How to Use Pop Ups Without Hurting Your SEO?

While browsing something online, you would’ve come across sudden promotions; perhaps in the form of a free course booklet, or a window asking you to grab a free quote. These often appear a few seconds after you open a website (and let’s be honest, some of them can be quite annoying).

An average person encounters pop ups in about 40% to 60% of website visits, especially on e-commerce and content-heavy sites. Given how widely used these pop ups are, their significance in SEO is often debated.

Most would argue that pop ups help capture leads, promote offers, and amplify conversions. But what if it comes at the cost of disrupting your user experience? Does that mean poorly placed pop ups could make your months of SEO strategy go down the drain? Not entirely. 

What Are Pop Ups

Windows or overlays that appear on top of your website’s main content are pop ups. 

One of the main purposes of pop ups is to collate email addresses, promote sales, share announcements, and so on. These are usually triggered by your user actions or timed events on your website. While pop ups can be effective on both desktop and mobile devices, the user experience varies. 

Now, there are several common types of pop ups:

• Overlay Pop Ups: These appear over the main content and often dim the background to focus attention.
• Interstitials: Full-screen pop ups blocking access to the content until your user dismisses them.
• Slide-Ins: These smaller nudges slide into view from the side or bottom of the screen.
• Banners: These are bars placed at the top or bottom of the page, often used for announcements or cookie consent.

Google’s Take on Pop Ups  

In order to understand if pop ups obliterate your SEO or can they coexist with strong search rankings, let’s hear it from the search engine god itself.

In 2016, Google rolled out the “mobile pop up penalty”  guidelines in a bid to improve user experience for mobile searchers. This update was aimed at targeting intrusive interstitials that make it difficult to access content on mobile devices. If intrusive pop ups are used on many pages, it could lead to a significant drop in your organic visibility. 

Here’s what Google’s guidelines say for how your pop ups should not be:

• Full-screen pop ups popping immediately after a user lands on a page.
• Pop ups that hide the main content, especially above the fold.
• Standalone interstitials that require dismissing by the user before they can access content.

Note: Google applies a penalty on a page-by-page basis, not site-wide, implying only your affected pages may be demoted in search rankings. Moreover, in some cases, pop ups are acceptable. These could be for legal reasons, such as cookie consent or age verification.

Do Pop Ups Impact Your Search Engine Optimisation

If not implemented properly, here’s what pop ups could do to your website:

• Crawling Issues: Pop ups that keep users from seeing your primary content often keep crawlers from indexing your page properly, or maybe not at all.
• User Experience: Nobody likes adamant, intrusive pop ups. It’s natural that these could lead to higher bounce rates and lower dwell time, signaling a negative signal to search engines.
• Page Bounces: If your visitors encounter a pop up right after landing from search, they may not bother to look beyond that point. Now this means that an impression would go to Google, that your content was not useful or accessible.
• Error in Loading Pages: If a pop up hides the main content or prevents it from loading, Google may take the page as a soft 404 (page not found).
• Slowed Down Pages: Heavy or poorly coded pop ups are a nemesis to your site speed. Eventually, these could hamper your user experience, bringing down your search rankings.

Making Pop Ups Work For Your Search Rankings

Not all pop ups are counterproductive for your SEO strategy. If your pop ups provide genuine value to the users, whether they be discounts, exclusive content, or important updates, it’s safe to consider that won’t be perceived as intrusive.

Here are some ways around using pop ups to support your SEO: 

• Timing is Key: Never let pop ups show up immediately after the page loads. An alternative to this would be using triggers like exit-intent or scroll-triggered pop ups that will exist without disrupting your users’ initial experience. 
• Choose Subtlety: Small banners or slide-ins that do not cover main content are generally safe. It’s important to note that Google allows pop ups that as long as they take up no more than 15% of the screen on mobile devices.
• Use Pop Ups Sparingly Throughout Your Website: Pop up fatigue is a real thing. This is why balancing pop up frequency is important. For maintaining a positive user experience, make sure to limit the number of pop ups per session. Plus, always make sure to add a noticeable, accessible close button to make navigation smooth for your users.
• Add Content Relevancy : It’s imperative for your pop ups to align with the user intent and the context of the page, as these have lesser chances of annoying your visitors and are more likely to convert.
• Avoid New Window Pop Ups At All Costs: It’s only pragmatic not to use pop ups that open new browser windows or block content access (since these are penalised by Google).

How to Track the Impact of Pop Ups on Your SEO

To see in detail whether your pop ups are doing a favour to your SEO vision, you can always keep an eye on your key metrics, such as:

• Bounce Rate: See if your website witnesses increases after implementing pop ups, which may indicate user frustration.
• Drops in Session Duration and Pages: These help you know if your pop ups are complementing or disturbing your user journeys. You could track them on Google Analytics or other SEO tools.
• Conversion Rate: Try to balance conversions from pop ups against potential declines in user engagement or rankings — this would reveal where you need to prioritise.
• Page Speed: Tools like SEMRush or Google Analytics can reveal if certain pages with pop ups are witnessing slow loading times or not.

Start Using Pop Ups to Your Advantage

Pop ups can be counter-effective for your website’s SEO in the long run (especially if they’re intrusive, poorly timed, or prevent users from accessing your content). On the other hand, thoughtfully placed and contextually relevant ones can contribute to your steadily growing search engine rankings. The thing is, as long as you prioritise user experience and make your pop up strategy revolve around user journey, you’re good.

If you want to balance conversions and SEO effectively, we can help you with that. As an emerging SEO agency in New Zealand, we’ve got tried and tested methods to help you get noticed and increase conversions. Get a free consultation from our team of SEO experts.