learn about all its features.

Right now we will focus on the comment redirect feature in the plugin.

Go ahead and click on the ‘Comment Redirect’ tab on the settings page.

Here you need to select a page where you want your first time commenters to be redirected to. This could be a simple thank you page with an email signup form, social media links, and your most popular posts.

You can also redirect users to a landing page, special offer, or a specific lead magnet page.

After selecting your page, don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

To see the comment redirect in action, you will need to logout of your WordPress site first. After that go to any post on your website and leave a comment using a random name and email address.

You will be automatically redirected to your selected page when you submit the comment.

Creating A Powerful Comment Redirect Page

Yoast Comment Hacks only redirects first time commenters. This means you only get one shot at converting those users and leaving a meaningful impression.

Here are some tips on creating a powerful comment redirect page.

You can create a beautiful custom page using a drag and drop page builder plugin. We recommend using Beaver Builder which comes with several ready to use page templates that will work perfectly for this purpose.

You also need to set a goal for your comment redirect page. This goal could be any task you would like to see the user perform. For example, buying a product, signing up for your email list, following you on social media, etc.

You can use OptinMonster to capture those leads. It is the best lead generation software that helps you convert abandoning visitors into subscribers and customers.

We hope this article helped you learn how to redirect your user’s attention with comment redirect in WordPress. You may also want to see these actionable tips to drive traffic to your WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Why Add Content to RSS Feed Footer in WordPress?

RSS feeds offer an easier way for users to read your blog posts in their favorite feed reader apps such as Feedly.

However, RSS feeds can also be used by content scrapers to automatically steal your blog posts as soon as they are published. Sometimes these content scrapers end up ranking higher than your original post in search engines. To learn more, see our guide on how to prevent blog content scraping in WordPress.

Adding additional content to your RSS feed footer allows you to add backlinks to your main site and the original post at the end of each article. This allows you to rank higher for your posts even if they are copied by content scrapers.

By manipulating your RSS feed footer, you can also encourage readers to visit your website from time to time.

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to easily control your RSS feed footer in WordPress.

Method 1. Add Content to RSS Feed Footer Using Yoast SEO

This method is easier and recommended for all users. It uses the Yoast SEO plugin, which is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin.

First you need to install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit SEO » Dashboard page and click on the ‘Features’ tab. Next, scroll down to the ‘Advanced settings pages’ section and make sure this option is ‘Enabled’.

Don’t forget to save your changes to reload the plugin. After that, you will be able to see more options under the SEO menu.

Next, you need to visit SEO » Advanced page and click on the RSS tab.

Under the RSS feed settings, the first box allows you to add content before each post. The second box allows you to add content to the post footer.

Yoast SEO automatically adds credit text with backlink to your website in the RSS feed footer. You can either use the text as-is, or you can add your own content.

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save changes’ button to store your settings.

You can now view your RSS feed to see the changes. At the end of each article, you will be able to see content you added to your RSS feed footer.

Method 2: Manually Add Content to RSS Feed Footer in WordPress

This method requires you to add code to your WordPress files. If you haven’t done this before, then check out our guide on how to copy and paste code in WordPress.

You’ll need to copy and paste the following code in your theme’s functions.php file or a site-specific plugin.

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function wpb_feed_filter($query) {

if ($query->is_feed) {

add_filter( the_content , wpb_feed_content_filter );

add_filter( the_excerpt_rss , wpb_feed_content_filter );

}

return $query;

}

add_filter( pre_get_posts , wpb_feed_filter );

function wpb_feed_content_filter($content) {

// Content you want to show goes here

$content .=  <p>Thanks for reading, check out <a href=  . get_bloginfo( url ) .  > . get_bloginfo( name ) . </a> for more awesome stuff.</p> ;

return $content;

}

This code simply checks if the page requested is an RSS feed, and then filters the content to display your message in the RSS feed footer.

We hope this article helped you learn how to control RSS feed footer in WordPress. You may also want to see these helpful tips to optimize your WordPress RSS feed and get more traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Why Are You Seeing v=XXXX String in Your WordPress URLs?

This string appears on websites running an online store using WooCommerce. It is not a bug or an error, but an actual feature of the plugin.

The purpose of this string is to help WooCommerce calculate tax and shipping based on a user’s geographic location. The string helps make the feature compatible with WordPress caching plugins like WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache.

However, if you don’t need to calculate shipping and taxes based on different locations, then you probably accidentally enabled this feature.

Let’s take a look at how to easily disable it and remove the random v=xxxxxx strings from your WordPress URLs.

Removing v=xxxx String from WordPress URLs

First you need to login to your WordPress admin area and head over to the WooCommerce » Settings page.

Under the General tab, you need to scroll down to ‘Default customer location’ option.

It would be set to ‘Geolocate (with page caching support)’. You need to change it to either ‘No location by default’ or ‘Shop base address’.

Don’t forget to click on the save changes button to store your settings.

If you are using a caching plugin, then you will need to clear your WordPress cache. After that you can visit your website, and the geolocation string will disappear from your WordPress URLs.

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How to GeoLocate Default Location Without the URL String?

You can do that by selecting the ‘Geolocate’ option in the ‘Default customer location’ setting.

However, this option is not compatible with static caching plugins, and it will show incorrect shipping and tax information to users due to previously cached page.

Running WooCommerce without caching is not recommended because it will slow down your site’s speed and performance.

If you must use Geolocate to calculate shipping and taxes on the fly, then for the time being you will have to tolerate the ugly v=xxxx string in your WordPress URLs.

We hope this article helped you learn how to remove v=xxxx string from your WordPress URLs. You may also want to see our ultimate list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

What Causes Unable to Establish Secure Connection Error in WordPress?

WordPress comes with a built-in system to manage updates. This system regularly checks for updates and show notifications for you to install plugin / theme updates.

However, it needs to connect to the WordPress.org website in order to check for updates or install them. Due to some misconfiguration on your WordPress hosting server, your website may fail to connect with WordPress.org website.

This will result in a secure connection error, and you will see an error message like this:

An unexpected error occurred. Something may be wrong with WordPress.org or this server’s configuration. If you continue to have problems, please try the support forums. (WordPress could not establish a secure connection to WordPress.org. Please contact your server administrator.) in /home/username/public_html/wp-admin/includes/update.php on line 122

That being said, let’s see how to easily fix secure connection error in WordPress.

Fixing Secure Connection Error in WordPress

There are multiple ways to fix the unexpected secure connection error in WordPress. You can try one of the following solutions based on your situation.

Hosting and Server Related Issues

If your shared hosting server is under DDoS attack, then it is likely that the connection to WordPress.org will timeout causing the secure connection error.

In that case, you can wait for a few minutes and try again. If the error persists, then you need to reach out to your web hosting company’s support team.

Cloud or VPS Server Connectivity Issue

If you are on a cloud or VPS hosting, then it is possible that your server is unable to connect to WordPress.org due to some DNS issues.

In that case, you can point your server directly to WordPress.org servers. You will need to connect to your server using SSH.

SSH is short for secure shell which is an encrypted protocol that allows you to connect to your server using command line tools.

Windows users can use a tool called PuTTy whereas Mac / Linux users can use the terminal app.

You will need login credentials for the account with shell access to your hosting account. You can get this information from your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard or ask your web hosting server provider.

In the terminal, you can connect to your server like this:

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ssh username@example.com

Don’t forget to replace username with your own username and example.com with your own domain name.

Once connected, you need to run the following command:

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sudo nano /etc/hosts

This will open a file, and you will need to add the following code at the bottom of the file:

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۶۶٫۱۵۵٫۴۰٫۲۰۲ api.wordpress.org

You can now save your changes and exit the the editor. Visit your website to see if this resolved the error.

Fixing WordPress Secure Connection Error on Localhost

If you are running WordPress on your own computer (localhost), then you may not have cURL extension enabled for PHP. This extension is required to access WordPress.org for updates.

You will need to edit the php.ini file on your computer. This file is usually located in the PHP folder of your Mamp, Xampp, or WAMP folder.

If you are on a Windows computer, then look for the following line:

;extension=php_curl.dll

Mac and Linux users would have to look for this line:

;extension=curl.so

Now you need to remove the semicolon before the text to enable the extension. Don’t forget to save your php.ini file.

Lastly, don’t forget to restart the Apache server for changes to take affect.

Check Open Ports in Firewall

If cURL extension is properly installed on your local server, then the next step is to check your internet connection firewall.

Your computer’s firewall may be blocking outgoing connections from local server to WordPress.org. If you are on Windows, then press the start button and search for Windows Firewall. Mac users can find firewall settings in System Preferences » Security & Privacy

You need to add Apache to your firewall’s allowed programs and allow both incoming and outgoing connections.

You will need to restart Apache for changes to take effect.

We hope this article helped you solve the WordPress secure connection error. You may also want to see our ultimate step by step WordPress security guide for beginners.

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Why and When You Should Turn Off PHP Errors in WordPress?

PHP errors that you can see on your WordPress site are usually warnings and notices. These are not like internal server error, syntax errors, or fatal errors, which stop your website from loading.

Notices and warnings are the kind of errors that do not stop WordPress from loading your website. See how WordPress actually works behind the scenes for more details.

The purpose of these errors are to help developers debug issues with their code. Plugin and theme developers need this information to check for compatibility and best practices.

However, if you are not developing a theme, plugin, or a custom website, then these errors should be hidden. Because if they appear on the front-end of your website to all your visitors, it looks extremely unprofessional.

If you see an error like above on on your site, then you may want to inform the respective theme or plugin developer. They may release a fix that would make the error go away. Meanwhile, you can also turn these errors off.

Let’s take a look at how to easily turn off PHP errors, notices, and warnings in WordPress.

Turning off PHP Errors in WordPress

For this part, you will need to edit the wp-config.php file.

Inside your wp-config.php file, look for the following line:

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define( WP_DEBUG , true);

It is also possible, that this line is already set to false. In that case, you’ll see the following code:

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define( WP_DEBUG , false);

In either case, you need to replace this line with the following code:

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ini_set( display_errors , Off );

ini_set( error_reporting , E_ALL );

define( WP_DEBUG , false);

define( WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY , false);

Don’t forget to save your changes and upload your wp-config.php file back to the server.

You can now visit your website to confirm that the PHP errors, notices, and warnings have disappeared from your website.

Turning on PHP Errors in WordPress

If you are working on a website on local server or staging area, then you may want to turn on error reporting. In that case you need to edit your wp-config.php file and replace the code you added earlier with the following code:

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define( WP_DEBUG , true);

define( WP_DEBUG_DISPLAY , true);

This code will allow WordPress to start displaying PHP errors, warnings, and notices again.

We hope this article helped you learn how to turn off php errors in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

What does this Plugin do?

It adds a live retweet button which utilizes the Twitter @anywhere live tweet box API and light box effect.

Easy to follow Admin panel

To download this plugin simply visit the official Plugin Page:

Download Retweet Anywhere

By the end of this article, you will have answers to all your questions about building an email list.

What is an Email List and Why is it so Important?

An email list is a list of names and email addresses of people who gave you permission to send them updates and promotions from your business via email.

Why is this so important?

Because these subscribers joined your email list from your website and verified their identity by clicking on a link (double-optin). They are extremely interested in what you have to offer.

According to Direct Marketing Association, email marketing on average sees a 4300 percent return on investment (ROI) for businesses in USA.

In our business, email lists get 10 times higher conversions than social media campaigns. This makes sense if you think about these five advantages of email as a communication channel:

Email is Personal – Email allows you to land into a user’s inbox. There is no ranking system limiting your reach. It is very direct, personal, and casual.

Email is Purposeful – To get your email a user needs to signup for your email list and confirm their email address. Someone doing this much work is obviously interested in hearing from you, and they are much more receptive to your message.

Email is Targeted – As we mentioned earlier the user has already shown interest in your products / content. Since you already know what they like, you can deliver them highly relevant content and offers to get better results. This is called segmentation, and we will cover that later in the article.

You Own Your Email List – You do not own Facebook, Twitter, or Google. Your social media campaigns and SEO efforts can go to waste when these platform change their policies. On the other hand, you own your email list, and it is not influenced by decisions of other businesses.

Email is One-on-One – People read email in the privacy of their inbox. The message is not on a public timeline or newsfeed. They can ask you questions directly in private with confidence. This helps build trust and connection.

This is precisely why every smart business in the world has an email list.

Big name brands learned this lesson a long time ago, and that’s why they spend thousands of dollars on social media campaigns to get people to sign up for their email lists.

They understand that email marketing is the best long term investment with a much higher return. Because people will continue to get their message at a very low cost for a longer period of time.

Social Media vs Email Marketing

Now you’re probably thinking, wait a minute. What about social media?

A lot of social media experts and consultants, in an attempt to sell their services, downplay the importance of an email list.

In fact, we have even been asked isn’t email marketing kind of dead with social media taking over everything?

The best way to answer this question is to look at the information Twitter and Facebook ask you before you create an account:

Yup, it’s an email address. Because these companies know that emails are the most direct and reliable way of getting in touch.

All social media platforms are building an email list because they are smart business owners. This helps their valuation when selling their business.

While social media is a great way to reach your audience, it’s important to keep in perspective the timely nature of social media platforms.

They come and go.

Not too long ago we had MySpace, FriendFeed, Google Buzz, Plurk and countless others. Most of them are either dead now or irrelevant.

Today we have Facebook and Twitter, but not everyone is as hooked up on these sites. Some prefer other places like Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Snapchat, etc.

But studies show that at least 91% of consumers check their email on a daily basis.

We are not saying that social media is not important. It is, and you should explore every opportunity to reach out to your audiences.

However you should spend more time and effort into something that guarantees much higher results.

What You Need to Start Building an Email List?

Hopefully by now, you should know why building an email list is so important, and why ignoring it would be a HUGE mistake.

So let’s take a look at what you need to start building your email list.

۳ Things You Need to Build an Email List:

A website or blog.

An email marketing service.

High-converting opt-in forms

All three of these are fairly easy to setup, and none of them require you to know how to code.

For the sake of this article, we will only be focusing on the last two items in the list. If you don’t have a website or blog yet, then see our step by step guide on how to start a blog.

Choosing the Best Email Marketing Service

There are tons of email marketing services online. Often beginners use the free options to save cost, which is understandable. However, some of those free platforms are not the best option. Why?

Services like FeedBurner or Jetpack Subscriptions offer blog subscription via email. This allows your users to receive an email update every time you publish a new blog post.

The downside to a blog notification service like this are:

You will have to create a blog post to send an email. This means that information you want to share will have to be publicly available first. You can’t send out private email newsletters.

You can’t personalize the email message. It will be delivered in the same format often with no branding or personalization.

You can’t categorize subscribers by interests, demographics, or content type.

There is no reporting. You don’t know how many people got email, what percentage of users opened it, and how many of them clicked on links.

If you later tried to move to a paid service, your users will have to re-confirm their subscription. Many of them will not do it, and you will end up losing subscribers.

This is why we ALWAYS recommend using a professional email marketing service. Yes, they cost a little bit of money, but they are an investment in your business which pays huge returns.

The benefit of professional email marketing services are:

You can send private mass emails to your subscribers.

You can see subscriber activity and group your subscribers based on actions they take.

You can run A/B split tests to see which email subject line, content, and offers work best with your subscribers.

With reporting tools, you can see which country you have the most subscribers from. You can adjust your timezone preferences, and send emails at the right time.

Last, but definitely the most important, you can see the email addresses of all your subscribers.

There are hundreds of professional email marketing services available, but we have compiled a list of the best email marketing services.

For small businesses, we recommend using Constant Contact because they are one of the largest and fastest growing email marketing services in the world.

They offer a 60 day free trial. This gives you plenty of time to setup and start seeing the results. At the end of 60 days, your email list would likely be paying for itself (cost $20 / month). Start your free trial.

Because we know people often like to see options before they make a decision, we also recommend AWeber. They are another popular email marketing service provider, and they offer our users a 30-day free trial.

Once you have signed up with an email marketing service, the next step is to add opt-in forms to your website to allow your users to subscribe.

Growing Your Email List and Getting More Subscribers

While choosing the right email marketing service is important, getting more subscribers is even more important because this is how you make money.

The biggest mistake beginners make is not strategically placing high-converting opt-in forms.

While some WordPress themes come with built-in sidebar widgets, they don’t convert as well. Your email marketing service may also provide you with codes to embed in your theme, but that requires you to know how to code.

This is why we recommend our users to use OptinMonster. It is the most powerful conversion optimization software that helps you convert abandoning website visitors into subscribers and customers.

You can easily create high-converting optin forms such as lightbox popups, floating header and footer bars, slide-in scroll boxes, fullscreen welcome mat, after post and inline forms, and more.

But what makes OptinMonster really powerful is the behavior automation and personalization features. OptinMonster allows you to automatically show different opt-in forms based on where the user is coming from, which page they are visiting, and what they are doing on your website.

For example, the Exit-Intent® feature track your users mouse behavior and show them a targeted opt-in form at the precise moment they are about to leave. This helps you convert abandoning visitors into subscribers.

This is important because over 70% of people leaving your website will never return.

That’s why influencers like Michael Hyatt, Neil Patel, and Social Media Examiner use exit-intent on their websites. It helped Social Media Examiner add over 95,000 new subscribers in 7 months.

But for smaller businesses, this is even more crucial. Nicolas Gagne, a small business owner, combined Constant Contact with a single exit-intent optin to grow his email list by 500%. This helped him triple his revenue from his online store (see the full case study).

There are tons more case studies and OptinMonster reviews that you can read as well.

Get started with OptinMonster today — Use the coupon WPB10 to get 10% off.

Note: OptinMonster was started by WPBeginner’s founder, Syed Balkhi, because he wanted to get more email subscribers, faster. It helped us increase our email signups by 600%. Due to popular request, we released this tool for public, and now it’s the most recommended lead generation software in the market.

List Building Strategies and Resources

Having the right tools is crucial, but knowing how to use them properly is what makes the most difference.

In your email marketing strategy, the most important thing you should plan out is segmentation. This is the process of grouping your subscribers, so you can better personalize your emails based on interest. It helps you get higher open rates and click-through rates. This definitive guide to email marketing has all the information you need to segment your email list like a pro.

Content Upgrades are the highest converting opt-in forms. It’s a technique where you give your users bonus content at the end of your popular blog posts. These usually convert 5 times higher than a regular opt-in. Here are some content upgrade ideas that you should check out. We have written a guide on how to add content upgrades in WordPress.

If you’re not sure how to create an opt-in form, then use this 63-point checklist for creating a high-converting optin form.

You may want to check out Kevin Duncan’s article on 16 ridiculously simple ways to get more email subscribers in less than 5 minutes.

In case you want more ideas, Mary Fernandez also shared 73 proven and simple ways to grow your email list that should get you going.

Conclusion

It does not matter what kind of business you run, what kind of website you have, or what industry you are in.

If you have a website, and you want to turn your visitors into returning customers, then you need to get them in your email list.

We hope this article helped you understand why building an email list is important and helped you get started on the right foot.

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