Do you want to display your website’s registration form as a popup?
Putting a signup form in a popup makes the subscription process smoother for your visitors. They won’t need to look or go to a separate registration page and wait for it to load up. Instead, they’ll see your registration form magically appear when they click your signup link.
If this is your first time doing something like this, and you want to know where to start, don’t worry. Thankfully, setting up a registration form is easy with the right plugins. The best part? You don’t need to touch a single line of code. You can do it even if you have no technical expertise.
In this guide, I’ll show you how to create a WordPress registration form in a popup. You’ll need ProfilePress to make your new registration form and Popup Maker to display that form as a popup. You can use the free version for both plugins.
Step 1: Install ProfilePress
WordPress doesn’t offer a built-in way to create a registration form. There are a lot of plugins you can use to build registration forms in WordPress. I’ll walk you through how to make one using ProfilePress.
To install ProfilePress, go to Plugins > Add New on your WordPress admin dashboard.
Type “ProfilePress” in the search field.
Once WordPress finishes installing the plugin, click Activate.
Step 2: Install Popup Maker
Popup Maker is the ultimate plugin for creating popups for your WordPress website. It comes with lots of different designs and everything you need to create popups that convert.
To install Popup Maker, go to Plugins > Add New on your WordPress admin dashboard. Type Popup Maker in the search field and click Install Now next to Popup Maker.
Click Activate once WordPress finishes the install.
Step 3: Create Your Registration Form
Go to Settings from the sidebar menu in your admin dashboard.
Scroll down to Membership.
Check Anyone can register.
Click Save Changes.
Go to ProfilePress > Forms & Profiles.
Click Add New on top of the page to create a new registration form.
Click GET STARTED (Drag & Drop Builder).
Enter a name for this new form.
Select Registration as the Form Type.
Pick a template.
You’ll now see ProfilePress’ drag-and-drop builder.
This builder allows you to edit the look and feel of your new registration form.
To add fields, drag them from the Standard Fields area and drop them into your form.
You can rearrange the order of the fields by dragging and dropping them to where you want.
You can customize your form’s look and feel using the Forms Settings at the bottom of the page.
Over a dozen different settings let you fine-tune the look of your form.
You can customize the following:
- font family
- font size
- look and feel of the input fields
- design of the submit button
Click Save Changes to publish your form.
Copy the shortcode for this form. It’s shown in white text over a blue background:
Step 4: Create the Registration Popup
Your registration form is ready. It’s time to create a popup that displays it. Go to Popup Maker > Create Popup.
You’ll see two fields at the top of this page:
Enter a name for this popup in the first field. This name is only for your reference. It’s not shown to your visitors. In the second field, you can enter an optional title that you want to show at the top of the popup.
Click the Text tab in the popup editor to switch from Visual to Text mode.
Paste the shortcode you copied from the last step into the editor.
You’ll need to create a trigger for this popup. A trigger is what decides when to display a popup. Scroll down and click Add New Trigger.
Keep Click Open as the trigger type.
Uncheck the Prevent popup from showing … using a cookie setting.
Turning off this option lets your registration form pop up more than 1 time.
You want your visitors to have more than one chance to register!
Click Add. You’ll now see the General trigger settings for this popup.
You can leave them as is for now. Just click Add to accept the defaults.
Click Publish to save and publish your new popup.
Congrats! Your popup is live. Let’s finish the setup by adding the actual click trigger on your site that launches the popup.
Step 5: Create a Trigger Link to Display the Popup
So, you’ve got your registration form and your Click Open popup. All you need to do now is make a link on a post or page that launches your popup!
First, edit the page to which you want to add the trigger link.
Now, highlight the text you want to add the trigger link.
Click the More dropdown arrow to see all the text options.
Click Popup Trigger in the dropdown.
Now, select the popup you want to display when a visitor clicks this link.
Once you update or publish this page, open it in an incognito window, and click the trigger link. You will see a registration form popup that looks something like this.
Step 6: Create a Trigger Link To Open the Popup From the Navigation Menu
Do you want to trigger your registration popup from your website’s navigation menu?
Popup Maker gives you a couple of ways to do that.
Option 1: Site Editor
If the WordPress theme you’re using supports full-site editing, go to Appearance > Editor from your /wp-admin/ side menubar.
Go to your website’s navigation menu in the editor. Click to select it.
Click Edit to edit your navigation menu items.
Select the menu item you want to launch the popup. Click the Link button. In the example below, I selected the Register menu item.
In the URL field, enter “#popmake-NNN” where NNN is the popup ID you want to display when a visitor clicks this link. Note: #popmake-NNN is a built-in click trigger.
You can find the popup ID in the All Popups section of Popup Maker.
Copy the CSS class property of the popup you want to display from your navigation menu. Paste the CSS class as the URL (with # pre-fixed to it).
Hit enter to save this URL. Click the Save button on top of the screen.
Open your website in incognito mode and try clicking the link. Your registration form popup should appear. If you don’t see your popup, double-check your settings or visit the troubleshooting guide.
Option 2: Add the Link to Your Menu
If you are using a theme that doesn’t support full-site editing yet, you’ll see a Menus submenu under the Appearance main menu in your dashboard.
Expand the Custom Links option and click Add to Menu.
Enter ‘#’ as the URL and Register as the link text. Then, click Add to Menu.
Expand the custom link you just added.
Select the popup you want to display from the Trigger a Popup dropdown menu.
Finally, click Save Menu.
That’s it! Your website’s navigation menu now has a Register link that’ll show your registration form popup when a visitor clicks it.
Parting Thoughts
Putting together your first registration form should be straightforward. But it can be overwhelming if you’ve never done a signup form in WordPress, especially with a heap of plugin settings glaring at you.
I’ve taken 2 top plugins and shown you step-by-step how to get your registration form up and running. On top of that, our solution is intuitive and streamlined for people that want to sign up. Who doesn’t want that!?
Following this tutorial will put you a few steps ahead of your competition. And your new subscribers will thank you for how smooth their registration experience was.
