9 replies to this topic

[web_designer]

hi trappers, i have a newsletter in my website. i want to encourage the visitors to subscribe in my newsletter, so i thought of pop up window that asking visitor to subscribe. i am not quite sure, i sometimes find it bothering, sometimes not. so, what do you think?

if you think it is a good idea, show me the good idea to start with? DHTML or JQUERY? thanks in advance.

[anwiii]

ohhhhh no no no. very degrading to a website. if you are planning to do it though, make sure you offer something free if you sign up to the newsletter. that is a MUST if you're going to use a pop up. make the annoying popup worth their while. also, use cooking to track who has already came to your site so that the popup doesn't always pop up. especially if someone already subscribed.

i am against popups of any kind though.

web_designer, on Apr 23 2010, 06:29 AM, said:

hi trappers, i have a newsletter in my website. i want to encourage the visitors to subscribe in my newsletter, so i thought of pop up window that asking visitor to subscribe. i am not quite sure, i sometimes find it bothering, sometimes not. so, what do you think?

if you think it is a good idea, show me the good idea to start with? DHTML or JQUERY? thanks in advance.

[rvalkass]

Popups are generally a bad idea unless the user has interacted with the site to make one appear. So, if they clicked a link to subscribe to a newsletter, a jQuery-style popup containing the relevant form would be OK. But making that popup automatically, with no interaction from the user, is a very bad idea. You'll just annoy people, and most will close the popup without reading a single word contained in it.

anwiii, on Apr 24 2010, 12:41 AM, said:

also, use cooking to track who has already came to your site so that the popup doesn't always pop up.

Ask them to cook something containing their IP address, mail it to you, then put it on some sort of blacklist so they never see the popup again?

[web_designer]

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Popups are generally a bad idea unless the user has interacted with the site to make one appear. So, if they clicked a link to subscribe to a newsletter, a jQuery-style popup containing the relevant form would be OK. But making that popup automatically, with no interaction from the user, is a very bad idea. You'll just annoy people, and most will close the popup without reading a single word contained in it.

now that is exactly what i do when enter a website and a pop up window appears, all this idea begins in my head after i saw a very beautiful pop up window in a website, so i didn't close it immediately but waited to see the effect. and i figure out that it is in jquery, but i didn't subscribe

Quote

ohhhhh no no no. very degrading to a website. if you are planning to do it though, make sure you offer something free if you sign up to the newsletter. that is a MUST if you're going to use a pop up. make the annoying popup worth their while. also, use cooking to track who has already came to your site so that the popup doesn't always pop up. especially if someone already subscribed.

i am against popups of any kind though.

so, after two opinions seem it is a bad idea, but i will wait for for opinions here, thanks for your replies.

[Little Asterisk]

I would say no, because usually the kind of websites that have these pop-ups are these "I earn $1 000 000 yearly due to them!" (90%) scams. I'm not saying everyone will respond to the pop-up negatively, but usually people visit sites to read the content, not react to some pop-up windows. If the content is good, they'll subscribe. And if you offer them something free after subscription, they'll do it gladly.

Also, someone browsing a website will usually just close the window without even bothering to read the content. Again, not everyone responds like that, but majority of them do.

Thirdly, people that don't know much about PC's tend to delete their cookies. Better to be safe than sorry policy, i think. So, adding tracking cookies isn't a bulletproof solution to the newsletter pop-up.

And lastly, if you'd like a window to pop-up after the user clicks on a "subscribe" button, please remember that not everyone has Javascript enabled. Don't lose readers due to that fact!

[web_designer]

thank you asterisk for the precise reply, seems it is really a bad idea after all of you guys agreed on that. even if i thought of doing it and use a pop up window, what kind of free things i can offer. my blog is kind of tutorial blog, should i offer them a code or what

[anwiii]

Little Asterisk, on Apr 24 2010, 11:48 AM, said:

Thirdly, people that don't know much about PC's tend to delete their cookies. Better to be safe than sorry policy, i think. So, adding tracking cookies isn't a bulletproof solution to the newsletter pop-up.

actually, those you know very little about pc's wont delete their cookies since they don't even know what a cookie is. and even if they did, they don't know how to delete them. people who know about pc's may delete their cookies. me though, i never delete all my cookies. i may however delete specific ones if i go to specific websites....

[Little Asterisk]

anwiii, on Apr 24 2010, 07:17 PM, said:

actually, those you know very little about pc's wont delete their cookies since they don't even know what a cookie is. and even if they did, they don't know how to delete them. people who know about pc's may delete their cookies. me though, i never delete all my cookies. i may however delete specific ones if i go to specific websites....

Might be that way, but I know that Spybot Search&Destroy finds cookies as "possible threats to the PC" since I'm using it. Following the logic that, to people who don't know much about PC's, a cookie is the same thing as a virus, they probably erase it.

I remember reading an article on that matter some time ago, so it should be pretty correct (though, I don't say I'm definitely correct).

@web_designer:

Well, I know that some sites offer eBooks or Wordpress themes they designed as a "reward" for subscribing. I suggest that you simply write something in the lines of "Subscribe... And recieve a gift".

Since I see you write tutorials about Wordpress, you could make a nice theme and offer that after they confirm their registration...

EDIT: Blogging tips have that kind of "reward system", it's in the right sidebar...

Edited by Little Asterisk, 24 April 2010 - 05:52 PM.

[truefusion]

Visit the DaniWeb website, specifically when you are troubled with a problem in whatever mark-up or scripting language and they have a potential solution, with JavaScript enabled, and then tell me whether or not you are bothered by it. I mention this website because it is the first one (and probably even the only one i've ever come across) that comes to mind.

One of UI design basics is to reduce the amount of pop-ups for any program or script. In fact, it is recommend to use pop-ups mostly as a confirmation for actions that cannot be reversed (e.g. closing a program with unsaved work in it).

[web_designer]

Quote

Well, I know that some sites offer eBooks or Wordpress themes they designed as a "reward" for subscribing. I suggest that you simply write something in the lines of "Subscribe... And recieve a gift".

Since I see you write tutorials about Wordpress, you could make a nice theme and offer that after they confirm their registration...

EDIT: Blogging tips have that kind of "reward system", it's in the right sidebar... wink.gif

@littleasterisk. thank you a lot i liked the idea, since i work with codes and read ebooks, so it is a good idea, but i should check up the permission and copyrights thing first.

Quote

Visit the DaniWeb website, specifically when you are troubled with a problem in whatever mark-up or scripting language and they have a potential solution, with JavaScript enabled, and then tell me whether or not you are bothered by it. I mention this website because it is the first one (and probably even the only one i've ever come across) that comes to mind.

One of UI design basics is to reduce the amount of pop-ups for any program or script. In fact, it is recommend to use pop-ups mostly as a confirmation for actions that cannot be reversed (e.g. closing a program with unsaved work in it).

@truefusion, you just read my mind. this is the website i talked about before, i liked its pop-up window, even i don't like them in general. he did a really good job in his website and i am one of his regularly visitors.

thank you guys, you are always a great help.