Don’t go crazy on pop-ups and advertisements

Tuesday August 30, 2016

No one likes obnoxious advertisements or full-screen ads that cover the interface of the host application. Sure, they function as good online marketing tactics, but users hardly care for mobile pop-up ads with barely-there exit buttons. Users never like it when the accidentally click on those ads either. Best practice with your web development can ensure you are not getting penalised by Google.

Even Google seconds this motion. In fact, recently it made an announcement that mobile sites with hard-to-dismiss popups and make content less accessible would be punished. These intrusive advertisements give users a poorer experience, especially for those who are using smaller mobile screens.

“To improve the mobile search experience, after January 10, 2017, pages where content is not easily accessible to a user on the transition from the mobile search results may not rank as highly,” Google announced on its blog.

However, mobile sites with login dialogs and advertisements made for legal obligations would not suffer in Google’s rankings.

So how to do better online marketing with better pop-up ads and more user-friendly ads? Here are some tips:

  1. Consider the time the pop-up ad shows up in front of the user. If you do it all too quickly, your user will not like it. If you do it too late, you lose the opportunity for an eyeball.
  2. Here’s a no-brainer: Make it easy for the users to close the pop-up ads. Make the “Close” function visible. If you hide the button, users will not even bother to look for it—they’ll just abandon the site right away.
  3. Don’t let the same pop-up ad appear to a single visitor appear more than once.
  4. Pop-up ads must have great and doable call-to-action buttons.

When pop-ups are designed professionally and are considerate to the users (no hidden “close” buttons and all), they can actually become tools for conversion. Need help in designing an effective online marketing strategy with advertisement—one that won’t make you prone to Google’s punishment? Contact Osky now.

Line Footer