A great question. Hands up if you’ve been on a website to find something out, to read something, or to buy something, and you’ve seen a popup ad jump right up on the screen and block your content, forcing you to take action.
Now, while these aren’t the subtlest forms of marketing, they are effective which is why so many websites continue to use them, but there’s a question that not many marketers are asking themselves. Do these popups affect your website’s SEO ranking? More importantly, does it affect your ranking in a negative way?
Today, we’re going to find out.
The Answer?
Yes and no. The truth is that a popup can positively and negatively affect your SEO ranking and it solely depends on how you choose to use them. Going back to the effectiveness, high-performing popups average around a 10% conversion rate, so there’s no denying that you should be using them, but not if nobody’s going to visit your website.
Let’s explore this in more detail.
How a Popup can Positively Affect Your SEO Ranking
There are plenty of ways that a popup can benefit your SEO ranking, and not just because you’re getting a high click-through rate. You can use your popup for everything, from gathering email addresses and allowing people to sign up, to taking them through to different parts of your website or giving them quick access to certain types of content.
All these things keep people on your website. Therefore, the longer people are on your website; the higher your SEO ranking will be in the SERPs.
When used smartly and while remembering that your viewer’s overall experience is the most important thing you should be thinking about, popups can be a great addition to your website.
How a Popup can Negatively Affect Your SEO Ranking
Okay, let’s jump into the real reason why you’re here.
Google has penalized popup ads for many reasons over the years, but focusing on the more common elements of SEO, you need to remember that Google is first indexing websites based on how mobile-friendly they are.
Now, when was the last time you checked your popup ad was mobile-friendly? If a user finds it hard to find the close button, or the content is completed blocked by your ad or a mixture of both, this can seriously harm your SEO ranking.
What’s more, deceiving your website users by designing a popup ad that will make a user click because they think it’s the page, rather than an ad, will also get marked down because you’re deceiving your users.
The more you deceive your users, the more they’ll click off and avoid your website, and the lower your SEO ranking will be. If you’re concerned with your popups or want to make sure Google will rank them positively, look for the DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCIES who can help advise you.
Summary
Remember, Google is one of the biggest and smartest tech companies in the world, and a large percentage of your website viewers will be coming through the search engine. There’s no point in trying to cheat the system because it’s only going to mark you down.
Be authentic. Be genuine. Give your users a good experience that they’ll love, and you’ll get the best results.
Comments are closed.