What Are Web Push Notifications and How Do They Work? (Explained)

Our readers often ask, what are web push notifications and how do they work?

Web push notifications are messages that you can send to people’s web browsers after they subscribe and give permission. Push notifications are a powerful marketing tactic that can help you bring back users to your website to boost your traffic, sales, and conversions.

In this article, we will explain what web push notifications are and how they work. We’ll also talk about how to add web push notifications to your website.

1. What Are Web Push Notifications?
2. How Do Web Push Notifications Work?
3. Pros and Cons of Using Web Push Notifications
4. Who Needs Web Push Notifications for Their Website?
5. How to Add Web Push Notifications to Your Website
6. Sending Web Push Notifications to Your Subscribers
7. Optimizing Web Push Notifications for Higher Conversions

What Are Web Push Notifications?

Web push notifications are custom messages with links that you can send as notifications to users’ web browsers.

Users can opt in to receive these push notifications from a website.

Subscribers can get the notifications on both mobile and desktop browsers. This is why web push notifications are also called browser notifications.

Perhaps the best part of using web push notifications is that users don’t need to be on your website to receive push notifications. And unlike email newsletters, you don’t have to wait for your subscribers to check their email.

These notifications can be customized, personalized, and timely which makes them highly effective in boosting user engagement.

How Are Web Push Notifications Different Than App Push Notifications?

Web push notifications use technology that’s built-in to modern browsers. Almost all top browsers on the market support web push notifications.

They are sent by network request when a user has their web browser open and they work on both mobile and desktop devices.

App push notifications, on the other hand, use the built-in notification technology of a smartphone’s operating system (such as Android OS or iOS). Using this technology, an app can send a notification without connecting to the internet.

Users need to install the app in order to receive app-based push notifications. On the other hand, they don’t need to install any additional app to receive web push notifications.

How Do Web Push Notifications Work?

Almost all modern browsers come with built-in support for push notifications.

This support allows website owners like you to request your visitors’ permission to send them web push notifications.

Once a person opts in, their web browser will be able to receive web push notifications from that particular website.

However, in order to send web push notifications, you’ll need to sign up for a web push notification service.

A push notification services will allow you to deliver push notifications to users’ browsers based on criteria defined by you. For instance, you can schedule a push notification at a specific time to users based on their time zones.

Once you send a message, your push notification service sends it to the users’ browser, which then displays the notification to the user’s screen.

Depending on which device type or browser a user has, these notifications may look a little different, but the message will be the same.

Pros and Cons of Using Web Push Notifications for Your Website

Before you add web push notifications to your site, it’s smart to consider the advantages and disadvantages of using them.

Pros:

• Web push notifications are an easy way to send timely and targeted messages to users on their devices.
• They work on both mobile and desktop.
• Unlike social media or email marketing, users don’t need to visit a specific website or open an additional app to view the notifications.
• They are highly effective with up to 50% open rates on average. This makes them very useful in building engagement on your site.

Cons:

• If used incorrectly, web push notifications may frustrate or annoy users on your site.
• Some of your users may already have web push notifications disabled in their browser settings, which may limit your reach.

Considering these factors, web push notifications have a lot more pros than cons, as long as they’re used correctly. A high engagement rate alone is a good enough reason to add them to any website.

Who Needs Web Push Notifications for Their Website?

Web push notifications are extremely useful in bringing back users to your website. This makes them a must-have for all kinds of websites.

For instance, if you start a blog, then web push notifications can help you quickly build a loyal following and get more repeat visitors.

For an online store, web push notifications can help you bring back existing customers while nudging new visitors into making a purchase.

For a typical business website, push notifications can help you keep customers engaged with new offers and can help you generate more leads and sales.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add web push notifications to your website.

How to Add Web Push Notifications to Your Website

First, you need to sign up with PushEngage which is the best web push notifications service on the market.

PushEngage allows you to easily schedule messages, trigger event-based notifications, send cart abandonment notices, and more.

Note: PushEngage also has a free web push notification plan which is limited to 200 subscribers and up to 30 campaigns.

Upon sign up, you’ll reach your PushEngage account dashboard. From here, you need to go to Settings » Site Settings » Installation Settings page.

First, you need to provide your site title and URL and then upload a site logo. After that, don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your settings.

Next, you need to generate API keys. These keys will allow your website to communicate with your account on the PushEngage website.

Simply go to the Settings » Site Settings » API Keys page in your PushEngage dashboard and click on the ‘Generate a New API Key’ button:

PushEngage will now show you the API key which is a string of letters, symbols, and numbers. You need to copy and paste this API key into a text editor.

You are now ready to connect PushEngage to your website.

First, you need to switch to the admin area of your WordPress website, and then install and activate the PushEngage WordPress plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, click on the PushEngage menu in your WordPress admin sidebar and then switch to the Setup tab.

Here, you need to copy and paste the API key you copied in the earlier step and then click on the Submit button.

PushEngage will now connect to your WordPress website. You can now switch to the Subscription Dialogbox tab to configure the plugin settings.

PushEngage comes with a lot of dialog box styles to choose from. This is what your users will see as a prompt to subscribe to your web push notifications.

Below this, you can change the message that’s shown on the page that appears after the user first clicks Allow.

After that, you can switch to the Welcome Notification settings. This is the notification users see after subscribing to your push notifications.

Don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your settings.

Sending Web Push Notifications to Subscribers

PushEngage makes it super easy to send web push notifications to your subscribers.

First, you can configure the WordPress plugin on your site to automatically send web push notifications to notify subscribers of new posts.

Simply click on the PushEngage menu in the WordPress admin area and then switch to the General Settings tab. From here, you need to scroll down to the ‘WordPress Post Settings’ section.

You can also manually write custom notifications and schedule them or send them right away.

To do that, you need to switch to the PushEngage dashboard and click on the Notifications » Create » New Notification menu.

From here, you need to provide a title (headline), message, and URL. This URL is where you want users to go when they click or tap on the notification.

By default, your site logo will be used, but you can replace it with any custom image you want.

You’ll see a live preview of your notification in different browsers in the right column.

You can also send a preview notification to your own browser.

Once you are satisfied with the notification, you can go ahead and send it or schedule it to be sent later.

Here is how it looked on our computer using macOS and Google Chrome.

Optimizing Web Push Notifications for Higher Conversions

Web push notifications are highly engaging in bringing more returning visitors to your website.

However, with little tweaks to your campaigns, subscription box, and settings, you can further boost your push notification click-through rates.

Here are a few tested tips that will help you optimize your web push notifications.

1. Try Different Dialog Box Types

PushEngage comes with a lot of subscription dialog box options. Some of them may work more effectively than others on your website.

Usually, the single opt-in option works well for many sites. However, the disadvantage is that once users click on the block button, it is stored in their browser settings and they may not reset those settings for a very long time.

It’s smart to try different styles to see how it affects your opt-in rates.

2. Take Advantage of Automation Features

PushEngage comes with excellent automation tools to automatically send push notifications to your subscribers. This includes cart abandonment notifications, drip autoresponders, browse abandonment, triggers, and more.

3. Segment Your Audience for More Personalized Push Notifications

With PushEngage, you can create audience segments to automatically create a custom personalized experience for your users. PushEngage allows you to automatically segment users based on the page they subscribed from, the pages they’ve viewed on your website, their device type, location, and more.

4. Set a Steady Frequency for Web Push Notifications Messages

Notifications can be highly useful, but if they’re overused they can easily become a nuisance to your subscribers. Make sure you set a steady frequency of web push notifications per week. Not too many to annoy users, and not so little that users forget your brand altogether.

5. Track Web Push Notification Analytics and Conversions

Once you start getting push notification subscribers, you’ll want to keep an eye on how they are converting.

The metrics you want to track are the click-through rates, to see how many subscribers click on the notifications, and conversions, to see if they make a purchase or convert after landing on your website.

PushEngage comes with built-in analytics for opt-ins, user engagement, and goal tracking. It can also integrate with WooCommerce to track conversions.

However, the best way to get the full picture is by using MonsterInsights. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn more about web push notifications and how does it work.

You may also want to check out our guide on how to get even more visitors to your website and how to improve your organic click-through rate for more free traffic from search engines.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post What Are Web Push Notifications and How Do They Work? (Explained) first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 12, 2022 at 05:44PM

How to Change the WooCommerce Shop Page Title (Quick & Easy)

Do you want to change the shop page title in WooCommerce?

By default, your main shop page is simply called ‘Shop’. You may want to change the default title to be more descriptive and engaging, and better reflect your brand.

In this article, we’ll show you how to change the WooCommerce shop page title easily.

Why Change the Shop Page Title in WooCommerce?

When you install WooCommerce, it will automatically create pages like your shop page, account page, checkout page, and more.

By default, the shop page title will be ‘Shop’, but you can change this to anything you want, like ‘Boutique’ or ‘Store’ or something more detailed and descriptive. Overall, this can help create a better shopping experience and help build trust with your visitors.

Customizing your shop page title can also help your WooCommerce search engine optimization. Google and other search engines look at the words used in page titles to determine how to rank them in search results. If your shop page title is more descriptive, it can help you get more traffic to your online store.

With that said, let’s show you how to easily change the WooCommerce shop page title. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.

• Changing shop page title with built-in WordPress settings
• Changing shop page title by adding code to WordPress
• Changing the shop page SEO title with a WordPress plugin

Method 1: Changing the WooCommerce Shop Page Title with Built-in WordPress Settings

The easiest and most beginner friendly way to change the shop page title in your online store is by using the built-in settings.

To change the title of your shop page, simply go to Pages » All Pages. You’ll need to find the page that says ‘Shop – Shop Page’ and then hover over it and click the ‘Edit’ button.

From here, you can enter a new page title at the top of the page.

Make sure to click the ‘Update’ button to save your changes.

Now, you can visit your shop page, and you’ll see your new shop page title live.

Changing your shop page title this way will update your breadcrumbs and navigation menu too.

Method 2: Changing the WooCommerce Shop Page Title by Adding Code to WordPress

Some WooCommerce themes might not give you the option to change your shop page title.

To do this, you’ll need to add code to WordPress. If you haven’t done this before, then see our guide on how to copy and paste code in WordPress.

Then, you can add the following code snippet to your functions.php file, in a site-specific plugin, or by using a code snippets plugin. 

add_filter( 'woocommerce_page_title', 'new_woocommerce_page_title');
 
function new_woocommerce_page_title( $page_title ) {
 
  if( $page_title == 'Shop' ) {
 
    return "New Shop Title";
 
  }
 
}

Make sure you replace the ‘New Shop Title’ with your own shop page title in the snippet above.

Now, you can visit your online shop page to see your new title live. You’ll notice this method doesn’t change the shop page URL or WooCommerce breadcrumbs, but only changes the title on the page itself.

Method 3: Changing the WooCommerce Shop Page SEO Title with a WordPress Plugin

Another way to change your WooCommerce shop page title is by changing the shop title that shows up in the search engines, which is called the SEO title or title tag.

This can be a great way to get more traffic and target more relevant keywords related to your online store.

The easiest way to do this is by using the AIOSEO plugin. It’s the best WordPress SEO plugin in the market used by over 3 million websites. 

You can use the plugin easily optimize your SEO title to improve your search engine rankings.

For more details on setting up the plugin, see our guide on how to setup All in One SEO for WordPress correctly.

After that, you can easily change your shop page SEO title by opening up your shop page and scrolling down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ box beneath the page editor.

You can use smart tags to automatically generate the shop page title, or enter a custom title instead.

If you want to fully customize the title and page design of your WooCommerce shop page, then we recommend using SeedProd.

It’s a drag & drop design builder that lets you customize every aspect of your WooCommerce store.

We hope this article helped you learn how to change the WooCommerce shop page title. You may also want to see our expert pick of the best WooCommerce plugins and best WooCommerce hosting for creating a successful online store.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Change the WooCommerce Shop Page Title (Quick & Easy) first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 11, 2022 at 04:35PM

How to Send a Test Email From WordPress (The Easy Way)

Do you want to test whether your WordPress website is successfully sending email?

WordPress sends emails to you and your site users for many different reasons, from passwords reset emails to purchase receipts. That’s why it’s so important to test whether your website is sending email reliably.

In this article, we’ll show you how to send a test email from WordPress to make sure there are no problems with your email configuration.

Why Test That Your WordPress Email Is Working Reliably?

All too often we hear that users have trouble with WordPress not sending emails. That’s a problem because you rely on email to keep your website running smoothly.

For example, your site sends emails to welcome new users, reset lost passwords, send order forms, and notify you when a new user registers or someone fills in your contact form.

There are a few things that you can do to improve your WordPress email reliability. For example, we recommend you send your email through a reliable SMTP service provider and set up logs of the emails sent by your website so you can monitor their success.

When you first set up your WordPress website or SMTP service, it’s smart to confirm that your website’s email is working correctly by sending a test email.

With that being said, let’s look at how to send a test email from WordPress.

How to Send a Test Email From WordPress

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After that, you will need to configure the plugin to work with your SMTP mailing service. The WP Mail SMTP wizard will take you through the process step by step, or you can follow our guides on how to set up WP Mail SMTP with Sendinblue, Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Amazon SES, or your web host.

Once you have finished setting up WP Mail SMTP, you can send a test email to make sure it is configured correctly.

To do that, you need to head over to WP Mail SMTP » Tools in your admin menu, where you’ll see the ‘Email Test’ page. By default, the test email will be sent to your site’s admin email address, but you can change this by typing a different email address into the ‘Send To’ field.

We recommend you keep the ‘HTML’ setting in the ‘On’ position, but if you want to send a plain text email, then you can switch it off.

Once you’re happy with the settings, simply click the ‘Send Email’ button, and a test email will be sent to the address you entered.

Viewing the Email Test Results

After WP Mail SMTP attempts to send the test email, it will give you immediate feedback on whether the test was successful or not.

If your WordPress email was set up correctly, then the test email was sent without any problems. You will see a ‘Success!’ notification displayed on the screen.

Now you’ll want to check and see if the test email actually did arrive at the email address it was sent to.

You should find an email like the one below in your inbox. If you do, congratulations! Email is working properly on your WordPress site.

However, if there are problems with your email configuration, then the test email will not be able to be sent at all.

You’ll be shown a message that describes the error or problem, along with some steps you can take to resolve it.

After following the steps to fix the issues, you should send another test email to confirm that your WordPress email is now working.

If the Domain Settings Need to Be Changed

Even if the test email was successful, you may have received a notification listing some issues. That’s because the test checks that your ‘from’ address’s domain is configured correctly in your DNS records.

This can improve the deliverability of your email, so that it doesn’t get blocked or sent to the spam folder.

The notification will list and explain any issues, and provide links to step by step guides that will help you configure your DNS records correctly.

Once you’ve finished fixing the issues, you should send another test email to make sure that everything is working properly now.

If You Need Professional Help

Many beginners find that configuring their WordPress email is tricky. Luckily, if you can’t get WordPress email working on your own, then you can ask an expert to set it up for you.

The good news is that a WP Mail SMTP Elite license includes White Glove Setup. This means that someone from their expert team will configure your email settings for you.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to send a test email from WordPress. You may also want to learn how to get a free email domain, or check out our list of must have plugins to grow your site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Send a Test Email From WordPress (The Easy Way) first appeared on WPBeginner.

January 10, 2022 at 04:00PM