How to Create a High-Converting Thank You Page in WordPress (2024 Guide)
Are you looking to build stronger relationships with your customers and subscribers? Want to boost engagement and drive more sales on your website?
Creating a well-designed thank you page is one of the most effective ways to accomplish those goals. A thank you page isn‘t just good manners – when done right, it can be a powerful tool to increase conversions and customer loyalty.
In this in-depth guide, we‘ll show you how to easily create a stunning thank you page in WordPress, plus share expert tips and best practices to help you get the most value from this important touchpoint. We‘ll cover:
- Why thank you pages are so important
- When to display your thank you page
- How to create a custom thank you page in WordPress
- Best practices for thank you page content and design
- Ways to optimize and test your thank you pages
- Tracking thank you page performance
By the end of this post, you‘ll know exactly how to create high-converting thank you pages that delight customers and grow your business. Let‘s dive in!
Why Thank You Pages Are Crucial for Your Business
A thank you page is a webpage that appears immediately after a visitor takes a desired action on your site, such as:
- Submitting a form (contact form, email signup, etc.)
- Making a purchase
- Registering for a membership site
- Enrolling in an online course
- Leaving a comment on your blog
The primary purpose is to confirm their action was successful and express your gratitude. But a thank you page is also prime real estate to further engage that person and guide them to the next step in their customer journey.
Here are a few reasons why a great thank you page is so valuable:
Build trust and credibility: Saying "thank you" and delivering what was promised helps establish your brand as reliable and trustworthy. This is especially important for first-time buyers.
Increase customer lifetime value: You can use thank you pages to present relevant cross-sells, upsells, or special offers that boost average order value and drive repeat purchases.
Encourage social sharing: Including social media buttons makes it easy for happy customers to share your brand and refer their friends.
Provide additional resources: Direct users to helpful content like user guides, video tutorials, FAQs or your best blog posts to get more value from your offerings.
Collect customer feedback: A thank you page is a great place to ask buyers to leave a review or complete a feedback survey.
So instead of just saying a generic "thanks", treat your thank you pages as an opportunity to surprise and delight customers, offer more value, and strengthen their relationship with your brand.
When to Display a Thank You Page
Now that you understand their importance, let‘s look at some common scenarios to show a thank you page on your WordPress site:
After form submissions: Whether it‘s a contact form, email newsletter signup, or lead generation form, display a thank you message and next steps after the user hits "submit".
After successful purchases: Replace the default WooCommerce confirmation with a custom thank you page that cross-promotes other products or offers a coupon code for their next purchase.
After a visitor leaves a comment: Engage first-time commenters by redirecting them to a page with your most popular blog posts or content upgrades.
After membership registration: Welcome new members with a custom thank you page that explains how to access their benefits and drives them back to your site.
After course signups: Show enrollees a thank you page with onboarding materials and tips to complete the course.
After webinar registrations: Use the thank you page to get attendees excited for the webinar, share what they‘ll learn, and encourage them to add it to their calendar.
After event RSVPs: Thank attendees for registering and provide key event info, directions, FAQs, or things to know beforehand.
The key is to align the thank you page with the action just taken, so the messaging matches the user‘s intent and feels like a natural next step (rather than a jarring interruption).
How to Create a Thank You Page in WordPress
The easiest way to create a custom thank you page in WordPress is by using a drag-and-drop page builder plugin. This approach is much more flexible and user-friendly than the default WordPress editor.
Our two favorite page builder plugins are:
SeedProd: Best for creating landing pages and marketing campaigns (including thank you pages)
Elementor: Best for designing entire WordPress themes and websites
For this tutorial, we‘ll be using SeedProd since it‘s the most beginner-friendly and has plenty of great features for building high-converting thank you pages.
Step 1: Install and Activate SeedProd
To get started, install and activate the SeedProd plugin on your WordPress site. You‘ll need at least the Pro version to access the thank you page templates and blocks.
For step-by-step instructions, see this guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Step 2: Create a New Landing Page
In your WordPress dashboard, go to SeedProd > Landing Pages and click the "Add New Landing Page" button.
You‘ll see a variety of landing page templates and types to choose from. To filter the results, select "Thank You" from the dropdown.
Browse the templates and choose one that fits your needs by hovering over it and clicking the checkmark icon. For example, the "Thank You for Signing Up" or "Thank You for Purchasing" templates are great starting points.
Next, you‘ll be asked to enter a name and URL for your thank you page. The URL slug will automatically populate based on the name you enter, but you can customize it here if needed.
When you‘re done, click the "Save and Start Editing the Page" button.
Step 3: Customize Your Thank You Page
Now you‘ll be taken to the SeedProd drag-and-drop builder where you can fully customize your thank you page.
Here are some of the key elements to configure:
Headline: Greet the visitor with a bold, friendly headline that aligns with the action they just took, like "Thanks for signing up!" or "Your order is confirmed!". Use the text settings to adjust the formatting.
Body copy: Reiterate your gratitude and explain what will happen next in a conversational tone. You might mention that a confirmation email is on the way and how long they can expect to wait to hear from you. Keep your paragraphs short and easily scannable.
Imagery: Add one or more relevant images or graphics to make your page more visually appealing. You can upload your own or choose from SeedProd‘s built-in library. Use the image settings to add filters, animations, and more.
Calls-to-action: Invite the user to take another profitable action with clear CTAs, like "Start shopping", "Read the blog", or "Join the Community". Use buttons or links to make them stand out.
Recommendations: Suggest related products, services, or content they might be interested in based on their recent interaction. For example, after someone purchases a course, you could cross-sell a complementary toolkit to go with it.
Social proof: Provide a feed of glowing customer reviews or testimonials to reinforce their purchase decision. You can pull these directly from your Facebook or Yelp page using SeedProd‘s social proof blocks.
Navigation: Consider removing your usual header and footer navigation to keep people focused on the thank you page content. You can easily hide these in SeedProd‘s Global Settings.
Brand elements: Incorporate your brand fonts, colors, and logo to provide a consistent experience across your website. Customize these globally under the Design settings tab.
To edit any block, simply click on it and use the settings panel on the left to modify the content and appearance. You can also drag in new blocks from the left panel to add new sections and elements.
Remember to preview your changes on both desktop and mobile devices to ensure it looks great everywhere. When you‘re happy with the design, click the "Save" button at the top.
Step 4: Configure Your Thank You Page Settings
Before you publish, go to the "Page Settings" area to configure a few final details:
- Page Status: Toggle the status from "Draft" to "Publish" to make your thank you page live.
- SEO Settings: Enter a custom SEO title and meta description to optimize your page for search engines (this is optional).
- Analytics: Enable conversion tracking to monitor the performance of your thank you pages and see how many people are seeing them.
You can leave the rest of the settings as-is for now. Just make sure to hit the "Save" button again before you exit.
Step 5: Connect Your Email Marketing Service
If you‘ve added an email signup form to your thank you page, you‘ll want to integrate it with your email marketing platform to automatically add new subscribers to your list.
To do that in SeedProd, go to the "Connect" tab and select your email provider. Follow the prompts to securely connect your account and pick the list where contacts should be added.
Repeat this process for any other marketing platforms you want to sync data with, like a CRM or webinar service.
Step 6: Set Up a Redirect to Your Thank You Page
The last step is to actually trigger your new thank you page to display after the desired action is taken. Here are a few common examples:
After form submissions:
If you‘re using WPForms to build a contact form, go to the form settings and select the "Confirmations" tab. Choose the "Go to URL (Redirect)" option and paste in the URL of your thank you page. Now when someone submits that form, they‘ll be instantly redirected to your custom thank you page.
After WooCommerce purchases:
By default, WooCommerce shows a boring order confirmation. To replace it with your high-converting thank you page, you‘ll need to use this code snippet.
After membership or course registrations:
If you‘re using MemberPress to run a membership site or sell courses, head to MemberPress > Settings and go to the "Pages" tab. You can select your custom thank you page from the dropdown next to "MemberPress Thank You Page". This will automatically show your thank you page after successful signups.
After webinar registrations:
Most popular webinar platforms let you input a custom URL to redirect to after someone registers. Just grab the URL of your thank you page and paste it into your webinar setup.
Best Practices for Thank You Pages
Now that you know how to build a thank you page in WordPress, let‘s quickly go over some tips to make sure it performs well:
Keep it concise: Don‘t overwhelm people with too much information right after converting. Keep your copy clear, friendly, and to-the-point. Aim for a length of 1-2 short paragraphs.
Prioritize one goal: Avoid presenting too many options or CTAs that compete for attention. Focus on driving one key action per page, like downloading a lead magnet or adding another product to their cart.
Personalize the experience: Use smart tags to dynamically insert the person‘s name or details about their purchase. This creates a VIP experience and shows you value them as an individual.
Provide next steps: Always give clear direction on what the user should do next, whether that‘s checking their inbox, reading a piece of content, joining your social media, or making another purchase.
Offer support: Make it easy for users to get help if needed by including links to your knowledge base, product docs, FAQs, or support team‘s contact info.
Optimize for search: While some thank you pages shouldn‘t be indexed by Google, if you do want it to rank, include your primary keyword in the page title, URL, and a few times in the body content.
Match your branding: Your thank you pages should look and feel like a cohesive part of your website, not an afterthought. Use consistent colors, fonts, voice, and visual elements across all your pages.
A/B Test Your Thank You Pages
To fully optimize the performance of your thank you pages, we highly recommend split testing different variations to see what works best with your unique audience.
SeedProd makes this easy with its built-in landing page A/B testing functionality. Simply create two versions of your page, modify the element you want to test (like the headline, imagery, or CTA), and let it run until you have a statistically significant winner.
Some key variables to test on your thank you pages include:
- Headline copy
- Body copy
- Call-to-action text and placement
- Background and button colors
- Page layout and design
- Cross-sell vs. no cross-sell
- Coupon code vs. no coupon
Over time, these incremental improvements can really add up in terms of conversion rates and customer loyalty.
Measure Your Thank You Page Results
Finally, it‘s important to monitor the analytics of your thank you pages to measure your results and identify areas for improvement.
SeedProd has built-in conversion tracking, so you can easily see your total page views, unique views, and conversion rate for each thank you page you‘ve built.
We also recommend setting up Google Analytics goals to track important events like visits to your thank you pages, button clicks, and sales generated after seeing them. This will give you a clearer picture of how thank you pages fit into your overall marketing funnel and their impact on your bottom line.
Some key metrics to watch include:
- Thank you page traffic
- Conversion rates
- Email signups or lead captures
- Repeat purchases from existing customers
- Revenue or average order value
- Social media followers or shares
By regularly reviewing this data, you can double down on what‘s working and adjust your strategy as needed.
Recap
Creating an optimized thank you page is a small touch that can make a huge difference in your customer experience and retention. It‘s well worth taking the time to get it right!
Follow the steps in this guide to easily build a custom thank you page in WordPress:
- Install SeedProd and create a new thank you page
- Customize your page with high-converting elements
- Configure your page settings and connect your email service
- Set up a redirect from your form, checkout page, or membership site
- Split test variations to optimize conversions
- Track your thank you page analytics
With a stellar thank you page in place, you‘ll delight customers, increase engagement, and see an impressive boost in sales. The sky‘s the limit!
