Popups have over the years proven to be very efficient when it comes to getting email subscribers, giving out freebies and making sells on your business blogs. While popups can be helpful to your online resources, there are some things which you must put into consideration before or while using them on your Blogger and WordPress blogs. The ideal practice would be for you to figure out a way of using them effectively without obstructing or causing your readers or customers to be annoyed. This article has addressed five (5) things which you can use to checkmate the usage of popups on your blogs at the same time gaining the juicy flow of subscribers which it brings.
Choose a Friendly Popup size
I have comes across blogs that focus mainly on gaining readership through popups. It is usually obvious when you see them. Right from when you land on their pages, the first thing you will see is a big popup carrying email subscription form. Now I am not saying is bad to do so, but where it works most is when a friendly popup size is used. A popup size of about 200x300px will just be fine because you will give the visitor the first opportunity of seeing what your blog looks like, as most visitors find it hard continuing with blogs that welcomes them with large popups.
Never Display Popups Right on Startup
I know you may be wondering if I am really making sense! Well it’s just so simple that displaying huge popups on a startup of your blog most times irritates or scares your visitors away. Like I said earlier, a visitor needs to have a glimpse of what your site looks like or what it stands for before making the choice of subscribing to your newsletter or buying a product from you. It is no news today that both readers and visitors understands the fact that publishers needs them to subscribe to their updates, so making it obvious to them on a start up on your blog without allowing them check out what you have for them can cause them to suspend reading or subscribing to your content.
Choose a Display Schedule that Works
This is another important factor to put into consideration when displaying popups on your blog. As a matter of fact, it dictates the way readers and visitors will view your blog. One big mistake you will make is choosing a display schedule that shows up every now and then. Doing this is not only obstructive but unprofessional. Visitors are getting smarter day by day, and they always find a way to avoid doing business or becoming real readers with blogs that automatically prompts them to enter their email addresses. Using a display schedule that shows periodically can be very harmful to your blog considering the fact that some of your contents at sometime require them to refresh a page to view another. Using an unscheduled popup display will only land you into losing confidence of your visitors who would have been converted into readers. My advice would be for you to choose a display schedule that pops up once after the visitor must have spent at least 1 or 2 minutes after landing for the first time on your page.
Use Fixed Subscription Popup Plugins or Widget Wisely
A publisher who focuses more on gaining subscribers in the cause of doing so makes plenty of mistakes which on the long run put him or her on the losing end. Using fixed subscription popups is good when it is carefully placed on a less obstructive location on your blog. If I must refresh your mind, the number one objective you must have as a publisher is giving your visitors or readers what they seek. Blogging has gone viral that most publishers no longer consider the major stakeholders of their blogs, rather they focus on growing a community of readers. I have once read a confession of a one time professional and successful internet marketer who in one day lost close to a thousand and more subscribers. You can have 1 million subscribers today, but one single mistake you make can cause them to unsubscribe to your newsletter, and that’s normally seen when readers discover you no longer have them in mind but their subscription. Avoid using fixed subscription plugins or widgets that obstruct your post area or where readers will finally get the chance to read what you have for them.
Give them an Option Not to Display More Popups
This is an ideal way of telling your blog users that while you care for their subscription that they are the most important after all. It will be awesome if you integrate a working tactics that will give your blog users the option not to display more popups after the first one which welcomes them few minutes after their arrival on your blog. This will not only help you to retain their readership, but will equally add professionalism to your blog.
My Advice
There are other alternatives to popups which works just as fine as popups do. Placing a sidebar opt-in forms is as good as ever. Since your blog is a 2 or at most a 3 column theme or template, the opt-in forms are still discovered. The most important thing is writing quality contents. When visitors see something good in what you are doing, they are never compelled to subscribe to your newsletter; rather they crave for more by simply looking for your opt-in form. You can equally place the subscription forms just at the end of your posts, so that it will be a driving tool for them each time they finish reading your post. Also placing an opt-in form by the side of your comment form will be nice; at least it is far from the content body.
One more last words! If you have done a good work, the subscriptions will come following the comments made on your posts. I have once subscribed to a blog after reading through the comments made by both readers and visitors on one of its posts.