Wordpress

Add Push Notifications to Your WordPress Website & Engage Your Customers

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When we talk about push notifications, you might all get reminded of those notices you get on your smartphone every time you receive an email or a message on WhatsApp.  You would agree that these notifications keep you engaged with the app, and make you go back to it more often.  These notifications are now available with browsers too, and can hence be delivered through a website.  On the browser side, they are known as web push notifications.

When users visit a website that sends notifications, they will receive a prompt from the browser to allow notifications.  If the users allow such notifications, the website will be allowed to send frequent messages.  These notifications can be received by users of Google Chrome on desktop and Android devices.  Moreover, they can also be received by users of Mozilla Firefox and also Safari for desktop and laptop Macs only.

How Can Push Notifications Help You?

So, the next question is if such web push notifications can be of help to you.  Your marketing team makes use of the social media and also sends regular newsletters via email.  In that case, would push notifications be a worthy addition to your marketing repertoire?  It depends on a couple of factors.  You need to ask yourself the following questions:

  • Is your site’s information updated on a regular basis?
  • Is it that you want your users to return to your site regularly?
  • Does your website release time-sensitive information, like breaking news?

In both these cases, you will be able to use these web push notifications to encourage repeat visits.  On the basis of the factors, the following 3 types of sites will benefit the most from these efforts:

  1. Blogs because they publish regular content
  2. News sites that publish breaking news
  3. Websites that regularly update content and information

Again, it is worth noting that such efforts will not replace your existing marketing efforts.  It is about increasing your site visitors’ loyalty.  What also needs to be known is that you should never abuse this ability.  Opting out of web push notifications is very easy.  Hence, posting advertisements or displaying affiliate offers can be harmful to you.

What’s the Process?

So, the users that visit your site are prompted by their browsers to allow push notifications.  Once allowed, the browsers register a script that is supplied by you.  You can customize your notification script.  However, the easier way is to use third-party service that supplies scripts to you.  When you want to push a notification, your service provider uses the registered script to deliver the notification to the subscribers.  Online subscribers will see an instant pop-up on the bottom ride of their screen.  If they aren’t online, they will see the notification when they open their browsers the next time.

Various Service Providers

There are various service providers who offer web push notification service.  Some of the more renowned ones include:

  1. OneSignal
  2. PushCrew
  3. PushAssist
  4. PushEngage

All of these are extremely good, and your choice will generally depend upon your exact needs.  For example, Push Crew offers ease of use and simple opt-in experience.  On the other hand, Push Assist and Push Engage make you do a lot of things from within your WordPress admin area.  One Signal, on the other hand, has an unlimited free plan and is extremely feature rich.

Starting Up with One Signal

One Signal is one of the most popular service providers.  Here are steps you can use to start-up with One Signal :

  1. First, install the OneSignal Plugin.
  2. Next, you need to create an account with One Signal and add a new app
  3. You then connect your OneSignal account to your WordPress website
  4. You set up notifications and start sending them out

As easy as this sounds, there are complications you will find on the way.

About DIT INTERACTIVE

If you want more information about starting up with web push notifications, we can offer our expert support to you. We are a renowned offshore WordPress development company. There are a large number of global clients that we have worked with in the past.  By the virtue of adept on-roll WordPress web developers, designers, and WordPress theme developers; we manage to offer comprehensive and top notch service.  These, along with our continuous focus on customization, make is WordPress website developerof choice.