<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/WordPress-Double-Opt-in.jpg" alt="WordPress Double Opt-in" width="320" height="180" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9023" />When you want readers to subscribe to your blog, you typically have them confirm their subscription. Typically the best practice for getting your users to confirm their new subscription with you is to have them confirm via email. 

This practice of a double opt-in for your newsletters and WordPress is a good way to have them confirm that they are really serious about following you which means you can count on them to be a reader of your work. The double opt-in for WordPress emails and newsletters is the best practice despite it appearing like it may cause people to stray away. Here is a look at why you need to do it for your WordPress site. 

<h2>There is evidence that double opt-in is a wise move for all websites</h2>

Having the double opt-in is actually recommended and there’s evidence that it’s proving to be a good move. While it may seem that your readers will decide it’s too many steps, in fact this repetitive process is actually working. 

While some sites are using single opt-in where only one step is required for a subscriber to get signed up, the double opt-in requiring extra steps causes more of a thought process on the subscriber. Single opt-in is basically requiring your subscriber to fill out the submission form, hit subscribe and they are done. 

The double opt-in requires two different confirmations, usually via the website and the other in their email account. While it may seem like it would turn off your subscriber from wanting to bother, in fact it has some perks. 

<h2>Why does the double opt-in process works?</h2>

It may seem counter-intuitive to force subscribers to confirm twice and may even make them feel like, “why bother?” in reality, it’s only two steps and it guarantees that your subscriber is someone that actually wants to hear from you. 

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Email-Double-Opt-in.png" alt="Email Double Opt-in" width="180" height="180" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9021" />It’s also going to reduce the chance that your subscribers accidentally subscribe with an old account or incorrect email address since they will notice when they aren’t receiving their email confirmation right away. This is good because you don’t want to have invalid email addresses when it comes to tracking your analytics. 

In addition to these perks, you can rest assured that spam will be reduced and spam complaints will decrease as well. Since your users will have to provide an email address to send the confirmation email, no one can claim they are getting emails they didn’t ask for. They have to physically go in and confirm that they want the emails so how could they possibly be mad later for getting your emails? 

If you do get reported for spam later on, you can prove that they signed up and confirmed they wanted your emails. This helps later if you need proof they signed up for your newsletter so that you don’t get flagged as a spam site. Excessive spam complains will get your domain banned by ISPs, placed on an email blacklist and then it’s extremely difficult to get your domain removed from it where you’d end up having to start over with a new one. While you can’t always reduce your complaints to zero, at least you can reduce them to very few. 

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Newsletter-Double-opt-in.jpg" alt="Newsletter Double opt-in" width="254" height="180" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-9022" />Finally, it’s going to raise the value of your newsletter, reduce the number of unsubscribers and you can rest assured that people who are subscribing actually want to read what you have to say. While some people may unsubscribe later because they signed up on a whim, in most cases, your subscribers will be committed if they are going to double opt-in with you. 

Your newsletter will increase its value since you will be able to charge advertisers for ads targeted to your specific market and your readers won’t mind since they want to hear what you have to say. 

By simply having your readers fill out a submission form and confirm the subscription in their email accounts, you can rest easy knowing the double opt-in process is going to benefit you and your subscribers for your newsletters, emails, memberships and more. Consider adding it to your WordPress site in order to reap these benefits and more. 

