Not all pop-ups are ugly but to very honest, most of them are. They make people feel cringe in disbelief and if you try to add too many pop-ups on the website, you might see an exodus of visitors from your website. But pop-ups are extremely effective when it comes to encouraging people to sign up for the newsletter or encourage them purchase some products from your website.
So, pop-ups are sometimes unavoidable and you can integrate them to your website that has to be done with utmost care and cautions, otherwise you may drive away vast majority of your audience. Moreover, Popups or modal windows if not integrated properly may lead to negative users’ experience. A tough road ahead. To make your task easy and to make them appear less annoying, you need to follow some rules that are specified below:
Make the Close Button Visible: You are free to use pop-ups in your website given the fact that the close button is prominently visible, otherwise it will lead to negative users’ experience. However, I am not asking you to make the close button huge; certainly that does not make any sense. But it should be visible so that visitors can close it if they do not like to get subscribed or for whatsoever reason. The bottom line – do not cross the fine line between negative users experience and high conversion rate.
Do Not Put It On All Places: Do not force the readers hate your website by placing pop-up ads on almost all the pages. This is not going to serve any useful purpose other than making your website to be seen in bad light. It makes sense to place the pop-up add on the landing page so that visitors need have to shoot down that nagging thing time and again.
Keep An Option to Opt Out: Rather than irritating the readers by serving the same ads on all the pages of the website, you should keep an opt-out option in the modal window or pop-up ads. This will make the readers happy if they are not so much interested in your proposal. Now, do not make hue and cry for the lost cause, I mean the lost sale, because these visitors may click on the ads that will help you make a good amount of passive income.
Do Not add Sound and flash: Pop-ups always come with a negative connotation. So, it makes sense to keep it as simple as possible. A pop-up with a noisy animated character asking visitors to do certain thing is not going to add any value to either to users’ experience or sale volume. Pop-ups with music in the background is a thing of the past and believe me it feels tasteless.
Try Different Variations: You should not complacent with the things are. Rather than sticking with one particular versions of the pop-up, you should try different variations and if possible do an A/\B testing with them. I hope, this will work for you. Once you figure out the best version that seems to cut ice with the readers, you should make it the default version and keep on experimenting.
Make Pop-Ups Lightweight:
You should not use a pop-up that takes ages to display. This is going to slow down your website performance and make the readers leave your website. Try one that loads fast and for that you should remove all the bells and whistles from it.
Do Not make the pop-up as Mandatory:
This is a horrible thing to have on a website. You cannot force the visitors to click on the pop-up ads to be able to access the website. This is not ethical and apart from inviting Google’s penalty and it is a stupid thing to do.