The use of popup windows has certainly increased dramatically over the past few years. It is clearly the latest craze in online advertising. And it certainly has stirred up quite a debate.
We’ve all seen popup windows that appear while surfing the web. Usually these popup windows have absolutely nothing to do with anything that could possibly be of interest to us (I’m sure everyone has seen popups for the X10 camera). As a result, the word “popups” is usually quickly associated with the word “annoying” or “bothersome”, or worse. In fact, entire newsgroups and associations have been formed to attempt to fight the inherent evil of popups. (Personally, I think this is a losing battle. After all we still get commercials on television and radio and they are certainly far more intrusive than popup ads.)
Popups have certainly built a bad reputation through their misuse by over-zealous marketers with little concern for your browsing experience. I’m sure you’ve all seen popup window chains (close one window and up pops another one) or popups that there is no easy way close. Many of these sneaky tactics were first developed for use in the promotion of adult-only or gambling websites.
While popup ads clearly can be an annoyance, using popup windows within your website can be very profitable for you. By making sure that they are used within the context of your website, they are a proven way to provide you with significantly more income without any extra cost to you. And they don’t have to be annoying.
Here’s just a few things that you can do with popup windows:
- Popups allow you to capture significantly more opt-in names for your mailing list and/or newsletter.
- Exit popups give you a “second chance” to present your USP or offers in its best light before a visitor leaves your site.
- Popups give you a chance to sell related products or services to the same visitors. Many adult sites have been doing this for years.
There are two main types of popups that you’ll see: entrance popups and exit popups.
Entrance popups appear when you first visit a new site or page. In some cases, they’ll either appear immediately on top of the site that you’ve gone to. Or, as is becoming very common, they’ll open a new window which is underneath your current browser window. These popups are typically referred to as “pop unders” and you don’t see them until you close your browser window.
I don’t usually recommend the use of entrance popups, because they tend to distract from your visitors intended target. This can be very annoying. Pop unders are less intrusive and are somewhat less annoying. But your visitors won’t see them until they’ve finished their browser session. Usually by this time, they’ll have forgotten all about you and your site.
Exit popups appear whenever you leave a specific page or site. I like to refer to these as “second chance” popups. They give you one more chance to capture your visitor’s name. If you are going to implement popup windows on your site, exit popups are the way to go.
Here’s what you need to do to make exit popups work:
- Make sure that the popup is relevant to your site. If some is browsing your real estate website, it certainly isn’t a stretch to think that they might want to sign up for your area real estate newsletter or real estate marketing tips email course.
- Make sure that you are not bombarding your visitor with the same popup windows over and over again as they move through your site. This is a sure-fire way to drive visitors away from your site. Limit the number of popups to one or two per user session. You may also wish to rotate your visitor through a series of different popups each time they visit.
All the work has been done for you!
I won’t bore you with all the technical details of making this work for you. With your Success Website, we’ve made implementing popup windows properly a cinch.
Several proven popup windows have been created for you. To activate and edit your popups, first login to your Control Panel. Look for the Edit Popup Windows link in the Tools & Utilities section.
To enable a new popup, simply select the popup you want from the Add New Popup selection box and click on the Create button.
There are four default popups that you can choose to activate or you can create your own. You can turn these popups on and they will automatically appear as exit popups off of your home page. Only one popup will appear per visitor session.
If you setup more than one popup they will rotate between sessions. In this way, each time a visitor comes back to your site, they will see a different popup window.
Note: If you want to see multiple popups that you’ve created, you’ll have start multiple browser sessions. To do this, close your browser window and then reopen it and return to your site. Once you click off the home page, the next popup window will appear.
If you plan to use either the Insider Secrets or Home Market Watch popups to encourage sign- ups for either your “Insider Secrets Revealed Email Course” or your “Home Market Watch Newsletter“, you’ll have to modify the Hotlink Button – Page Name to be your specific Subscribe URL for these offerings within the Stay-In-Contact System (your Subscribe URL will look something like http://StayInContact.com/sub.asp?Param=XXXXXXXX where XXXXXXXX is replaced by your individual offering ID — it will be different for the Insider Secrets course and the Home Market Watch newsletter).
To get the Subscribe URL that you need for each of these offerings:
- Login in to the Stay-In-Contact system either through your link in the Control Panel or by going to http://StayInContact.com/login.asp. Enter your email address and password.
- Click on the offering you want to use and then click on the GO button beside the “Display sample HTML for a subscribe link“. Your Subscribe URL (page name) appears near the top of the page in red.
- Highlight your Subscribe URL with the mouse and copy it to the clipboard by pressing CRTL-C.
- Return to the popup editor and paste your Subscribe URL into the Hotlink Button- Page Name field by pressing CTRL-V.
If you have questions about implementing popups on your site or suggestions for improving the implementation, please contact us.