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How to use popups on your website effectively
Pop-ups can be a helpful tool that you can use on your website, but only if you use them in the right way. Because in most cases website visitors simply ignore them or even get very annoyed.
I am personally, not a huge fan of pop-ups. I don’t like to use them on my website and the websites of my clients.
When I visit other people’s websites and have a popup right away before I even interacted with the content, it creates a horrible user experience and I want to leave the website right away. But It shouldn’t be used this way, there are some other ways of using popups that don’t ruin the user experience and make your visitors take actions you want them to take.
According to many recent studies most people hate popups. They come to websites to complete a particular task or find a particular piece of information. And when their attempts to do so are interrupted with popups all the time, they start to feel very frustrated, they cannot complete their task and leave the website with a very bad impression of the website. And if they leave feeling this way, most likely they won’t come back to your website.
Let your visitors interact with your content first
One of the biggest mistake website designers and business owners make today is bombarding a new visitor with popups before even the main page loads. New visitors don’t know you or what you do, they want to complete a task or find a specific piece of information when they land on your website. And you prevent them from doing it by showing popups right away. Most of the web users these days are getting used to seeing premature popups all over the web, and the only response that they have to it is to ignore it right away or even get irritated sometimes.
Premature popups make your website look desperate and create a very bad user experience from the first seconds of being on your website. I’m sure that you would agree that it’s not a long-lasting strategy that will help you to attract your ideal client and build an authentic community.
What you can do instead:
Ask for emails before visitors interact with your content
This problem is similar to the first one. It’s when you ask for people’s email right away when they land on your website before they even find out who you are and what you are doing.
Although, by choosing to do so, you do a favour nor for you neither your potential clients. People will be annoyed that you ask for their email too soon, that the timing for asking isn’t appropriate. Moreover, they will consider that there will be tons of spam and junk email sent to them if they give their email address too soon.
What to do instead:
You can still ask for people’s email on your website, although, the timing should be just right and with minimum intrusion. Don’t ask for too much information. Usually, just a first name and email are more than enough. Let your visitors get to know what you’re doing, your offer, maybe read a valuable blog post. And only after that, you can have a small form asking for their emails.
You can explain what people will get by signing up for your newsletter. Or maybe offer some valuable piece of information in exchange for their emails. If you sell physical products, you can offer a promotional code in exchange for people’s email for example.
Interrupt access to the content by popups
Another bad thing to do is to interrupt your visitors with overlay popups when they’re engaging with your blog post or another valuable piece of information. It looks like you’re conditioning access to your content. It kills credibility and trust among your visitors.
What to do instead:
Allow your website visitors to do the main task they come to your website to do – to consume your valuable piece of content without interrupting them. Instead, you can create a small banner on the top of your website or a form at the end of the article to ask for their email.
Showing multiple popups one after another
Showing multiple popups one after another can overwhelm your readers if they need to close one pop up after another. It takes too much effort. It makes your website look unprofessional and very desperate.
What to do instead:
Avoid displacing several popups in a row one after another. It’s never a good thing to do. Don’t put any vital information in the popups as people tend to close them without reading.
Instead, you can put ab important piece of the information directly on the web page where people can see it.
Make sure that popups can be easily closed
If you d decide to use popups on multiple pages of your website, make sure that your visitors can easily close them and continue with their task on your website.
It can be very annoying when people cannot find the way the popup easily. It frustrates them, makes them lose their time, prevents them from finding valuable information on your website.
What to do instead:
You can use popups all over your website, but make sure that the visitors can close them easily and don’t waste too much time and effort on finding the way to close them.
Because if they do, most likely they will leave your website very fast and won’t come back. the user experience will be ruined right away.
Final thoughts
All in all, popups can be very helpful to get more lead generation or to share a valuable piece of content with your audience. But be aware of how you use them. Because if you push too hard, display a lot of pop-ups before providing any value, most likely you will ruin the trust, look desperate and needy.
It will ruin the user experience on your website and most likely people won’t come back to your website.
Other resources you can check to learn more how you can use popups on your website.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/popups/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/overuse-of-overlays/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/making-hated-design-elements-work/
https://uxdesign.cc/pop-up-marketing-heaven-and-ux-nightmare-b93e94c291f8
https://www.optimonk.com/ux-design-tips-popups-to-improve-user-experience/