In my last blog post, I talked your ear off about my new(ish) opt-in quiz. I told you all about the many reasons why I decided to set up a quiz and how the whole thing aligns with the vision I have for my brand and business.
If you didn’t catch that post, you can find it here: Why I set up an Opt-In Quiz
In this post, I want to show you all the behind-the-scenes steps I took to set this thing up so that if you want to set up a quiz of your own, you can look to this as a guide.
Note: you’ll need a certain level of savvy and at least some experience in editing your website to be able to successfully follow along with this one.
Here we go!
These are the exact steps I took to set up my quiz:
Step 1: Write your quiz
Before you head out into the interwebs looking for the perfect apps and things to do this, you’ve gotta write your quiz.
Why? Because writing your quiz first gives you the clarity to approach this whole project calmly and without stress. The whole decision-making process will be so much smoother. And you know I’m all about clarity and working peacefully.
My best tip on writing quizzes: Start with the results.
Write your results first and you’ll know what questions you need to ask to lead to each answer. Make each result as helpful as you can and word it the same way you would if you were sharing advice with a close friend.
I also hate it when quizzes make you feel guilty or inadequate or embarrassed, so I proofread my quiz to make sure even the low Brand Clarity result felt optimistic and safe. It’s good brand-building to not make people feel like crap.
Step 2: Set up your Interact account
Let’s be real here. When I was looking for the perfect quiz app, I knew I needed something cheap but, preferably, completely free. Are you with me?
I also wanted/needed it to make my quiz easy to set up and get on my website.
And I wanted to be able to give the results upfront. None of this “take my quiz and then give me your email address to even see the results” nonsense!
If you have the same things in mind, Interact is the perfect match! It’s easy use, there’s no coding required, and your results are only behind a signup wall if you choose to go with the paid version.
Head on over to Tryinteract.com to setup your account. (This is not an affiliate link and I don’t get anything out of sharing this other than the satisfaction of pointing you to a great resource)
Step 3: Create a new quiz
Interact makes it super easy to set up your quiz. You can choose from a long list of proven templates or start from scratch.
I started from scratch because I’m a rebel like that. I need to feel original.
If you don’t have that problem, go ahead and try a template out. They’re actually pretty great.
I went with a Personality quiz because Brand Clarity levels turned out to be a lot like the results you see in personality quizzes. There are no right or wrong answers and there’s no scale (yet!) to give out numerical scores.
From there, Interact does an amazing job at guiding you through all the setup. You can follow along with their pop-ups or take your cues from their helpful placeholders.
Optional Step: Redirect Results
Ok, this might get a little complicated. Bear with me. And skip this step if it doesn’t make sense for you by the end of the third paragraph.
If you stick with Interact’s defaults, your quiz results will be displayed on a page hosted by Interact. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but I wanted more control over my pages.
Specifically, I wanted to be able to include a newsletter opt-in form so that quiz-takers could seamlessly sign up for a recommended freebie after reading their result. Intact would only let me include a link to a separate signup page, which meant adding an unnecessary step to the process.
Redirect Results solves this problem by sending your quiz-takers to whatever page you decide to host your results on. I made three landing pages in Convertkit, one for each result, and told Interact to send quiz-takers there instead.
The process looks seamless on the user’s end and I have much more control over what my results look like and what I include on the page.
To set things up that way, click on the Redirect Results option under the Results heading.
When you check the Redirect All box, a field will appear next to each of your quiz results. This is where you input the web address to the page for each result.
Step 4: Get that quiz on your website!
When your results and questions are all set up and done, go ahead and hit that cool lightning bolt Publish button! This makes your quiz “public” which really only means people with the link will be able to see it.
The next step is to choose how you want to drive traffic to your quiz. I wanted my quiz to live on my website so that I could point people to one of my own webpages. So I chose the Embed option.
That gave me a slightly scary-looking list of options. Here’s what I chose and why:
- Javascript because I clearly remember hearing something about iFrames being outdated even back when I took Web Design 101 in college.
- Auto Resize: Enabled so that this thing will work on a huge computer screen and on iPhones.
- Embed Size: Fit Container because I don’t want to redesign my whole website around this quiz; I want it to fit into what I already have.
- Mobile Devices: Embedded so that the experience is the same whether on the computer or on the phone.
- Cover Page: Disabled so that people can jump right into the quiz without having to click another button that says, “yes, I want to take this quiz”.
Now you can Copy (the Embed) Code to your Clipboard and paste it onto your website. You can either give it it’s own page or add it onto an existing one (like your home page if you want it front and center!).
Almost done!
Step 5: Maximize it!
Now that you have this amazing quiz all setup and done, you want to point as many people to it as possible. Just like you would with any other freebie or download, right?
The first place to advertise this thing is your own website.
You want anyone who lands on your site to know about your quiz so that they’ll hopefully choose to take it while they’re there.
After all, this is the thing that’s going to help them get to know you and take that relationship to the next level.
Here are some places you can promote your quiz:
- Your home page hero image – keep it top and center so it’s the first thing people see and provide a big bright button that’s easy to find.
- Your blog side bar – so it shows up whenever someone’s reading your awesome content! Your blog side bar might not show up on mobile, but you’ll have something there for those times when it does show up.
- A promotional ribbon – that shows up along the top of every page on your website. Sumo’s is a good plugin for setting this up easily.
- At the end of blog posts – like you’ll see me do below! You can write new blog posts that lead nicely into your quiz, look through old content to see where you can squeeze it in naturally, or both!
Seriously, put this thing all over your website! Because visitors can start their journey with you on any of your webpages.
I hope this will help you set up an opt-in system that feels good to you, that’s easy to talk about, and that helps your ideal clients find you.