Creating Standalone Polls

Create standalone polls with dedicated pages, vote on them, and share them across the web. This guide covers the poll creation form, voting process, and best practices for standalone polls.

Creating a Standalone Poll

Click Create Poll on the dashboard to open the creation form.

Step 1: Enter the Poll Title

Write your poll question. This becomes the page title and URL slug. A character limit may apply depending on your site settings.

Step 2: Add a Description

Provide context for voters. Explain why you are asking and what you plan to do with the results. The editor type depends on your site configuration: rich text, simple textarea, or plain text.

Step 3: Choose the Poll Duration

Option	Meaning
Never Expires	Poll stays open indefinitely
Set Duration	Pick start and end dates for voting

The start date defaults to now and the end date defaults to seven days from the start.

Step 4: Select a Poll Type

Type	Best For	Requirement
Text Only	Simple choices and quick decisions	Always available
With Images	Visual comparisons and design choices	Images enabled in settings
With Videos	Product demos and tutorials	Videos enabled in settings
With Audio	Music polls and voice samples	Audio enabled in settings
With HTML	Rich formatted content	HTML enabled in settings

Step 5: Add Answer Options

For text polls, enter each option in the text fields. Click Add Option for more choices. Drag handles to reorder and click the trash icon to remove options. You need at least two options.

For media polls, enter the option text and then attach the relevant media file by uploading or entering a URL.

Step 6: Configure Advanced Settings

• Multi-Choice Voting allows voters to select more than one answer
• Show Results Before Voting lets users see results without voting first
• Allow Additional Options enables voter-suggested answers (text polls only)

Step 7: Submit

Click Create Poll to publish or save the poll based on your site’s default submit status.

Voting on Standalone Polls

1. Navigate to the poll page or find it embedded on a post
2. Read the question and review the options
3. Click your choice (or multiple choices if multi-select is enabled)
4. Click Vote
5. View results and optionally leave a comment

Creating Polls from Admin

Administrators can also create polls from WB Polls > Add New Poll in the WordPress admin.

The admin form provides additional controls not available on the frontend:

• Poll Options meta box with all poll type tabs (Text, Image, Video, Audio, HTML)
• Poll Result section showing current vote counts
• Shortcodes box with the embed code
• Embed box with iframe code for external sites
• Who Can Vote role selector
• Show Poll Description in Shortcode toggle
• Show Result After Expires option
• Enable Multi Choice toggle
• Votes Per User limit
• Add Additional poll option toggle for user-suggested answers
• Discussion settings for comments

Use admin creation when you need more control over poll settings or want to set up polls before the frontend dashboard is ready.

Best Practices

When to Use Standalone Polls

• Formal community decisions that need a dedicated page
• Polls you plan to share on social media
• Surveys embedded in blog posts
• Time-limited voting events with clear deadlines
• Polls that benefit from discussion via comments
• Public polls requiring guest voting

Guest Voting Tips

When allowing guest voting, consider whether the poll topic is appropriate for anonymous participation. Monitor for vote manipulation, use expiration dates to limit voting windows, and combine guest voting with low-stakes polls for best results.