How to Create an Interactive Poll in WordPress (Step by Step)

Last updated Jul 10, 2019

Do you want to run an online poll on your WordPress site? Polls are an interactive way to engage your audience, while getting useful information from them. In this article, we will show you how to easily create and add a poll in your WordPress website.

Which Tool to Choose for Adding a Poll in WordPress?

There are plenty of WordPress plugins and online tools that allow you to embed polls on your WordPress site. Many of them require you to create an account, some store data on their own servers, and others have terrible user experience.

If you are looking for a good user experience, with full control on poll data, then you’ll need WPForms. It is the best WordPress form builder plugin and their pro plan includes powerful surveys and polls addon.

With WPForms, you’ll be able to do the following:

Create polls in WordPress using a drag and drop form builder
Gather poll results on your own websites
Show votes count when user submit their vote
Display poll anywhere on your website
Show poll results anywhere on your website

Having said that, let’s take a look at how to easily create online polls in WordPress using WPForms.

Disclosure: WPForms is created by the same team behind WPBeginner. It is one of our premium WordPress plugins.

Creating Online Polls in WordPress

First thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

WPForms survey and polls addon is part of their Pro plan which you’ll have to purchase. WPBeginner users get an additional 10% off by using the WPForms coupon code: WPB10.

Upon activation, you need to visit the WPForms » Settings page to enter your license key. You can find this information from your WPForms account.

Next, you need to visit WPForms » Addons page and scroll down to the Surveys and Polls addon. Go ahead and click on the Install addon button. Once installed, you need to click the ‘Activate’ button to start using the addon.

Now you are ready to create an online poll.

You can start by going to WPForms » Add New page to create a new form. This will launch the WPForms’ drag and drop form builder interface.

First you need to provide a title for your poll form and then click on the Poll Form template.

This will load a pre-made poll form template with example fields already added into the form.

You can just point and click to edit any field, rearrange them with drag and drop, or remove them. You can also add new form fields from the left column.

Poll results can be collected and displayed for any of the following field types:

Dropdown
Checkboxes
Multiple Choice

Next, you need to click on the settings button from the left menu and then click on Surveys and Polls tab. Here you can enable or disable poll results.

By default, WPForms poll template will display poll results to users after they submit their vote. If you uncheck this option, then users will not see the poll results.

Instead, you can show users a custom message or redirect them to another page or URL. You can configure the confirmation setting by clicking on the ‘Confirmation’ tab.

Once you have created the poll form, go ahead and click on the save button to store your form settings. You can now click on the close button to exit the form builder.

Adding The Poll to Your WordPress Website

WPForms makes it quite easy to add your online poll anywhere on your website including posts, pages, custom post types, and sidebar widgets.

Simply edit the post, page, or post type where you want to add the poll. On the post edit screen, click on the ‘Add Form’ button.

This will bring up a popup where you can select the poll form you created earlier and click on the insert form button to continue.

You will now see the form shortcode added into the post editor.

You can save or publish your post/page and visit your website to see your poll in action.

You can also add your poll to a sidebar or widget ready area. To do that, you need to go to Appearance » Widgets page and drag the WPForms widget to a sidebar where you want to display the poll.

In the widget settings, you need to select the poll form you created earlier. You can also provide a title for the widget as well as show form name and description.

Don’t forget to click on the save button to store your widget settings. You can now visit your website to see your online poll displayed in a sidebar or another widget-ready area.

Viewing Live Poll Results

If you have enabled poll results, then your users will see the results after submitting their vote.

You can also view poll results at any time without submitting a vote. Simply visit WPForms » All Forms page and click on the ‘Survey Results’ link below your poll form.

This will take you to the poll results page where you will see poll responses in an interactive chart. You can change the charge type and export the results in JPEG, PDF, and print formats.

Embed Poll Results Anywhere in WordPress

WPForms also allows you to easily embed your online poll results anywhere on your website. This is particularly useful if you had disabled poll results and wanted to share them later.

Here is how to embed poll results in WordPress.

First you will need to find out your poll form’s ID. You can do this by going to WPForms » All Forms page and looking for the shortcode next to your poll form.

In the shortcode, you will find your poll’s ID number. For example, our test poll’s ID is 171 as shown in the screenshot above.

Next, you need to find out the field ID. This is the field in your form for which you want to show the results.

Simply edit your poll form and click on the poll field. You will find the field ID in the left column.

Now that you have both required IDs, you can go ahead and add the poll results shortcode like this:

Don’t forget to replace the form ID and field ID values with your own. You can use this shortcode in WordPress posts, pages, and text widget.

We hope this article helped you create online poll in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to use contact form to grow your email list in WordPress.

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