A push notification is an opt-in pop-up notification that alerts people to new information about a particular website or website’s products, services, and content. A push notification from a small business website may, for example, inform customers that a new product has been launched, that a sale is underway, or that a new blog post has been published.
What Are the Advantages of WordPress Site Push Notifications?
Push notifications provide another way to reach and engage with your customers. They keep them up to speed on the latest and greatest goings-on at your company by immediately delivering useful information to either their website browser or mobile device.
Unlike email marketing updates, push notifications arrive in real-time at your customers (literal) fingertips.
WordPress lets its site owners consider two types of push notifications:
- Computer browser push notifications and
- Mobile device push notifications.
Just make sure that you don’t get too… well, pushy. It’s easy to overdo it with push notifications, so use them wisely. Let’s take a look at which might be best for you — perhaps both!
Computer Browser Push Notifications
Computer browser push notifications are notifications that users opt-in to receive via their Chrome/Safari/Mozilla, or other browser. These messages typically pop up in the form of a rectangular box at the top-right of a given browser window. They often contain a company logo and a brief message that links back to the company’s website.
The best way to do this is to grab a WordPress browser push notification plugin.
Pro Tip: Use Google Analytics to determine the most popular browsers among your site visitors. Then use a plugin that aligns with those specific browsers (and more). (In case you haven’t yet, here’s how to set up Google Analytics on your WordPress site.)
On this particular website, Google Analytics tells us that this audience primarily uses Chrome and Safari browsers. In this instance, you’d want to be sure to find a WordPress plugin that plays nicely with those web browsers to be sure your audience receives your site’s push notifications.
Mobile Device Push Notifications
Mobile device push notifications are, as the name suggests, push notifications delivered directly to your mobile device. These may sometimes be accompanied by a sound or an image, but are mostly text with a link back to your website.
Similarly, there are a variety of WordPress plugins to choose from to send push notifications to your audience’s mobile devices. Here, as well, you want to be sure that you’re able to message your audience by double-checking that your WordPress plugin is capable of reaching the devices most popular among your audience. Again, Google Analytics gives you more information than you could ever need:
- Operating System
- Service Provider
- Screen Resolution
In this site example, Google Analytics lets us know that the majority of our mobile site visitors are iOS device users, so be sure not to miss out on sending them your push notifications. Once you know what type of browser or mobile device your audience is using, you can shop plugins. Check out this article for a list of good push notification plugins for WordPress.
