optincrusher Outside of WordPress

optincrusher is a fantastic free plugin for WordPress that gives your blog a slide in footer to capture newsletter sign ups, that I discovered while reading a post on Profit-Internet. It works with a number of different subscription applications, and is easily configured. And, it looks slick.

Easy to use + Valuable tool + Professional Appearance + Free = Rock On!

The only drawback: it is a plugin for WordPress only. So if you run a 100% WordPress site, your in like Flynn. If you run a hybrid like we do, with WordPress as a separate blog component, then you would only have the Crusher active on your blog. Effective, but could be better.

Take optincrusher outside the Loop

The cool code monkeys @ optincrusher are pro’s who know what they are doing. As evidenced by the fact that they nicely comment code, so you never need to guess what code is used for the Option Crusher. So it was easy peasy to get the Cursher codes and place them on our main site.

Here is how we did it:

1) Install optincrusher on your WordPress site, and configure the bells and whistles. Once you have it running sweet on your blog, you can then move on to step two.

2) Open your blog in a browser, and wait for the optin to appear (if it does not appear, it is reading your cookies and telling it not to appear, so open a different browser).

3) View Source

4) In the HEAD of the source code you will find some code for optincrusher. It is neatly wrapped in comment tags. So copy everything from the opening comment:

<!-- Begin includes for Footer Optin -->

to the closing comment:

<!-- End includes for Footer Optin -->

And paste the code into NotePad (or any plain text editor).

5) Scroll down to the bottom of the source code (the footer) and find the next set of Crusher codes. Again, look for the comments. Professional coders, are professional commentators. Copy everything from the start of this comment:

<!-- begin opt in footer -->

to the end of this comment:

<!-- end opt in footer -->

And paste the code into NotePad (or any plain text editor).

So far so good, this is pretty simple. It does not get any tougher either, so hang in there. The next section has 2 options, so I am going to give each step an A or a B option, just pick which one is right for you.

a) Includes: If your site uses global includes for things like scripts or menus, then use this option to make life easy on you. Add the codes to a couple files and if updates globally.

b) No Includes: If you do not have includes on your site, and prefer to load all scripts / codes on every page manually, you will need to edit any page of the site you want the optin to appear on. More work, but just as effective. Whatever floats your boat.

6a) Open an include that gets loaded in the HEAD of your site (header, scripts, etc. as long as it gets loaded within the head tags), and paste in the first set of codes we copied. Starting from:

<!-- Begin includes for Footer Optin -->

and ending with:

<!-- End includes for Footer Optin -->

Save. Upload.

6b) Open every page you want the optin to appear on and paste in the first set of codes we copied. Starting from:

<!-- Begin includes for Footer Optin -->

and ending with:

<!-- End includes for Footer Optin -->

Save. Upload.

7a) Open the footer include (any include that gets loaded after all your content)  and paste in the last set of codes we copied. Starting from:

<!-- begin opt in footer -->

to the end of this comment:

<!-- end opt in footer -->

Save. Upload.

7b) Open every page you want the optin to appear on and paste in the last set of codes we copied. Starting from:

<!-- begin opt in footer -->

to the end of this comment:

<!-- end opt in footer -->

Save. Upload.

8a) If you use the same includes on your blog as your main site, you will need to create a duplicate include that does not have the crusher codes and use these on your blog. Otherwise optincrusher will get loaded twice. Once with the include, and once via plugin. So use separate includes for the main site and the blog.

9) Open your main site and watch the optincrusher do it’s magic and bask in it’s glory. Enjoy.

4 thoughts on “optincrusher Outside of WordPress

  1. Niels says:

    Hello,

    I just read your article about optin crusher but I didn’t try anything yet. I was wandering if you could give me some advice around optincrusher and joomla 1.5 or 2.5. I think it is not simply pasting code here.

    Well hope to hear from you soon.

    Kind regards,

    Niles

  2. MrMyles says:

    Hi Niels

    I have only used OptinCrusher via WordPress. Although I run it on a static site, the backend is run via WordPress. Unless it is available for Joomla, the only way I know to get it to work for you would be to install WordPress in a subdirectory, just for OptinCrusher. It will work, but seems excessive. There are several other slideup scripts that work well and run as standalone products.

  3. Polar says:

    Great article ! I followed your setup and the result you can see at http://care4u.co.nf One question however. How do you handle the “do not show to subscribed visitors”?. As I understand it this feature works only on WordPress web sites.

  4. Ian Usher says:

    Hi there,
    Great article, easy to follow, and works a treat.
    My live results so far can be seen here:
    http://IanUsher.com/testpage.php
    I’ll be deploying across all pages of my site once I sort out my autoresponder.
    Thanks very much, your work is very much appreciated.
    Ian

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