Email Signup Forms: 14 Places to Add Them for Higher Conversions

Do you need help finding where to put the signup form on your website for optimum conversions?

Your email signup forms play a crucial role in growing your email list. And email is an important digital marketing strategy you should pay attention to.

But just as important as the form’s design or message is, where to put the subscribe form on your website is equally important.

This blog will show 14 of the highest-converting places to put these online signup forms on your website.

What Is a Signup Form on Your Website?

A signup form, also known as a registration or subscription form, is a web form that collects information from website visitors, typically used to create an account, subscribe to a newsletter, or sign up for a service.

The form usually contains fields for visitors to input their personal information, such as their name, email address, and password, and may include additional fields depending on the form’s purpose.

Signup forms are critical for website owners who want to build an email list and engage with visitors, convert them into customers, or provide targeted content.

A well-designed signup form can help increase website conversions, enhance the user experience, and ultimately drive business growth.

Let’s dive straight into our list of where to put the signup form on your website.

14 Places To Add Email Signup Forms

1. Splash Page

Do you use a splash page to highlight your signup form? If not, it’s time to jump on the bandwagon. Many smart marketers are now using splash pages to make their optin the first thing visitors see when they land on their homepage.

An excellent way to structure your splash page is by moving the main navigation from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. Then, devote everything on your page to displaying your incentive to optin and email signup form.

This ensures that your email signup is the main focus of the page. If visitors want to see other parts of your website, they can still do so via the links at the bottom of the page.

This is a great marketing strategy for bloggers who don’t have products to sell but still need to grow their email list.

Laura Roeder uses a quote from one of her subscribers as the main headline for her splash page. This explains why you should sign up for her email list.

Tim Ferris uses the headline “Start Here” to clarify that signing up for his email list is the first step visitors should take.

Femtrepreneur’s splash page does away with the navigation bar altogether. Instead, she includes two buttons: one to subscribe to her free e-course and the other to read her blog.

She also uses a lead magnet as a “freebie” guide. That piece of content presumably shows how she was able to earn a 6-figure salary in just 12 months.

How To Add an Email Signup Splash Page

The quickest way to add a splash page to your site is by using SeedProd – WordPress’s best landing page builder.

SeedProd has 150+ pre-made templates, so you don’t have to start from scratch. You can choose one that suits your brand and goals and easily customize it with the drag-and-drop builder.

You can use smart sections and blocks to create unique pages. SeedProd has many elements, like countdown timers, optin forms, giveaways, animated headlines, and more.

And when your design is ready, you can integrate the page with your email provider to grow your email list and send automated campaigns to subscribers.

This is one of the best methods for boosting newsletter subscriptions for your website.

For more details, follow our guide on what is a splash page & how to create one.

2. Welcome Gate

A welcome gate is similar to a popup but less annoying. A welcome gate allows the visitor to catch a glimpse at the content on a page before a full-screen call to action (CTA) slides down. (Here’s a video explaining exactly what a welcome gate does.)

Many welcome gates have a simple headline and a call to action button (or subscribe form) on a colored or plain background. Jeff Goins, however, uses a screenshot from his free video as the background for his welcome gate.

How To Add an Email Signup Welcome Gate to Your Site

Setting up a welcome gate takes just 5 minutes with OptinMonster.

When you sign up for an OptinMonster account, you’ll get access to 100+ templates to create all sorts of lead generation campaigns, including welcome mats.

Then you can customize the campaign using OptinMonster’s drag-and-drop builder. You can add custom fields like radio buttons, phone fields, text areas, number fields, lists, and more to your campaign. It also has tons of targeting rules to control where, when, and to whom your welcome gate appears.

For step-by-step instructions on this, see our guide on how to create a welcome mat popup.

3. Floating Bar

A floating bar is a great way to ensure your call to action to subscribe to your email list stays in clear view. The bar may be located at the top of the page above the header or at the bottom, and it stays in view as the visitor scrolls.

Here is an example of a floating bar on TwelveSkip. Since TwelveSkip’s colors are predominantly purple, orange is an excellent choice here: it pops out and draws your eye.

How To Add an Email Signup Floating Bar to Your Site

Plenty of tools let you create a floating bar for your site. If you’ve already signed up for OptinMonster, you can create stunning floating bars designed to convert.

There are beautiful templates to choose from, including ones for holidays and big marketing days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

You can choose which pages you want to display on and whether it appears on the top or bottom.

Learn how to create a floating bar campaign for your website.

4. Above the Fold

Above the fold is the screen you see on a website before you scroll. It’s an excellent place to put an email signup form because visitors can see it immediately without having to scroll down your page.

Michael Hyatt features an image of his free eBook, which you get when you sign up for his email list. The blue background contrasts nicely with his hero image and is consistent with his page’s overall call to action color.

How To Add an Email Signup Form Above-the-Fold

OptinMonster’s floating bar option is your best bet for adding a campaign above the fold. By default, the signup bar appears at the bottom of the screen and is pinned in place.

So as the user scrolls, the bar stays in position. It doesn’t disturb the user’s browsing experience and gives them a chance to sign up anytime while scrolling through the page.

5. Blog Posts

One of the most common places to put an email signup form is at the bottom of blog posts.

That’s because this is when your visitor has just been enjoying your content and is in the best mood for opting into your list.

Chris Lema’s blog post signup form looks like this:

With a dark background, this optin form stands out amid his otherwise light color palette.

But don’t just include an optin form at the bottom of your posts. You can also have opportunities to sign up within your posts.

That way, you can get the most newsletter subscriptions from your website.

Neil Patel includes a variety of ads sprinkled throughout his blog post content (each ad takes you to his optin landing page). Especially since his content is several thousands of words long, this works well to capture visitors who enjoy his content but aren’t quite up to reading the entire length of his articles.

How To Add an Email Signup Form in Blog Posts

You’ll create an inline form to add a signup form inside a blog post. You can do this with OptinMonster.

Inside the OptinMonster dashboard, select the Inline campaign type and choose a template.

Then you can customize and integrate the design with your favorite email service provider. When your campaign is ready, you can embed the form inside any post or page using the OptinMonster block.

Search for the block inside your page builder and select the inline campaign from the dropdown menu.

For more tips on using inline optins, see this guide: How to Use Inline Optins for Strategic Email List Building.

6. Blog Page

Most people don’t think to include an email signup on their blog page, but that is exactly what Neil Patel does.

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you might think that his email signup is just another blog post excerpt: The first image on his blog page looks exactly like another post thumbnail. But it is nothing more than an ad linking to his webinar registration page.

Why is this so brilliant? Because visitors have a natural tendency to click on the most recent blog post. Making his ad “stick” to the top of his blog page continuously masquerades as the most recent blog post.

How To Add an Email Signup Post to Your Blog

To create a stunning blog post with an optin campaign, you can use OptinMonster. Add an inline campaign to your page using the OptinMonster block available inside the WordPress post editor.

Before you publish it, you’ll want to make it stick to your blog’s front page. The option for this is in the settings panel on the right of the editor.

You must check the box to enable the ‘Stick to the top of the blog’ option.

Now the post will appear at the top of your blog, and stay there even after you publish new posts.

7. Sidebar

You should always include an email signup widget at the top of your sidebar. This is the most common location for an email signup form, so visitors are used to finding one there.

In addition to a signup form at the top of the sidebar, you can create various ads and additional signup forms further down your sidebar.

Neil Patel’s sidebar includes not one, not two, but five opportunities to sign up for his email list! And one of them is a high-profile testimonial that doubles for strong social proof.

Here are just the last three:

Note that the two ads above and below his email newsletter subscription box are linked to a webinar registration webpage.

You could link your sidebar ads to a similar opt-in landing page or use MonsterLinks to make a lightbox appear with your email signup form.

You could even redirect users to a case study that converts traffic into subscribers. This will help you turn casual website visitors into loyal and paying customers.

How To Add an Email Signup Widget to a Sidebar

WPForms is hands down the best plugin to create and add signup forms to a WordPress sidebar.

WPForms has a lite version so that you can get started for free. If you want access to more advanced features, you’ll want to sign up for the premium version.

Then you can choose a template and create the signup form.

When it’s ready, you can add the form in your sidebar by navigating to Appearance » Widgets page in your WordPress dashboard.

You’ll see the WPForms widget here. Select the signup form, and it will appear in your website’s sidebar.

You can also create stunning signup campaigns with OptinMonster and add them to your sidebar widget similarly.

For more details, follow this guide: How to Create an Email Signup Widget in WordPress to Get More Subscribers.

Doing so will help you show your newsletter signup forms across every blog post or site page. As a result, you could easily add hundreds of subscribers to your list each year (with only 5 minutes of prep work!).

8. Timed Lightbox

When it comes to getting email signups, timing is everything. A timed lightbox is a modal popup that appears after a specified time.

So instead of bombarding your visitor the second they land on your site, they will get to look around a little and enjoy your content before you ask them to subscribe.

Here is an example of this type of form:

How To Create a Timed Lightbox Email Signup Form

OptinMonster ranks #1 when it comes to timed lightboxes. It has more lightbox features and targeting rules than any other lead generation tool on the market.

From the OptinMonster dashboard, select the Popup type and choose the template you want.

Then customize the design and create display rules to control where the popup appears.

OptinMonster automatically enables lightbox mode for every popup template. That means you don’t need any coding knowledge or technical skills to create a lightbox optin for your site.

Get started with a timed lightbox here: How to Open a Lightbox Popup on Page Load (The Easy Way).

9. Scroll Box

A scroll box is an even more “polite” version of a popup that appears in the bottom right-hand corner of the page as the visitor scrolls down.

By presenting the box while the visitor is scrolling, you can display a highly-visible signup form without obstructing the visitor’s view of your content and without interrupting their natural flow.

How To Add a Scroll Box Email Signup Form to Your Site

OptinMonster lets you create slide-in scroll boxes as well. You can customize the design and add a personalized message.

Plus, you can control how the slide-in appears to visitors. It can appear as a slide-in popup or a collapsed box at the bottom of the screen.

Users can click on it to open the box, much like a chatbox.

With OptinMonster’s scroll boxes, you can trigger it to appear and/or display a different message based on time spent on the page, location on your website, and even referral source.

10. Footer

Once a visitor hits the very bottom of your page, you can be sure that they are very interested in what you have to offer. Therefore, take advantage of this opportunity to present them with a way onto your email list.

In her footer, Sarah Morgan reminds her visitors that they can get actionable advice from her every Monday:

How To Add an Email Sign Up Form to a Footer

You can use WPForms and OptinMonster to add signup forms to your footer.

The plugins have readymade email signup widgets available that you can find on the Appearance » Widgets page.

You simply need to drag and drop the widget into your footer area and then save it. Now your signup campaign will appear in your footer.

11. About Page

Did you know that the “about page” is one of the most frequently visited pages on any website? Make sure you are capturing new subscribers here too!

Jeff Goins uses a straightforward email signup form within the context of his about-page copy. This way, it flows seamlessly as you read and feels like the natural next step.

How To Add an Email Sign Up Form to the About Us Page

You can use OptinMonster’s inline campaign type here too. Select one of the premade templates to create the form and then embed it using OptinMonster’s block inside the page editor.

That way, you can add inline forms to any post or page on your website.

12. Resource Pages

Resource pages–or pages loaded with good content-are attractive to search engines. Why not turn that search engine traffic into newsletter subscriptions for your website?

Copyblogger uses resource pages like this one to promote their free membership (which, of course, requires an email address).

How To Add an Email Signup Form to the Resources Page

You can use OptinMonster’s on-click campaigns to add a signup popup to a button at the end of your resources page.

In the OptinMonster campaign builder, under the Display Rules tab, you’ll see an option called MonsterLink™.

Copy the MonsterLink code and then add it to a button on your site.

Now the campaign will appear when a visitor clicks on the button.

To know more about this, check out our tutorial on How to Trigger a Popup Form on a Button Click (Step by Step).

13. Sign Up Page

Consider creating a designated landing page just for email sign-ups. This way, you can direct undecided traffic to this page, and once there, you can convince them that they should sign up for your list.

Line25’s sign-up page briefly describes what you’ll get as a subscriber. But what makes this page enticing is the photos of the resources you’ll gain access to.

How To Add an Email Signup Landing Page to Your Site

To create a dedicated signup page, we recommend using SeedProd. It has stunning Lead Squeeze templates to build a beautiful signup page in minutes.

These templates are designed to increase your conversion rate and boost engagement on your site.

14. Exit-Intent Popup

You’d be surprised how many email signups you can eke out when you make just one last attempt.

Exit-intent popups detect when a visitor is about to leave your site and present your signup form to them right at that critical moment.

It’s perfect for growing your email list, building your social media followers, boosting SEO, reducing cart abandonment (for eCommerce stores), and much more!

Here’s an example of an exit-intent popup on Tim Ferris’s page:

Exit-intent popups aren’t just effective, but they give you one last chance to serve your potential customers and, in doing so, will increase the user experience (UX) across your site.

Be sure to limit the number of form fields, though, as you’re engaging with people who were prepared to leave your site. That means you should limit the information you ask to name and email address only.

How To Add an Exit-Intent® Popup to Your Site

OptinMonster has a powerful built-in exit detector. You can decide the sensitivity level of exit detection as well.

When you enable the Exit-Intent® trigger, OptinMonster will detect when visitors hit the ‘X’ or back button in their browser.

It will display your campaign to get them to sign up before they’re gone for good.

Exit-Intent® campaigns are proven to be powerful. You can learn more about it here: 9 Best Exit Intent Popup Plugins for WordPress To Boost Conversions.

Best Practices for High-Converting Signup Forms

Regardless of where you place your signup forms, here are a few best practices you can follow to boost your conversion rates:

1. Keep your signup forms short. Long forms look overwhelming and intrusive to the visitor, so limit the number of fields to the absolute minimum.
2. Ask only for the information you need. Customers value their privacy and want to avoid being bombarded with marketing. You generally only want to ask for a phone number if you send SMS messages.
3. Practice affirmative consent. Your signup form should be an optin, not an opt-out. Customers should actively click a checkbox or button to receive your emails. They should not be added by default because they bought from you or visited your storefront.
4. Segment your new subscribers. Sending relevant content based on subscriber interest, behavior, or needs will improve conversion rates. There are many ways to automate lead segmentation.
5. Use A/B testing to find the most effective messaging. OptinMonster makes it easy to test different variations of the same campaign to see what works best.
6. Track your form conversions to identify areas for growth. OptinMonster tracks conversions automatically, but you can also set up form submission tracking in Google Analytics using a different signup tool.

If you’d like some visual inspiration, check out our list of best lead generation form examples.

That’s all we have for today. This article has given you new ideas for strategically placing your email signup forms. Knowing when and where to present your offer to sign up will convert many more visitors into email subscribers.

Want to grow your email list with stunning optin campaigns right away? OptinMonster is the perfect solution as it’s an easy-to-use WordPress plugin and a standalone SaaS product for other website-building platforms.

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