Let’s begin with the built-in WordPress.com Newsletter. With this feature, you can quickly set up and launch your newsletter in a few minutes, whether you already have a site or not.
The WordPress.com Newsletter enables visitors to subscribe to your newsletter, either for free or through a paid subscription. Whenever you publish a new post on your site, the system automatically sends an email to your subscribers. It’s important to note that this feature requires you to publish blog posts on your site. The blog component can either be the main focus of your site or an additional feature alongside your website.
This feature is available for all sites and plans. You can start for free, and if desired, there are optional upgrade opportunities along the way. It’s a great choice for new sites, hobby bloggers, or personal sites intended for friends and family. Businesses can also use this feature, although some business owners may prefer to work with a custom newsletter for their specific needs.
If you’re planning to create a website without a blog, you may want to skip ahead to the lesson on Custom newsletters.
Benefits:
- Quick setup
- Low maintenance (set and forget)
- Works with any WordPress.com plan
- No cost to provide a free newsletter
- Unlimited subscribers
- Easily earn money with paid newsletter subscriptions (no flat fees, percentage based to grow with you)
Limitations:
- Minimal customization options for the emails
- Less control over subscriber email addresses
- Subscribers control delivery frequency
- Must publish blog posts to trigger sending
Let’s get started with how to set up the WordPress.com Newsletter feature.
Tip: WordPress is a dynamic, open source software that loves to keep us all on our toes with updates. These updates can bring changes to how things look and work, and from time to time there might be some differences you come across in our lessons. Take a look at our Help center or Support guides for more resources, whenever you notice that something may have changed.
WordPress.com Newsletters give you a place to write content and build an audience, with the flexibility of WordPress under the hood to grow in many different directions, even if you don’t already have a website!
To get started, click this link↗︎ to access the WordPress.com Newsletter sign up page. Then click the “Start my newsletter” button and you’ll be taken through a series of steps to create your WordPress.com Newsletter website.
Signing up for a WordPress.com Newsletter site is a breeze, with just a few steps:
To create a new newsletter website on WordPress.com, follow these steps:
- Click this link to get started with our Newsletter setup flow.
- You will be asked for some information to start with (you can always change these later if you wish):
- Icon: Upload an image to visually represent your newsletter.
- Name: Tell us what your newsletter will be called.
- Brief description: Write a couple of brief lines to describe your newsletter.
- Click Continue.
- Choose the type of newsletter you want to start with:
- Free newsletter: Allow anyone to subscribe to your content without paying.
- Paid newsletter: Only paying subscribers can access your content. The price is set by you.
- Import an existing newsletter: Bring your subscribers from another platform to WordPress.com.
- Choose a domain for your newsletter’s website, or skip this step if you wish to decide later.
- Select a WordPress.com plan.
To change your site’s image, name, or description later, navigate to Settings > General in your dashboard.
In the expandable blocks below, we provide detailed information to help you make informed decisions as you progress through the above steps. While it’s important to keep this information in mind, don’t fret too much during the signup process. You’ll have the flexibility to change any of this information at any time once your site is created.
1. Add a site icon
During the setup process, the image you add will be prominently displayed at the top of your Newsletter landing page using the Site Logo block and it will be included in the newsletter emails sent to your subscribers. Additionally, it will appear in various sections of your site as the Site Icon. You have the flexibility to change the image you selected during the initial setup at any time, or you can add it later if you’re not ready.
To change the image on your Newsletter landing page, you’ll want to edit the Site Logo block within the Site Editor. To change your Site Icon image you’ll go to Settings > General↗︎.
You can find more information on how to manage and utilize your Site Icon in our Add a Site Icon guide.
Ideally, the image you choose should be clear and easily recognizable, like a logo. Avoid using busy images or those with excessive text, as they may be difficult to view, particularly at smaller sizes. If you don’t have a brand logo with a simplified visual representation, consider creating one. You can use photo editing programs or popular options like https://canva.com↗︎ or the fiverr logo maker↗︎.
Ensure that the image is square and at least 512 x 512 pixels. Remember, the goal is for it to remain clear and recognizable even when displayed at smaller sizes. To gather inspiration, visit multiple websites and observe the icons displayed in browser window tabs.
2. Choose a name
When setting up your Newsletter, you’ll want to think of a name to call it. Great newsletter names refer to the topic of the newsletter, but also give a hint of the tone and general attitude you’ll take. For instance, if it’s a birdwatching newsletter, is it “The Bird News” or “Twitchers’ World”?
If you haven’t decided on a name yet, try brainstorming a list of ideas and seek feedback from others. You can also utilize AI tools (ChatGPT is just one example of many) to assist in the brainstorming process. For example, you can enter a prompt describing the newsletter’s topic and ask the AI for six suggestions. If you don’t like the suggestions, you can request another set of six. You can then mix and match from these suggestions to create the perfect name. When using AI, it’s best to provide specific prompts. Here’s an example:
To achieve better results when utilizing AI tools for brainstorming, it’s important to provide specific details. Once you’ve found some ideas that you like, we recommend checking search engines for the name. This search will give you insight into the types of results the name will generate and whether it’s already in use by someone else.
Whenever you rely on AI as an assistant, it is essential to act responsibly by conducting thorough research to avoid copyright infringements and ensure factual accuracy. Be sure to check out our course Unlocking the Power of AI as well.
The name you choose for your Newsletter site during this signup process will be the name used as your Site Title. You can edit this later through Settings > General↗︎ or through the Site Title block in the Site Editor. If you want to use different titles for your site and newsletter, you can take out the Site Title block on your Newsletter landing page and add a Heading block instead.
3. Provide a description
You’ll also want to give your newsletter a brief description to provide some additional context. This could include the type of content you’ll be providing, or the frequency of your newsletter. Perhaps something like “Twitchers’ World Weekly Newsletter contains tips and tricks every week on how to find the most sought after birds as well as reviews of birding equipment and travel tips.”
Aim for a concise and informative description as your goal. This ensures that it can be easily read at a glance without taking up excessive screen space.
The description you add during the signup process will also be used as the Site Tagline. You can edit this later through Settings > General↗︎ or through the Site Tagline block in the Site Editor. If you want your site’s tagline and newsletter description to differ from each other, you can remove the Site Tagline block on your Newsletter landing page and add a Paragraph block instead.
4. Choose a domain
During the setup process, you’ll have the option to pick a domain name for your site. The system will suggest ideas for you, but you can search for other options as well, and pick anything that isn’t already in use.
All WordPress.com sites come with a free root domain that includes `.wordpress.com` at the end of whatever name you choose. This domain serves two purposes. First and foremost, it’s the storage box for all of your website files. You can change this domain, but you can’t delete it.
Second, you can use it as the live public domain for your website. While you can choose to add an available custom domain to your WordPress.com website (which will give you a custom domain without the `.wordpress.com` portion), it’s not required in order to launch a live site for the public to have access to.
You can always start out with a free domain that WordPress.com provides, and add a custom domain name whenever you’re ready.
When you search for a domain name, a list of choices will automatically display. If you want to use the free, included domain, from this list you want to look for the one that includes `.wordpress.com` and says Free to the right of it. (Not any of the ones that say “Free for the first year with a plan”.)
If someone has already registered the exact root domain you search for, then the system will automatically add some random numbers after the first part of what you enter.
For example, you might see something like:
mydomainname569648220.wordpress.com
You can modify the search field to find one that hasn’t already been used.
(Note: The terms domain, address, website address, site address, and URL are often used interchangeably.)
When you’re building a new site, you’ll want to choose a domain that aligns with your purpose of the site. It could be your own name, a business name, a topic focused name – the choice is yours. Whether you’re going to stick with the included root domain that includes `.wordpress.com` or you plan to add a custom domain, it’s a good idea to align this root domain with the actual name you want to use for your site.
In order to use a custom domain as the primary domain (site address) you will need a WordPress.com paid plan↗︎. You can also choose to connect or register a custom domain later.
Pro Tip: a short, descriptive domain can do wonders for attracting new visitors. Choose wisely!
Be sure to check out our Mastering Custom Domains webinar too!
What is a custom domain?
This section is optional reading that you may want to return to at a later time when you’re ready to work with a custom domain. This information is not required knowledge for completing this course, but it is important information that you should know when working with a custom domain for your website.
A domain name is an address people use to visit your site. It tells the web browser where to look for your site. Just like a street address, a domain is how people find your website online. And, like having a sign in front of your store, a domain name helps give your site a professional look.
As mentioned, all WordPress.com sites come with a free, usable domain that includes `.wordpress.com`.
A custom domain is one that does not include the `.wordpress.com` portion in the URL that you see in the address bar of a browser.
At WordPress.com, the root domain that includes `.wordpress.com` is called the site address, and it is the storage box for all of your website files. You can’t delete this domain, though you can change the site address.
Your custom domain (without `.wordpress.com` in the URL) is like a label that you place on this storage box. You can add and remove custom domains without affecting your stored website files.
A website can have more than one domain name, but you can set only one as the primary domain or address for a site. After you register or connect a custom domain, you may need to Set the Primary Address. This will be the address your audience sees in the address bar when they visit your site. You can change the primary address for a site any time.
There are a few different ways to assign a custom domain to your site. You can:
- Register a new one here at WordPress.com.
- Connect one that you registered somewhere else.
- Transfer a domain registration over to WordPress.com.
- Connect a subdomain.
- Claim a domain without connecting it to a specific site.
There are specific instructions for each of these scenarios that you’ll want to follow precisely. Depending on your website and domain needs, there are many things you can do with a domain once you have it in your WordPress.com account. You can:
- Change and manage the Domain Settings.
- Use the domain with another host.
- Move the domain between different WordPress.com sites.
- Transfer ownership of a domain to another WordPress.com account.
- Transfer the domain to a different registrar or host.
- Cancel and renew domains.
A few important things to keep in mind include:
- A custom domain can’t be “edited”. If you accidentally register a new domain with a typo in it, or change your mind on the domain you want to use, you’ll want to cancel it and register a new one.
- We can only refund domain fees within 96 hours of purchase. So, if you change your mind, or notice a typo, you’ll want to deal with that immediately.
- All new domains are placed under a 60-day transfer lock (regardless of where they’re purchased). The domain can still be “connected” to any host, but you will have to wait for the transfer lock period to be over to transfer the domain registration to a different registrar.
When you’re ready to work with a custom domain, you can follow the Domains Support Guide for the instructions you’ll need for your specific situation.
5. Select a plan
While setting up a Newsletter site is possible with any WordPress.com plan, it’s worth noting that the Explorer plan↗︎ offers an extensive range of customization options. With the Explorer plan, you can brand the newsletter with your own unique style and feel. This added personalization helps attract potential newsletter subscribers. A polished look also lends to your credibility, an important factor when selling a product, service, or other offer. However, it’s fine to start out with a free plan since you can upgrade at any time as needed.
6. Write and publish your post
Once you’ve completed the initial setup, you’ll be all set to write and then publish your first post!
As soon as you publish your post, it’ll automatically be sent to all the people on your subscribers list. For each new post that you publish, the post will be listed on your Newsletter landing page, and your subscribers will receive an email notification. See our support guide for more information about how to create a post or check out our Intro to Blogging course.
7. Customize your newsletter landing page
At any time you can further customize your Newsletter landing page as desired.
To do this, you’ll head over to the Site Editor under Appearance > Editor.
When you use the WordPress.com Newsletter signup process your landing page will be created within the template called Home. From the Site Editor select Templates on the left, click on the Home template, then click the pencil icon to edit the template.
You can also click on the Homepage link under your list of pages↗︎ to access the Site Editor.
Once in the Site Editor you can edit the content of this page using blocks. You can adjust existing block settings, remove blocks, or add new blocks. You can open the Block Patterns library and choose entirely new patterns if desired.
If you’re new to working with blocks, we recommend reviewing our WordPress Editor documentation.
The WordPress.com Newsletter is a great choice if you want a quick way to build a following and don’t need a lot of custom options, or if you’re not yet ready to go through the full website-building process. But it’s versatile enough that when you are ready to build a more robust site, you can simply add more pages and features, without needing to start from scratch.
You’re already almost done!
All you need to do is add a Subscribe block to your homepage, or anywhere else on your site, just as you would add any other block. Our support guide for the Subscribe block will walk you through the settings and options available.
You may want to include the Subscribe block in more than one location on your site to help give it visibility. Some common locations are near the bottom of the homepage, in the footer that appears on all pages, or in a sidebar.
Wherever you include your Subscribe block, if a site visitor enters their email address in the Subscribe field, they’ll automatically receive a newsletter email every time you publish a new post. It’s as simple as that.
You might also want to set up a dedicated Newsletter landing page on your website, linked from your site menu, which offers a great opportunity to share why visitors should sign up.
As seen in the previous section, for those who don’t already have a website, the WordPress.com Newsletter comes with a landing page when activated. To make a similar landing page on a pre-existing site, here’s how:
- Go to Pages↗︎ in the left sidebar of your site dashboard
- Select Add new page
- Select a Page Layout from the Newsletter category
- Click the block inserter + sign and choose a Blog Posts pattern
- Edit and customize
Let’s break these steps down a bit more.
When you start a new page you can either build out the page from scratch, or, to really streamline the process, use one of our pre-designed patterns. In WordPress.com, when you add a new page, you’ll see an overlay window with available page layouts, including patterns in the Newsletter category. Simply click on a pattern and it will be added to your page ready for you to edit.
(Note: Page Layouts are only available in WordPress.com. For a plugin enabled site the WordPress.com Editing Toolkit plugin must be active. If you don’t have the Page Layout feature, use the Patterns section through the block inserter instead.)
You can also access these block patterns from the block inserter’s Patterns section for any page, post or template.
The patterns provided in the Newsletter category will give you layouts for the top portion of your page. If you’d also like to include an archive of your latest posts on the same page, you can add one of the patterns under the Blog Posts category or simply add the Query Loop block.
Pro tip: For the best experience when choosing Blog Posts patterns, be sure to have at least 3 published posts in your site.
To fully replicate the WordPress.com Newsletter landing page, add a Paragraph block between these pattern selections that says: Read all posts ↓ and add a page jump link to the text that will automatically scroll the page to the top of your post archives.
Creating a separate Newsletter landing page on your website provides more control over the content you can include around your Subscribe block. For example, while a Footer typically has limited space, a dedicated page leaves room for more information about your newsletter and its benefits for subscribers. Why not add a List block to share some reasons why they should subscribe today?
Now, it’s time to decide what to put in your newsletter. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered: Providing a newsletter is very similar to blogging, so we recommend heading over to our Intro to Blogging course for great lessons on coming up with content.
With the newsletter setup we just described, publishing a post sends a notification email to your subscribers. While you do have control over the content of the post itself, which is displayed within the email, the surrounding content and design of the notification emails aren’t highly customizable. There are however, a number of newsletter related settings that you’ll want to explore. Currently, where these settings are located will depend on whether you have a plugin-enabled plan active or not.
When you don’t have the Hosting Configuration features active, most common with the Free, Starter, and Explorer plans (as well as some additional legacy plans), you’ll access the Newsletter settings from the WordPress.com Default Dashboard under:
- Settings > Newsletter
- Users > Subscribers
There are a number of ways you can use a newsletter to provide monetization opportunities. In the Creating a paid newsletter lesson, we’ll cover the details of how to turn your free WordPress.com Newsletter into a Paid Newsletter. But here are some other ideas you can consider as well:
Sponsored content: You can offer sponsored content to brands or companies related to your niche. In exchange for a fee, they can include their promotional content in your newsletter.
Affiliate marketing: You can include affiliate links in your newsletter, which allow you to earn a commission when your subscribers purchase a product or service through the link. Example platforms: CJ.com↗︎ or Amazon Associates↗︎
Product or service promotion: You can use your newsletter to promote your own physical or digital products or services to your subscribers.
Advertising: You can sell advertising space in your newsletter to relevant brands or companies.
Donations: You can ask for donations from your subscribers who want to support your content and your newsletter.
Events: You can organize events related to your niche and promote them in your newsletter, and charge attendees for tickets.
For the WordPress.com Newsletter feature, these options would be added to the posts that you publish, that are then included in the newsletter emails that are sent out automatically. But it’s worth noting that these options can also be utilized in any type of newsletter, be it a free WordPress.com Newsletter, a paid newsletter, or a custom newsletter.
When someone subscribes to your newsletter using your subscription form, they’ll be added to your WordPress.com site under Subscribers↗︎ in the main dashboard (this link may be located within the User section). From here you can manually add or remove new subscribers, import a CSV file of an existing external list, or export a list of current subscribers. You can learn more about managing subscribers in our My Subscribers support guide.
While there is no limit on total subscribers for any plan, there is an import limit of 100 subscribers on the Free plan. If you need to import a large, existing subscriber list, you’ll want to upgrade to a paid plan↗︎.
Note: This feature is still evolving and new options may appear at anytime without notice. Don’t forget to put on your explorer hat when using it.
Pro tip: Any time you’re changing systems for email marketing, it’s a terrific time to do a list cleanup. Email addresses become defunct all the time, and when you keep inactive email addresses in your list it can hurt the quality of your list and even reduce the deliverability of all your email newsletters. So rather than importing over an entire list, especially if it’s an older list, consider communicating your change of systems with your subscribers and ask them to re-subscribe to your new list.
Learn more about why a clean email list is important:
- Increased Bounce Rate: Sending emails to invalid or inactive addresses increases the likelihood of your emails bouncing back. A high bounce rate can signal to email service providers (ESPs) that your list is not well-maintained, which could affect your sender reputation.
- Sender Reputation: ESPs use sender reputation to determine if your emails are spam or not. A list full of inactive addresses can lower your reputation score, increasing the chances of your emails being marked as spam, not just for the inactive addresses, but for active ones as well.
- Engagement Metrics: Inactive or non-responsive email addresses can skew your engagement metrics, making it difficult to accurately gauge subscriber interest and interaction. Poor engagement rates can further harm your sender reputation.
- Cost Factor: Many custom email marketing platforms charge based on the number of subscribers or the volume of email sent. Keeping inactive addresses in your list means you might be paying to reach people who aren’t reading or engaging with your content.
- Resource Drain: Managing a larger list takes up more of your time and resources, especially when it includes subscribers who are not interacting with your emails. This could otherwise be spent on optimizing the content and strategy for engaged subscribers.
For these reasons, we recommend cleaning up your list when transferring it to a new platform, which not only helps to improve deliverability but also allows for more accurate metrics and cost-effective email marketing.
If you need more email list control and want to be able to collect, access, segment, and edit subscribers you’ll want to use a plugin like MailPoet. Our lesson on Custom newsletters covers this option.
What is the best way to streamline the process of creating or modifying the layout of a newsletter landing page?
Well done! You’re right. You want to use the WordPress.com Page Layouts or Block Patterns from the Newsletter and Blog Posts categories.
Oops! Not quite. It’s easy to mix up with so many tech companies out there. You can click Reset below to try again.
Customize a dedicated newsletter landing page, following the instructions provided in this lesson. Experiment with different block patterns and layout designs to create a visually engaging and informative page for potential subscribers. You can do this with your existing newsletter landing page, or create a new one to practice with.
- Consider one Aha! moment you had while customizing your newsletter landing page.
- Did anything trip you up while customizing your newsletter landing page?
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