How Do Pop-Ups Affect SEO?

Connie Lewis | September 23, 2021 | Blog, Content Marketing | No Comments

Some may say that pop-ups that display ads are irritating, a little old-fashioned, but in essence, they aim to drive sales. SEO specialists can benefit from using pop-ups as they can improve their conversation rates when used correctly. In the same breath, you don’t want to be penalized by Google for it!

You use pop-ups to share valuable information and help customers easily get what they need. So, what do you need to know to take advantage of them in SEO?

Types of Pop-Ups

A basic pop-up box is made of a headline, short copy, image and “call-to-action.” (It doesn’t necessarily have to be in this order). Always keep in mind that Google has a policy that prohibits intrusive pop-ups. Below we briefly discuss the kinds of pop-ups you can find:

Overlay Pop-Ups – these are shown over the web page content. They are meant for a good user experience and usually display an important message. When used the right way, such ads can be SEO friendly and effectively capture emails.
Interstitial Pop-Ups – such full-screen pop-ups have a waiting time before you can read the information on the site. Some interstitials are intrusive, difficult to close, and a website with this can affect SERP rankings. Moreover, they may lower user engagement, impact bounce rate and risk being taken down by Google.
Modal Pop-Ups – one can say that these pop-ups are almost the same as overlay. They are used for actions like login windows and notifications. Also, these are SEO friendly, engaging, help store emails and can generate clicks.
New Windows Pop-Ups – people hate these pop-up messages that are shown outside the main site browser window. Well, so does Google! Spammy websites use these and make them hard to close, making navigation difficult. Ultimately making for a terrible user experience. (Firefox and Google Chrome can stop them automatically)
Entry Pop-Ups – this is a message that shows up right after you open a website. These are annoying and frustrate customers because it disturbs them from reading the page.
Exit Pop-Up– is triggered when it senses that a user is about to leave your website. These are eye-catching and not intrusive.

Side note: You shouldn’t use different pop-ups on one page you’ll confuse people. A simple pop-up can encourage users to take action.

Pop-Ups Count

When reviewing your SEO strategy, you may want to also look at the role they play.

iPaper conducted a study of 2 billion pop-ups

“The number of people that see a pop-up for the first time engages in brand with a conversion rate of 11%. The average pop-up conversion rate across all pop ups is 3.09%. The average conversion rate of top performing pop-ups is 28%.”

“Pop-Ups help entrepreneur.com increase subscription by 86% and sales by 162%”

“53% of global online traffic comes from mobile devices”

-source: popupsmart.com

Top 5 Ways to Take Advantage of Them

Use attractive pop-ups that don’t bore customers such as floating pop-ups, sidebar, lightbox and more.
Don’t use pop-ups that have too much information about your website. I know you are already thinking of cancelling interstitials, right?
Allow your clients to go through the site before displaying a pop-up.
Check out where most of your visitors come from and create purpose driven pop-up messages.
Don’t forget to offer something valuable to your users (don’t throw a bunch of text). The tone you use to convey the message is also essential. There are pop-up services that you can use such as Popupsmart.

Reasons for Pop-Ups Not Working

You have already set up a pop-up on your own or outsourced the service but can’t see results. Here are some reasons why you are not reaching your goals:

You don’t understand your target audience.
The timing of your message is not right.
The pop-up may not meet requirements or doesn’t display correctly in function with your website.

When Is the Right Time for a Pop-Up?

You have been working on improving your website, now you are wondering whether or not to implement notifications? Well, the good news is that if you don’t already have it, you can easily get one. It’s ideal to do a bit of research about your customers before using a pop-up.

For maximum visibility, you can place it above the fold. Include an impressive design along with catchy copy. Lastly, your website pop-ups need to be optimized for mobile devices, then you are good to go. Now, let’s see if your conversions improve!