Should you use pop-ups on your website?

This last year, website pop-ups have started to make a comeback as an effective online marketing strategy. In the past, they were used to advertise third-party products and would interrupt the user’s online experience. However, now they are integrated into site content to offer discounts, initiate subscriptions, and direct site traffic.

This new style of pop-up, known as interstitial pop-ups, has an impressive success rate and easily integrates into larger content management strategies.

The benefits of pop-ups

Pop-ups offer a wide variety of benefits, especially when it comes to building your email list. In fact, some websites have seen a 1375% increase in website sign ups after incorporating opt-in invitation pop-ups (Business 2 Community). Interstitial pop-ups can also help increase sales when incorporated into shopping cart navigation. When a user begins to navigate away from the shopping cart page without buying the items, a strategically placed pop-up offering a discount can entice them to make the purchase. 

The downsides of pop-ups

The downside of incorporating pop-ups is that they can interrupt the consumer experience. Some people may become so frustrated by this interruption that they will navigate away from the website before taking any action. This can happen even with interstitial pop-ups containing beneficial offers. Also, many users employ blockers in their internet browsers, so they will completely miss this part of your content. 

Potential pop-up penalties

If you are not careful about how you incorporate pop-ups into your content strategy, you may end up with penalties, like a lowered search ranking from Google. Furthermore, starting on January 10, 2017, Google plans to crackdown on interstitial pop-ups by implementing a new algorithm (SearchEngineLand).  This algorithm will target pop-ups that:

●    contain duplicate content
●    disrupt navigation
●    have to be manually dismissed before readers can access the website

The algorithm will not target pop-ups that are legally required such as, login dialogs, and banners that are easily dismissed.  

Pop-ups can provide a range of benefits but only if they are incorporated properly into your content strategy. With our content management expertise we can help you implement novel content strategies to drive traffic and prompt consumer engagement without turning off your readers or incurring penalties.