Wanna grow your subscribers like crazy?
Want to get people to subscribe to your list before they even see your blog?
The answer is a MAGICAL welcome mat!
By that I mean… well, this. See how one of my biz-crushes Allison has this super cool landing page right when you visit her homepage?
What if I told you itās super simple to set that up so itās automatically the first page your visitors see?
Aaaand that it’s also super easy to change it or remove it at any time with NO coding needed?
AND that this one little change could boost your opt-in rate by up to 535%?!
(Did I just blow your mind?)
Itās possible thanks to Leadpages. šš¼
Today I’m going to show you step-by-step how to combine your WordPress blog with Leadpages to make an email list building MACHINE, mmk!
Okay, and maybe everyone else knew this, but Iāve been a Leadpages customer for 6 months now and literally just found this feature yesterday. YAH.
So I want to share it with you.
But First, What is Leadpages?
If you donāt already know about Leadpages, itās a landing page creation tool that makes it dead easy and quick to setup targeted, fun landing pages. You donāt need to know how to code or anything: itās all drag and drop AND they have beautiful templates to pick from.
Itās how I created my free content strategy course page!
Lots oā pro bloggers use it. And for good reason: itās affordable and saves SO MUCH time. I thought it might be overkill when I signed up months ago, but I canāt picture life without it.
So yeah in a nutshell, it makes pretty landing pages effortlessly.
AND, with this exclusive link, you can snag a 14 day free trial to check out Leadpages for yourself.
Mmk, Now Whatās a Welcome Mat?
The example from Allison I featured at the beginning of this post is what’s called a “welcome mat”.
It basically means a call to action that youāre putting on your site as the first thing people see. They can either sign up and convert, or choose a āNo Thanksā option and continue viewing the rest of your site.
Hereās an example from the King of Marketing, Neil Patel.
When you visit his website, you see his offer for a free video training.
If you click the orange button, you can sign up for his webinar.
If you donāt want to sign up, you can click the “No thanks” option to continue to his blog. There’s also a menu in the footer you can use to navigate the site without opting-in.
So the reason this is called a “welcome mat” is because it’s the first thing you see on the site. It’s welcoming you.
Yeah, you get it.
So do they work?
Some people think welcome mats are annoying or distracting. But the numbers donāt lie.
Welcome mats convert more users.
Course creation website Fedora used a welcome mat to boost their subscribers by 70%!
So YEAH they work.Ā Let’s go make one!
How to Create a Welcome Mat with Leadpages
Iām pretty techy.
Like, no pro or anything, but I can setup a WordPress site, troubleshoot simple problems, and even follow some advanced tutorials online for CSS or PHP edits to my site.
But I had no idea how to make a welcome mat.
There are paid solutions out there, like the popular Sumo plugin, but I didnāt want to pay for yet another tool.
And now that Iāve discovered how to do this with my existing Leadpages account, it doesnāt cost me any extra!
So letās get into the tutorialā¦
Step 1: Login to your Leadpages account, and create a new landing page.
If you donāt have a Leadpages account, click here to sign up now!
For your new landing page, pick something you want to essentially be the NEW homepage to your website.
I would suggest keeping it pretty short and simple. Everything should fit on the userās screen and be obvious what you want them to do right away.
You donāt want to make your new homepage into a 1,000 word sales page, mmk?
A quick āHereās a thing!ā with a button to sign up, or a button to say “Nope!” and continue browsing the site.
People are going to make the decision to sign up or not within a second or two, so keep it brief.
I like this template for a welcome mat (omg excuse the shit circling job):
Step 2: Create Your Landing Page
Make the page! Maybe you have a brand new content upgrade to feature, or you can use an existing one too.
There needs to be some benefit to your users to signing up. They should get a downloadable PDF, an exclusive coupon, or some other cool, tangible THING.
Hereās an example of what I created:
Really basic, but it gets the job done.
Make sure you link up the subscribe button to the email provider of your choice, and the “No thanks” text to the next page you want to take them to. Normally your blog.
Now we need to make this page into our new welcome mat!
Step 3: Login to Your WordPress Account
Please note, this works for WordPress.ORG websites only!
Assuming you have the Leadpages plugin installed already, go ahead and click on it.
If you donāt have this plugin yet, GIRL, you need to.
Click here to learn how to install their plugin and get Leadpages integrated with your website.
Once you’ve clicked on the plugin, youāll see a screen like this:
Click on Add New at the top.
THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS.
From the dropdown, select the page you just created.
Then choose the Welcome Gate option.
Now hold up a sec.
You could also choose the Home Page option.
The difference between those are that the Home Page option would show your welcome mat to EVERYONE all the time.
The Welcome Gate option only shows it to NEW visitors. š©š¼āš»Ā I recommend going with that one.
Sooo, click Publish.
TA-DA!! š
Now when people type in yoursite.com, theyāll see THIS!
Just make sure thereās a clear way for them to get to the rest of your website, otherwise people wonāt know how to access your content.
I hope you liked this short tutorial!
It kind of blew my mind when I discovered this feature…
If it turns out that Iām the last of mankind to find this out (like I was when perms went out of style), then FINE, nevermind.
But I hope it helped you learn something new.
And in case you missed me mentioning it like 500 times, you can grab a free 14 day trial of Leadpages by clicking here. š
This is such a down to earth, easy to follow, informative post. I’ve wondered what lead pages are and how exactly they work and it is (seriously) on my list to sign up to get started. For now though I’ve pinned the image and will get back to this.
Thanks for your comment, Johanna! š Yeah, I was pretty confused about them at first too. Now that I use them, omg, I could never go back. LOL. Super easy to setup and they really grow your list. I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out the Welcome Mat feature though…! (But glad I did.)
Thanks for pinning and hope you come back to try out the tutorial when you’re ready for Leadpages! š