I wrote a post about a Free alternative to Aweber’s subscribe to newletter pop-up, earlier this week.  Since that time, I’ve noticed some things I’d like to share with you.

I have seen both positive and negative comments (someone actually called me a “fucktard“- I guess you know you’ve hit it big when those kinds of comments start coming in.), as well as comments from those who are interested in finding out the results of my pop-up experiment.

Effects on Readers

There has been alot of mixed emotion on the internet about using popups.  There has even been hundreds of popup blockers created just for this reason.  But in my experiment of using a popup for asking others to subscribe to my newletter, I’ve noticed that while some say they don’t like it, my gains in readers and visitors to my blog has not slowed at all.  In fact, only two months ago (when I first started this blog), I was getting around 1,500 visitors.  This month I’ve seen a sharp increase to a little over 4,500 visitors.  My RSS subscribers number has dramatically increased as well.

The pop-up only appears the first time someone visits my blog, so I don’t think it’s having the negative effect that I or everyone else thought it would.  And maybe the biggest reason it’s not so negative is because it’s something pertinent to my blog, and not just a place jam packed with ads.

Effects on Newsletter Subscribers

The real reason the pop-up was put into place was to find out if it would lead to an increase in my newsletter subscribers.  And my results?

This pop-up has literally doubled my newsletter subscribers list.  So like John Chow said in his review of Aweber’s pop-up, it really works.  And the numbers prove that.

Effects on Comment Spam

Another and most least expected place I’ve seen affected by the newsletter subscribers pop-up is my comments form.

I was getting around 40 or more comments that were spam, every day.  That number of comments has literally disappeared.

I don’t think it will end up going away permanently, but most spam comments a blog receives comes from somewhere different every time.  So when these “spam bots” access my blog for the first time, a pop-up appears that literally stops them from being able to access my comments form.

I never even thought about this or expected it to happen, but it has had such a positive effect that I am truly convinced that the newsletter subscribers pop-up is the way to go on a blog.

If you use a newsletter subscriber pop-up, what effects have you seen to your blog?

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