Using popups to grow your opt-in lists

This tip didn't quite make the "Make A Living Online!" book deadline, but it is so effective I just had to share it with you.

Note: This tip is primarily for existing website owners who are trying to grow their own opt-in lists. If that's you, read on. If you're still brand new to online business and do not have your own website as of yet, this tip may be a little advanced. You may be better off skipping it for now and starting here...

Implementing the PopUp...

For years I resisted using popups at my sites because I did not want to annoy my website visitors. For those of you who are not already aware of popups (if there are any of you!) popups are those additional boxes that pop into view when you visit a site. They usually say "subscribe to my ezine!" or something along those lines.

Well, to make a long story short, I finally tried popups at my site and frankly, I'm sorry I waited this long. Once I played around with the technology for a while, I came up with a very powerful technique you may want to consider trying. So far I've received zero complaints and even some compliments.

But what matters most is that the day I installed my popup I started receiving nearly double the amount of new subscribers to my BizWeb eGazette every day. Here's why it works so well...

1. My popup appears only on exit from my main page, so visitors are not immediately hit with it the moment they enter my site.

2. It is controlled with a cookie so that visitors get it just once within any single day, no matter how many times they visit my site.

3. The popup screen I use does not ask people to subscribe to yet another newsletter. Instead, it gives away my free book, which comes with a free BizWeb eGazette subscription.

If you're going to add a popup to your site to try and get more opt-in subscribers, I highly suggest you set it up like that. Otherwise popups can be aggravating to your visitors and counterproductive.

Here's how to set up a popup window at your site:

There are basically four steps involved...

Step 1. Design a basic page that will offer your giveaway, prize or free gift. Save the page and upload it to your site. When you design your popup page, be sure to keep the content limited since you'll be sizing down the popup box that the content will appear in. My own latest popup page is here in case you want to see it.

Step 2. Next, you'll need to copy the code below and paste it into the page you want to activate your popup from.

Copy the below javascript code as is, and paste it into your web page, right after </head>.

<script LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

<!-- Begin
var expDays = 1; // number of days the cookie should last

var page = "poppy.htm";
var windowprops = "width=280,height=320,location=no,toolbar=no,
menubar=no,scrollbars=no,resizable=no";

function GetCookie (name) {
var arg = name + "=";
var alen = arg.length;
var clen = document.cookie.length;
var i = 0;
while (i < clen) {
var j = i + alen;
if (document.cookie.substring(i, j) == arg)
return getCookieVal (j);
i = document.cookie.indexOf(" ", i) + 1;
if (i == 0) break;
}
return null;
}
function SetCookie (name, value) {
var argv = SetCookie.arguments;
var argc = SetCookie.arguments.length;
var expires = (argc > 2) ? argv[2] : null;
var path = (argc > 3) ? argv[3] : null;
var domain = (argc > 4) ? argv[4] : null;
var secure = (argc > 5) ? argv[5] : false;
document.cookie = name + "=" + escape (value) +
((expires == null) ? "" : ("; expires=" + expires.toGMTString())) +
((path == null) ? "" : ("; path=" + path)) +
((domain == null) ? "" : ("; domain=" + domain)) +
((secure == true) ? "; secure" : "");
}
function DeleteCookie (name) {
var exp = new Date();
exp.setTime (exp.getTime() - 1);
var cval = GetCookie (name);
document.cookie = name + "=" + cval + "; expires=" + exp.toGMTString();
}
var exp = new Date();
exp.setTime(exp.getTime() + (expDays*24*60*60*1000));
function amt(){
var count = GetCookie('count')
if(count == null) {
SetCookie('count','1')
return 1
}
else {
var newcount = parseInt(count) + 1;
DeleteCookie('count')
SetCookie('count',newcount,exp)
return count
}
}
function getCookieVal(offset) {
var endstr = document.cookie.indexOf (";", offset);
if (endstr == -1)
endstr = document.cookie.length;
return unescape(document.cookie.substring(offset, endstr));
}

function checkCount() {
var count = GetCookie('count');
if (count == null) {
count=1;
SetCookie('count', count, exp);

window.open(page, "", windowprops);

}
else {
count++;
SetCookie('count', count, exp);
}
}
// End -->
</script>

Step 3: After you paste the code into your web page, change poppy.htm in the code, to the name of the file you created in step one. You can also change other parameters if you wish, such as the way your popup window looks. Make adjustments in the orange line of the code to control other parameters.

Step 4: Next, decide if you want your pop up to activate when the page is entered, or exited. I've found the latter to be more effective. You control this with a small piece of code. Here's how...

Find the code <body in your web page. Then add the following code directly after it...

OnUnLoad="checkCount()"

For instance, my own code was changed from:
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF">

To:
<body OnUnLoad="checkCount()" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">

Using this OnUnLoad command will make your popup display upon exit from your page.

That's it! Just save your web page (I suggest saving it as a new file so you can test everything before going live) then upload the page you've added that code to.

It's a good idea to turn cookies off in your own browser before testing so you don't have to wait a day to see how your changes will appear.

And remember, if this is your first time trying this, do it on a page other than your main page. Once you have it down pat, you can do the same to whatever page you want. Have fun!

P.S. If you find all this code stuff too confusing, I understand! We're not all cut out for stuff like this. And if that's the case, I urge you to try Steve Shaw's PopUpMaster Pro Software, which is available to Make A Living Online members at a 25% discount. This popup creator software will do everything above and much more. Get all the details here.

Note: A special thanks goes out to Paul Austin for sharing his popup script. If you have problems getting your popup to work, Paul's the guy to ask for help.