Author: Jason Hulott
With the increased use of popups on sites - when you enter,when you leave, while you are there - Popup killers (orstoppers) are all the rage.
Companies use Popup killers as a marketing tool forfrustrated webusers - they kill the Popup, the webuser usestheir service be it as an ISP or Toolbar.
New ISP Disks, Toolbars, and Browsers all now come with someform of Popup killer. While we all want to stop thefrustration of having several popups being delivered whilesurfing around the web, to the webmaster a Popup killer cantotally kill a site's normal functionality.
** What do I mean?
If I said rename a Popup killer to a Javascript killer,(which is how some Popup killers work), then you wil get thegist!
With some SEOs advocating hiding links that they don't wanta search engine to spider or to hide affiliate links withinJavascript functions, having a user visit your site with aPopup killer enabled could kill more than that annoyingPopup.
It could mean that when a user clicks on your apply buttonor affiliate link, it won't work! The user can click on itas often as they like. It won't work!
This could be costing you sales and applications.
** We tested it out!
We tested this on our Loans site (www.polarloans.co.uk). Wedelivered 1,000 visits to the site where the applicationprocess was a javascript function. We had 1 application.
We then switched the apply buttons and links to a normalHREF link and sent another 1000 visits to it. We have a 10fold increase in applications.
The only on-page changes were the Apply button links and wedrove the visits via PPC spend.
** What can you do?
It maybe time you looked at the major links on your site toyour product sale pages on affiliate links. If they arerunning as Javascript functions it may be wise to tryswitching them to normal HREF links and test the results.
You can always change them back if you need to but considerthe potential revenue option.
It certainly has worked for us!
Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists in Internet Consultancy whose specific aim is to drive more revenue to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.
