WordPress popup plugins are among the most useful plugins for a marketer and a blogger because it is a known fact that popups are a very efficient marketing tool. However, when popups are used blatantly, the effect is far from what you expect. This is why you need to know how to make popups work for, not against you. Here are some do’s and don’ts to help you in the process.
Do Allow Opt-out
You might feel the urge to make your visitors see your popup all the time but since this is hardly what visitors dream of, you do need to resist the urge. Most WordPress popup plugins give a lot of scheduling flexibility, including the option to give users the choice not to see more popups, if they don’t want to. Your heart might be aching while enabling this option, but you’ve got to do it. If a user doesn’t want to see more popups and you force him or her, you won’t benefit from this, so just enable the No More Popups option (or whatever it is called) and move on.
Do Make Popups Visually Appealing
No matter how visually appealing your popups are, users will hardly be dying to see them, especially all the time. However, if your popups are ugly, you can be sure that the number of users who will stand them will drop even further. This is why you need to make your popups pleasant to the eye. Most WordPress popup plugins offer sufficient styling options, so take advantage of this.
Do Change The Message
When your message stays the same over and over again, this will bore users. If you stick with the same message, users become blind to it and don’t even read it anymore. Well, you can’t change the message every minute but changing it from time to time helps. You don’t have to come up with a completely new message every time you change it – even some minor modifications do make a difference.
Do Not Make The Popup Hard To Bypass
Using brute force isn’t the way to be heard. This applies to popups as well. It is rare to see but still there are webmasters, who think that if there is no Close button, or an obscure Close button this will make users complete the offer in the popup and then proceed to the site. Of course, this doesn’t work, at least not unless your users are idiots. You might want to blackmail your users to do what you want them to do in the popup, but instead you will only make them mad and leave your site.
Do Not Nag
When you are told the same thing over and over again and you said No the first time, do you think there is a chance to change your mind the 10th or 100th time you hear it? Of course not. The same applies to popups. When a user has once said No by closing the popup, it is unlikely to say Yes when the same popup is displayed over and over again. It is really irritating to get the same popup on each page refresh. Because of this, schedule your popups with more thought, so that they get displayed every now and then but without becoming a nag.
Do Not Make Popups Fat
A popup is not a full-blown Web page – or at least it is not supposed to be. Many WordPress popup plugins allow to include in a popup sounds, videos, and all sorts of other goodies and while you should take advantage of these options, don’t make the popup fat. If the popup loads slowly, or if it crashed the visitors computer, this isn’t to your advantage.
There are many other Do’s and Don’ts regarding the wise use of popups but these tips are the basic ones. It won’t hurt if you know more but even sticking to the basics only can take you very far. Use these rules with your popups and you will see it does make a difference.