Offering a web form on your blog is a smart business move. This opt-in form will offer your subscribers an opportunity to receive updates from your blog updates or your individual email broadcasts.
Tip: It’s wise to offer an “ethical bribe” in exchange for their name and email address. This could be a short but valuable PDF report that they receive automatically after registering. This is easily achieved by adding a link to a PDF in an immediate autoresponder email that your subscriber can click to download after they subscribe to your ezine web form. (The PDF can be hosted on your host account)
In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through how to setup your form at a sequential autoresponder service called MailChimp. Then we’ll embed this form on your blog. Let’s begin…
Go To MailChimp.com
Click Login
Login With Your Username And Password
Click On “Lists” Tab
Click “Forms” Link
Select Form Type To Design
Click “Create Embed Code For Small Form”
As we’re going to embed this web form to your blog’s sidebar, we’ll pass up on linking to a web form. (If you choose to link to a web form, you’re welcome to use the provided link for your blog). Instead, we’ll click the link to the right to design one as a small form to be embedded.
Customize Form Details
(1) I’ve checked the radial button to “include all fields”, which reveals the First Name and Last Name, instead of just the Email Address.
(2) I’ve also modified the “form label” text. Feel free to modify yours to however you see fit.
Copy Embed Code
The code in the box is what we’ll copy+paste into your blog’s sidebar. We’ll paste it into a sidebar “text widget”.
Select all and copy all the code in this box. Keep this page open, just in case.
Now open a new browser tab (or window) to login to your blog.
After Blog Login, Click Appearance > Widgets
Add Text Widget
Click “Add” for the Text Widget. Drag the Text Widget to your desired location on the right.
Then click the “Edit” link to the right of the Text Widget.
Paste MailChimp Embed Code Into Text Widget
(1) Type the title of your ezine here. This will appear to your visitors.
(2) Paste the embed code into the text box.
(3) Click “Done” button.
Click “Save Changes”
If your blog version requires you to click “Save Changes”, click this button to save your changes.
View Your Web Form
Voila! Your web form should look like the above in your blog sidebar.
Monkey See, Monkey Do?
There’s a common phrase out there – “Monkey see, monkey do”. So did this tutorial help you add a web form to your blog easily?
What do you think? Did it work for you?
If you’re using a different sequential autoresponder like Aweber, its a very similar process. The buttons are just located in different locations. Try it and let me know how it works for you.
Hi, I'm Sherman, based in Vancouver, BC. Let's work together to get your business more Traffic + Conversions, shall we?
This tutorial is great, i got a trail with Mail Chip a couple of days ago and this is exactly what i was searching for thanks for sharing Sherman
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