User experience: does your site use popups? Here's what to know

What experience do you have with auto tiles? How do you experience their presence on the sites you frequent, and how would you combine them with your project?

Information tools or intrusive elements? The delicate balance of your website must be preserved at all costs. And i Popup (or pop-ups) can throw your system off balance, if you don't learn how to use them correctly. Let's go together to see how these elements can drastically change the usability of your site.

If you are in this article, you already know what popups are. Are those windows not required, unauthorized, which are opened following a certain action on the site. It could be having reached the homepage, but also a popup that appears after clicking on a link. It does not matter. It's about a window other than the one that should open which usually appears on one side of the screen and contains additional information. Sometimes useful - like a discount on eCommerce -, sometimes not entirely pleasant - like a request to subscribe to the mailing list - or completely unpleasant - when they contain advertising for its own sake.

Get to know this tool and learn to use it before integrating it in your site design. This is the first advice we can give you on the subject, to help you not create an annoying experience.

SEO: what is "keyword clustering" and what is it for?

But what is a popup?

You are browsing an eCommerce to see if there are any interesting offers. You log in to the first product and suddenly a window opens up on the top left that you haven't requested at all. Inside is an invitation to sign up for the newsletter to receive a 10% discount on your first order. Do you like it? Well, it's a way like any other to collect profiled contacts for yours mailing list.

Pop-ups are windows that appear in different circumstances and perform different functions, more or less useful:

• They appear when a website is opened;
• They appear after a few seconds of permanence on a page;
• They appear upon reaching a certain point on the page;
• They appear when you click on a link;
• They appear when you move the mouse to close the page.

The variety of uses of this tool is boundless, from the simple information dedicated to the newsletter to a popup dedicated to the price list, or perhaps to the weather report or stock market prices. The only limit is the imagination, on one condition: utility.

SEO maintenance for published content: where do you start?

An "intrusive" element

The popup is the intrusive element by definition when you browse a website. Consequently, it is good practice to avoid introducing elements that are not relevant or that may irritate the user in any way. Many people close it immediately, without even waiting for it to load. When you go to enter important information in the popup, keep this in mind.

Use your popups in an informative, supplemental, useful or to create a call-to-action really interesting. No one will want to subscribe to your newsletter that comes from a popup if they don't find a definite advantage in doing so (for example, a nice discount). If you decide to integrate them into your site design, try to put yourself in the shoes of the end user and understand their value in terms of user experience.

• Is it worth it?
• Would you, on another site, exploit the content of a similar popup?
• How abruptly does it stop browsing?

How to boost eCommerce using customer photographs

When is the popup annoying?

As you well know from your long experience on the internet, the aforementioned User Experience, popups can be deceptive and dangerous. After all, you're not the millionth visitor, I'm not here “hot girls in your area just waiting for you” and guess what, you haven't won any brand new iPhones. Very often, however, the bad fame of the popup is associated with communications of this ilk. That's why, very often, we close it without even giving it a chance.

Every element of your site needs to be weighted from the perspective of the end user, and popups are no exception. That's why it's helpful to understand when you need them, and when you don't need them at all. Does your site use popups? How are you?

SEO & Google: all about the importance of "structured data"