Posted by What Are Browser Notifications?
Browser or Push Notifications are a great way to engage your visitors with new content. With their permission, their browser can be set up to allow notifications from your website. This means that when a your site is updated with new content, new products etc., previous visitors to your site can be notified. This is a great way for you to re-engage with previous visitors to your site, potentially boosting your user engagement statistics, without the end-user having to subscribe via email.
There are downsides to notifications. Studies have shown that “notifications often interrupt user tasks at inopportune moments, decreasing productivity and increasing frustration,” therefore we need to be careful not to antagonize our website visitors and subscribers. Luckily, plugins such as OneSignal allow targeting of notifications, allowing notifications to be sent based on location, language and time of the visit to help prevent a negative experience. A/B testing of notifications also allows you to test the success of your notification strategy.
Setting Up OneSignal For WordPress
Follow the steps below to quickly and easily setup browser notifications for your WordPress website.
- Download and Install OneSignal.
Go to Dashboard > Plugins > Add New. Enter “OneSignal” in the Keyword box and look for “OneSignal – Web Push Notifications” in the search results. Click Install Now and then Activate to complete the plugin installation.
- Create a OneSignal Account
Visit https://app.onesignal.com/signup and create an account. It’s quick and easy, just one click if you use a Google account to login.
- Create a Web Push app in OneSignal
Visit https://app.onesignal.com and click ‘New App/Website‘ at the top of the page. Give your app a name and click ‘Create‘
The next popup asks you to select a platform. We are creating a website notification so click ‘Web Push‘.
Next we choose our integration method. Select the centre option, ‘WordPress Plugin or Website Builder‘, and then ‘WordPress‘ on the below options.
Enter your Site Name and Site URL. Provide a link to a site icon if you have one.
- Configure OneSignal with an APP ID and API KEY
OneSignal should now provide you with an App ID and API key. Go to Dashboard > OneSignal Push > Configuration and enter these details. There are many ways we can edit individual notifications. For the moment lets leave the default settings as they are. Scroll to the bottom of the page and hit Save.
- Test Your Plugin And Subscribe!
We should have our notifications up and running. I’ve changed the notification positioning so it appears bottom left. I’ve also enabled ‘Automatically prompt new site visitors with ‘OneSignal Slide Prompt…‘ I don’t know how annoying this will be, let me know!
- Setup your app for Safari (Optional)
OneSignal has separate notifications for Safari. Visit your dashboard setting and click the pencil icon next to Apple Safari. Enter your Site Name and Site URL and hit save. You should then be given a Safari Web ID. Enter this in Dashboard > OneSignal Push > Configuration. Browser notifications do not work on MacOS so users with recent operating systems may not be targeted.
You can see how many people have subscribed, as well as how many have engaged with your content in your dashboard on the OneSignal website. Now we’re notifying people directly of new content be wary of publishing unfinished content! Your users will be notified as soon as new posts go live.
