How to install an opt-in box on your website

Building a mailing list takes time and effort. You need to have an attractive free incentive to encourage sign ups, emails to send out in order to build a relationship with those who sign up and of course, tools in place, to collect those email addresses.

One of those essential tools is an opt-in box on your website. This is a simple sign up form, linked to your EMS (email marketing service, such as MailChimp or AWeber). It simply asks readers to enter their name and email address, in order to receive your free incentive.

It’s easy to get hooked up on setting up the technical elements of a mailing list, but once you’ve created the form, installing an opt-in box on your website doesn’t have to be difficult. If you’re using the likes of AWeber or MailChimp, you usually only have three options to choose from:

(It’s important to note, you need to have created the form in your EMS, prior to using any of these options!)

Option #1: Install as a link

This is the most basic option for sharing your signup form. The form itself will be hosted on your EMS providers site, you’re just providing a link to that form, so it will open a new website window with just your form on it.

Go to your form and look for either the ‘sign up form URL’ or ‘email link URL’.
Copy the URL.
You can now go to WordPress enter whatever link text you want (e.g. ‘click here to sign up to my mailing list’), highlight it, select the hyperlink button and paste in your copied URL.

Option #2: Install on your site using HTML code

Go to your form code and copy the HTML code (you may need to choose ‘I will install my form myself’ to find the code).

Open the page you want the code on and select the ‘HTML’ view
Paste the HTML code in.
If you want the form on your sidebar, go to widgets and drag a text widget to the area you want the form to appear in. You can then paste in the HTML code and click ‘save.

Option #3: Install using a plugin

Both AWeber and MailChimp have a plugin option for easily getting an opt-in form onto your website. This usually only works if you want the opt-in form in a sidebar.

Install the plugin via your plugin section of WordPress and active it.
Connect the plugin to your AWeber/MailChimp account by clicking on the ‘Get API key/Get authorisation code’ button.
You’ll be taken to your EMS providers website.
Enter your login details (if needed) and click the ‘Allow access’ button.
Copy the very long authorisation code and go back to WordPress.
Paste in your authorisation/API key code and click ‘Connect’.
Choose the list you’d like people to sign up to and make any other customisable options.
Go to the widgets area and simply drag the widget into the widget area of your choice.
Select the list and form you’d like to use, before saving.

Which of the three options did you select for your website? Did you find the process easy to set up or do you still need help? Why not leave your experiences and questions in the comments box below?