Add An Opt-in Box To Your 404 Page Using Thrive Leads

Last updated on August 1st, 2018 at 06:23 pm

If you’re like me, then your main focus for your blog is to get subscribers to subscribe to your email list. I am always looking for ways to improve my bounce rate and grow my email list. In this tutorial, I am going to walk you through the process of how to add an opt-in box to your 404 page using Thrive Leads.

If you’re using the Genesis theme, then you know that the default 404 page can easily be tweaked to customize it to your liking. I’ve been putting off this task for a while, but this morning I put my head down and customized mine.

 
If you missed my post on how to modify your 404 page, you can read it here. In this tutorial,  I am going to show you how to add an opt-in box on your 404 page. You will have to get your hands a little dirty, but don’t worry it’s easy to do.

You might also want to consider cloning your live blog to a localhost so you can practice getting better with WordPress. As your WordPress skills improve you won’t have any issues managing your own blog or offering your services. I use this to work with WordPress on localhost.

When you get done reading this post, you will have another opt-in box that will hopefully, help you increase your subscribers.

Let’s get started.

Why Should I Add An Opt-In On My 404 Page?

Before we add the opt-in on your 404 page, you might be wondering, why should I take the time to do this?

If you’re a new blogger, then you know how time-consuming it can be to do everything in your business. There isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done.

There’s emails to write for your auto-responder, videos to create for your YouTube channel, network with other bloggers.

And we can’t forget marketing our blog posts.

Not to mention, you have to create a content marketing strategy that will allow you to keep your blog fresh. This requires you to spend time brainstorming so you can come up with some fresh blogging ideas.

Your blog is your 24/7 salesperson. It works for you day and night, assuming you have reliable hosting.

Setting up an opt-in box on your 404 page can help you grow your email list.

All you have to do is set it up once, then whenever someone gets lost on your blog, you give them the option to sign up to your email list.

Add An Optin Box To Your 404 Page Using Thrive Leads

For this tutorial, I will be setting up my opt-in on the Genesis theme. I will also be using the Thrive Leads Plugin to add the subscriber box to my 404 page.

I am assuming you already have a custom 404 page.

Step 1: Create your Thrive Leads Opt-in

If you don’t have the Thrive Leads plugin, then you can get it from here. While this tutorial won’t walk you through the process of creating an opt-in form. I am going to show you which form I created and what I called it.

For this particular form, I created a new Lead Shortcode.

As you can see I gave the Lead a shortcode name of “404 Page Optin.” You can call yours whatever you want.

Give it a name that helps you remember where the form was placed on your blog.

Step 2: Add PHP Code to Your Functions File

We will be adding shortcode to our 404 page. This means that we have to add a new function to our functions.php file.

Yes I know that sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo jargon. Don’t worry, all we are going to do is grab the code and drop it at the very bottom of the functions.php file.

The code you will need to add to your functions file can be found on Carrie Dils site.

Grab the code and paste it in your functions.php file. This is how mine looks like with the code.

The following code will allow you to add short code to your custom 404 page so we can display the opt-in box.

Step 3: Add the Thrive Leads Shortcode To Your 404 Page

Now it’s time to grab the short code we will need to display the form on your 404 page. Head on over to your Thrive Dashboard and grab the short code for the form you created.

Step 4: Open Up Your WordPress Files Via FTP

Access your WordPress files via your favorite FTP client. Go to your child theme folder and open it up.

Open up your cloned 404 page from your child theme. Now we want to add the following code to our 404 theme.

Make sure you are adding this code to your child theme, otherwise you will lose the changes when your theme gets updated. You never want to change the Genesis Framework files.

Enter the id for your Thrive Leads form. Save your changes and upload your new file back onto your server.

Step 5: Clear Your Cache

If you are using a cache plugin, you may have to clear your cache to see the changes.

Now you should see an opt-in form on your 404 page.

Now you are giving people the option to sign up for your email list even when they get lost. If you want to take a look at how my opt-in looks like, you can check out my 404 page.

Final Take Away

Growing your email list should be your number one goal with your blog. It doesn’t take long to set one up on your 404 page.

I can’t guarantee that anyone will ever subscribe to your email list via the 404 page.

But don’t you think it’s worth it to take the time to set it up and give people the option when they are lost on your blog?

Hopefully, you found this tutorial helpful and easy to follow along. Don’t forget to check out my tutorial on setting up a custom email for your blog.

Maybe you need help setting up a social sharing plugin?

Are you planning on setting up an opt-in box on your 404 page? If NOT why not? Let me know if you got an opt-in box set up on your 404 page, I’d love to check it out and see how it looks.