Everyone talks about how they will never go to a website that has a popup. And people even say popups hurt SEO.

So the real question, do they still even work?

The short answer is yes!

People wouldn’t keep showing popups unless they still work.

Google announced in 2016 that they were going to penalize sites that use intrusive popups. If your popup screws up the user experience it can hurt your SEO.

How to effectively use it?

But if you show the popup after someone has been on your site for at least 20 to 30 seconds and only when they are exiting your site, they work well. (This is what they call an exit intent popup.
Plus if you follow those rules you won’t get penalized by Google.

I still use them on my blog and my search traffic hasn’t gone down.

If you want to create a popup on you can do so for free using Hello Bar.

In addition to that, you have to come up with a compelling offer for it to work. You can’t just say “subscribe to my newsletter” or “buy now”. You have to create something of value, such as an ebook, guide, pdf, whitepaper, 10% off coupon, or even a free shipping offer.

If you are going to use popups, make sure it is an exit intent so it doesn’t hurt your Google rankings and offer something of real value.