8 Pop Up Design Tips That Convert
It may surprise you to find out that pop up forms on websites don’t have to be annoying. They can actually work if you follow our advice!
For some people, pop up forms can be just one of those annoying webpage features that you have to endure to enjoy the content of the website. But these things are popular because they can actually become effective website tools. They don’t have to be annoying and ineffective.
If you’re running a website and use popup forms properly, you may find that it can dramatically increase your business. Your popup form can help convince your website visitors to sign up for your newsletter. This then gives you easy access to potential customers, and these people can really help to boost revenues.
So don’t just use popup forms willy-nilly. Take the time to do it right, by heeding these tips:
1. Clarify What the Form Is For
A form is something that your website visitor will have to fill out, so to entice them you better make sure you tell them what they’re getting when they sign up.
You can’t just tell them to sign up for your newsletter. That sounds too vague and boring.
Instead, tell them just what kind of messages they’ll be getting in their inbox when they full out the form. Perhaps you’re giving them interesting articles about your niche. Or maybe you’re going to send them news about upcoming sales and new products in the pipeline. Just make sure that you have a clear message on your popup form as to what benefits they’ll get when they sign up.
2. Minimize the Number of Forms
The more fields you have in the form for your visitor to fill out, the less likely they are to bother filling them out in the first place. That’s why the most effective popup forms typically have only 2 fields. There’s their user name, and then their email address.
Of course, it may be part of your job to get as much information about your website visitor as you can. But this isn’t the moment to get that information. You have to focus on getting them to sign up first. Then afterward, you can always just encourage them to update their profiles or preferences when they’re already part of your mailing list.
3. Make Sure the Form Looks Right on Mobile Screens
There’s still a tendency for some website managers to assume that their popups will be splashed across wide LED monitors. But the fact is that most people tend to surf the Internet through their smartphones these days. This means you will need to make sure your popup forms look alright in these much smaller screens. Make sure they’re also optimized for mobile navigation taps as well.
4. Stay Consistent
Your popup form should fit in nicely with the look and vibe of the rest of the website. Use the same colors as normally seen on other web pages. Use the same familiar fonts. Even the words you choose should stay consistent. If you have a very formal atmosphere for your website, it can be very jarring if your popup form is overly casual in tone and language.
5. Offer Incentives
When you’re able to display a short message as part of your popup form, you’re better offering a concrete benefit for those who sign up and complete your form. Maybe those who sign up can access exclusive content that mere visitors can’t get to. They may perhaps get an advance heads up on certain trendy products before the information will be displayed on your website.
A promo code also works very well, as you can give your subscribers a discount or free shipping on certain purchases. The incentives you offer can be a lot more creative (especially with free stuff included with purchases) as long as it makes sense for your bottom line.
6. Test and Preview Your Forms
Before you activate these forms, you better check them out to see what kind of effect they will have on the visitor’s surfing experience. Check that it looks nice and easy to read.
Check out if there are unintended consequences as well. Some popup forms may come on too slowly, and this can turn off lots of people who hate slow-loading images and pages. A popup may even have other negative effects for your site, so you should dry run this feature to see that it runs smoothly.
7. Experiment with Proper Timing
When you’re testing your forms, see if there’s a difference in the subscriber rates when you vary the timing of the popup. Sometimes it is best if the popup comes up right away. But the popup can also activate in 5 or 20 seconds after arriving at the page. These few seconds may give them enough time to enjoy your content, and they may decide they want more.
The trigger can even be scroll-based. This means your form will pop up as soon as the visitor reaches a particular area of the web page. This can be when they’re at the middle, or when they’ve reached the end of the article they’re reading.
8. Learn from Generated Data
Your popup forms can give you a lot of important data you can use to improve your popup forms and your website in general. You can find out how many new subscribers are enticed to sign up with a particular type of form and compare that with the results when you use a different form with a different tone and color scheme.
Use your data to keep improving. Keep trying to change variables in the appearance and timing of your forms to find the optimal result. Just remember that this optimal form can change—after a while, you may find that a form isn’t working as effectively and you need to change things up.
Conclusion
Don’t forget to use your own experiences when you design and activate these popup forms. What irritates you about them will probably annoy many others besides you. Think back on the forms that have convinced you to sign up to other websites, and incorporate the features that you found enticing into your own popup forms.
Also, check out How to Build Customer Trust on a New E-Commerce Store
Founder, Editor-In-Chief // A native Angeleno. John studied engineering at UCLA; founded Schmoozd, an offline social tech networking event in LA with 30,000 subs; ran a startup accelerator (StartEngine). Worked for several major brands like Toyota, DIRECTV, Hitachi, ICANN, and Raytheon. A mentor at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) Entrepreneur School, Dr. David Choi. And advises a dozen local LA startups building amazing tech in various industries; and invested in some. // Let's Connect: john@lastartups.com
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