You may have seen the trend of websites having a bar at the top of the site, that stays there as you scroll through the site. <\/p>\n
This static hover bar catches users eyes and increases click throughs and conversions. Neil Patel of Quicksprout<\/a> says that 11% of his revenue<\/a> comes from HelloBar<\/a>.<\/p>\n But is there something special about HelloBar, or will an alternative be just as effective?<\/p>\n Any other bar with the same features will absolutely be as effective.<\/p>\n HelloBar has a link to their own site on the top left corner. They also have minimums and monthly pricing. The bar has some features, such as analytics tracking, which others don’t offer. But is that really what you’re looking for?<\/p>\n I went searching for an alternative and I found themify.me<\/a> has something called the Announcement Bar<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Announcement Bar has everything I was looking for.
\nHere are the 7 things that I think make this $19 plugin 10 times better than HelloBar.
\n1. $19 one time pricing
\n2. Schedules – You can schedule when your announcements appear, and they automatically disappear at the scheduled end time.
\n3. Design – It is super easy to control the design. Choose fonts, colors and layouts to fit the style of your site.
\n4. Placement – You can easily have the bar at the top or bottom of your site, but you can also integrate this tool into your site using shortcodes or widgets.
\n5. More – There is an option to allow the user to expand the bar and get more information on your announcement… but it’s not just a text area, it’s an easy to use layout builder.
\n6. Close feature – allow your users to close the bar, and remember their preference (if you allow this).
\n7. Multiple announcements – Add more than one announcement and have it auto-scroll through them, or set it up to slide or fade.<\/p>\n