How to Create a Survey in WordPress (Step-by-Step)

Learning how to create a survey in WordPress is simpler than you might think. And trust me, once you start getting real feedback from your visitors, you'll wonder how you ever made decisions without it.

In this guide, we're skipping the tech jargon and focusing on what works. You'll learn how to build surveys people actually want to fill out (because let's face it, nobody likes those endless, boring forms).

Ready to dive in? Let's get your first survey up and running.

Why Should You Add Surveys to Your WordPress Website?

Ever wished you could read your customers' minds? Well, a good survey is the next best thing. It turns those "I wonder why..." moments into real answers you can use to grow your business.

Maybe you're scratching your head about abandoned carts, or you've got a new feature in mind but aren't sure if anyone wants it. Instead of playing the guessing game, you can ask your visitors directly through a simple survey.

The beauty of it? Once set up, surveys work 24/7, collecting valuable insights while you focus on running your business. They catch problems early, uncover hidden opportunities, and show your audience you value their input.

And here's the good news - you don't need to be tech-savvy to add professional surveys to your WordPress site. We'll walk you through the whole process, keeping things simple and straightforward.

How to Build a WordPress Survey and Collect Meaningful Feedback

Follow this tutorial to learn how to create an engaging survey the right way -- and without any technical obstacles to get through.

Step 1: Install Thrive Quiz Builder

Thrive Quiz Builder is a powerful quiz and survey plugin that gives you everything you need to collect feedback or insights the right way.

It's the perfect balance of simplicity, quality, and functionality. You get a user-friendly interface, a drag-and-drop editor to customize your survey’s appearance, and the freedom to create as many quizzes as you like. 

With this tool, you can easily create a WordPress quiz quickly, without needing any coding skills. 

Create Custom Surveys That Match Your Brand

Want to create a WordPress survey that encourages your customers or prospects to actually finish it?

This plugin gives you everything you need to make any type of quiz or survey look exactly the way you want. Choose from a huge range of colors, fonts, images, and videos to build a WordPress survey that matches your brand's overall look.

And if design isn't your strong suit, no worries! The plugin comes with a selection of professionally designed templates that'll make your quizzes look great.

Generate Leads and Grow Your Email List on Autopilot

One of the things that sets this WordPress survey plugin apart from the rest is how easy it makes growing your email list and generating leads.

This survey maker plugin works seamlessly with all the popular email marketing services out there, so you can collect valuable contact info from your audience without breaking a sweat.

Get All the Details on Your Survey's Performance

Sometimes, our surveys don't perform as well as we want them to -- and that's totally okay.

Testing and tweaking is a key part of running an online business.

To help you identify problem areas (or even winners) in your survey, we've provided detailed reporting to help you track all the important stuff like completion rates, lead generation, and social shares.

The Perfect WordPress Survey Plugin for Everyone 

Thrive Quiz Builder was built with everyone in mind -- beginners and experienced WordPress users alike. 

You'll be pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to create a smooth tool to collect feedback from your audience.

With its extensive features, integrations, and top-notch customer support, it's the go-to plugin for WordPress users who want to hear from their audience and make meaningful changes to their business.

Step 2: Choose the “Survey” Template

Once you’ve installed and activated your plugin, head to the left sidebar in the WordPress Dashboard and find the “Thrive Dashboard” tab.

Click on it and find “Thrive Quiz Builder”.

You’ll be taken to the Quiz Builder Dashboard. This is where you’ll manage everything that has to do with your quizzes.

To get started, click “Add New” using either one of the options presented below:

You have four options:

• Build from Scratch: Build your quiz on your own, with no presets
• List Building: Quiz results page will be visible only if the quiz taker signs up for your email list
• Social Shares: Adds a social share badge to your results page, optimizing it for increased social media engagement.
• Gain Customer Insights: Quiz will function as a survey, and no results page will be displayed.

Because this is a survey, you'll choose the last one -- "Gain Customer Insights".

Once you’ve selected your template, you’ll need to name your survey. You’ll then be directed to a dedicated dashboard for this particular survey.

Every quiz or survey you create will have its own dashboard, making it much easier to manage and customize them.

Step 3: Choose Style (Design) for Your Survey

Now it's time to choose a design template for your survey.

Thrive Quiz Builder offers a variety of eye-catching templates to help you create an aesthetically pleasing survey. Follow the tour guide to choose a template that aligns with your branding. 

For this tutorial, I’ll be using the Lush template.

Step 4: Add Questions and Answers

Once you've picked a template, it's time to add your questions. Just click the "Add Question" button and choose what kind of question you want - you can pick from multiple choice, single choice, or open-ended. 

Then, type in your question. For each question you create, you’ll need to choose one of the three options — Multiple Choice with Buttons, Multiple Choice with Images (Buzzfeed Style), and Open Ended Question. Write your questions and assign each answer to one of your pre-created categories. Make sure your answers are clear and concise!

 Just like in this mini demo here:

Once you’ve created your questions, arrange them in the question editor like in the example below:

Step 5: Add an Opt-In Gate (for List Building Quizzes)

Don't let your survey takers complete the survey without providing their contact details. How else will you let them know that you're working on their suggestions?

Thrive Quiz Builder has an opt-in gate feature that lets you gather your audience's contact details easily.

Your template set includes an opt-in form template you can customize in the visual editor.

The drag-and-drop visual editor doubles up as a form designer and helps you customize your opt-in form in a few minutes. With the design elements in the right sidebar, you can add text, images, a countdown timer, or even a progress bar to your form page.

You'll notice that the template is quite "quiz-ified". You can easily make a couple of tweaks to make it more survey-appropriate. Like this:

You can also customize the elements that are already on the page. Just click on any element, like the text, and use the left sidebar to change its color, font, spacing, and more.

Don’t forget to configure what happens after a successful submission, in the left sidebar. Add the URL to your "Thank You" page – or a different page you’ve designed.

Step 6: Create a Thank You Page For Your Quiz

If this were a quiz, your focus would be on creating a "Results page" to show your audience their quiz results (e.g. Which One Direction Member is Their Personality). But since this is a survey, you don’t need a results page.

Instead, you can create a Thank You page to, well, thank them for taking your quiz. You can also use this page to point them to a set of next steps.

I have the best tutorial to help you create an engaging Thank You page your audience will love, just check it out here.

Step 7: Customize Your Splash Page

A splash page serves as the initial screen when your quiz loads, presenting an introduction to your quiz and inviting users to participate. Without a splash page, the quiz would directly display the first question, which could appear out of context on your website, depending on its placement.

Create an engaging splash page to effectively introduce your quiz. Be sure to include a strong call-to-action to invite people to take your quiz. 

Return to your Quiz Structure and select the “Splash Page” option:

We give you a pretty good template to get started with. Use the Thrive Visual editor to add images, video, or text. 

Step 8: Add Your Survey to Your WordPress Page

The final step is to embed the survey on your website using shortcode or Thrive Architect — no need to use custom code or widgets.

You can place your survey on your homepage, a landing page, embedded within a piece of content — anywhere on your website that attracts high-quality leads.

Embed Your Quiz Using a Shortcode

To embed your survey, copy the shortcode located in the top-right corner of the quiz editor.

Next, navigate to the desired page for displaying the survey and paste the shortcode.

How to Add Your Quiz or Survey Using Thrive Architect

To add your survey using Thrive Architect, open the page where you'd like the quiz to appear. Click and drag the Quiz element to the desired position.

How to Share Your WordPress Survey With Your Audience

Getting customer feedback helps shape your business. Here's how to share your survey in ways that feel natural:

• Send a friendly follow-up email within 24-48 hours while the experience is fresh. Keep it simple: "We'd love to hear how your recent purchase went!"
• Add a survey link into emails you're already sending. It flows nicely with your regular communications.
• When wrapping up support conversations, ask if they'd share feedback about their experience. People often want to help after receiving good service.
• A simple "Share your thoughts" link to your email signature. It's a great way to reach customers at different times.

A final thought - timing matters. Skip sending surveys late Friday when people are heading into their weekend, and space out your requests so customers don't feel overwhelmed.

And if your survey is for something outside of customer feedback and you need a wider audience, here's how to increase your website's reach so they land on the right pages:

• 8 Content Marketing Hacks to Grow Your Online Business
• How to Get Your Business Noticed & Grow Your Audience
• 7 Keyword Research Tips for the Busy Entrepreneur
• How to Create SEO-Friendly Blog Posts Users and Bots Will Love (14 Tips)

How to Create Surveys in WordPress: Wrapping Up

Hey - nice work making it through the guide! Now you've got the key steps to make your surveys more engaging, like writing questions that feel like a real conversation and creating a great design for an even better experience.

You know those surveys that make you yawn halfway through?

Yeah, we're doing the opposite of that. The goal is to create something your audience actually wants to engage with - which makes the whole sharing part (like popping it into purchase emails) so much easier.

Now that you've seen how it's done, want to put all these ideas into action without the tech headaches? That's where Thrive Quiz Builder shines. It handles all the behind-the-scenes stuff while you focus on creating something worth filling out.

Ready to start creating engaging surveys and quizzes?

Give Thrive Quiz Builder a try.