What do you do when you have an important message for your readers? Maybe you have a product that you want to promote, a newsletter for them to sign up for, or just want to increase your fan base. How do you grab their attention?
There are many premium WordPress plugins that you can buy to help you grab your readers’ attention; most consist of a popup of some type. However, there are some free plugins available that are just as useful.
So if you’re looking to post a notification, announcement or other important message on your blog, these free plugins are sure to do the trick.
NotiBar
NotiBar is perfect for adding a notification message at the top of your blog. Once you customize your bar, you’ll get a code to paste into the plugin’s interface on your blog. It’s quick, simple and effective. Plus, I’m sure that your readers will appreciate the ability to hide the bar via a little arrow on the side.
Wibiya Social Bar
Wibiya’s new and improved social bar is not just great for increasing your fans, shares and page views; it’s also a great for displaying important messages at the bottom of your blog. The bar has a quick announcement feature that lets you post a short message. You can post multiple announcements and each one will be shown once to each new visitor.
The original Wibiya bar is another great option because you can add an announcement to it as well. Instead of displaying your message on the bar, a small popup bubble will display right above the toolbar.
Simple Popup Manager
If you’re looking to display a simple popup message on your blog, look no further. Simple Popup Manager uses a lightbox effect over your content to display a customizable message. It includes a text editor, which allows you to add formatting and HTML to the popup. You can also specify the width and height, which is great because you choose to grab your readers’ attention in a big or small way.
PopUp To Share
Even though this popup plugin focuses on social sharing, it also includes a place to enter a custom message. So along with grabbing your readers’ attention with a message, you can push them to share your blog on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. This makes PopUp To Share a great way to increase your fan base and visitors as well.
Hello Bar
Hello bar is a notification bar very similar to NotiBar (mentioned above), with the option to add social sharing icons like the PopUp to Share plugin (also mentioned above). You can customize your bar on the Hello Bar website and then paste a code into the plugin’s interface on your blog. Although the free version is a bit limited, you can get some really great features like themes, branding and more with a Pro account.
Bonus: Christmas Message
Since Christmas is just around the corner, I figured I’d include this plugin. The name says it all: this plugin will display a festive Christmas message and graphic (much like a postcard) on your blog. It’s very welcoming and a great way to put your readers in the holiday spirit.
What’s Your Method?
So what do you use to grab the attention of your readers? Do you use a free or premium WordPress plugin and which one are you using?
Creative Commons image courtesy of Valerie Everett
Laura
I’ve been online long enough to remember the hatred people had for these kind of popup windows. It really is funny how they were all removed then but are almost accepted as a great marketing tactic again now.
Personally, they still annoy me. If I can’t find a way to get them off my screen fast enough I close the screen and don’t look at the site at all. The frame/ bar type don’t bother me, usually. Some of them will cover some of the blog so I can’t read something or click to open a link on the site.
dura
Hi, I use NotifySnack. This notification widget is highly customizable and easy to use.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/notifysnack/
Shawn
Be aware that sites that use some advertising services, notably Google Adsense, are forbidden from using anything on their site that may ‘obscure’ the ads. This means that the popup and lightbox style notifications may get your account disabled. It can and does happen.
Toni
So If I Try This Plugin Bye Bye Adsense 🙁
Liam
there are some free plugins available that are just as useful.
thanks for sharing!
David Fox
I have been testing Pop Notify which lets you easily display clickable notification messages throughout your blog. So far it has been a welcome addition.
adam mclane
Here’s one we like… upPrev Previous Post Animated Notification.
It does that fly-in related post thing that the New York Times does. Here’s the link to the WP repository.
http://wordpress.org/support/view/plugin-reviews/upprev-nytimes-style-next-post-jquery-animated-fly-in-button
Jon B
Charnita, Thank you for sharing the Wibiya bar! We are always improving our offering, and encourage you to stay tuned as there will be some great news in the days ahead.
As always, please feel free to reach out it you ever have any questions, comments or suggestions.
Jon
marrie
I test some of these plugins for accessibility. I’m a blind user of word press and love its interface, how ever some of the plugins such as christmas message was not found to be accessible. no settings showed up just a thing about their website and a save button, that was it. I am now testing the pop up to share thing to see if it is screen reader friendly for the majority of my audience, and if it looks good for some of the sighted people subscribed to my podcast/blog. Happy holidays.