You might have missed it, but Google is going to start cracking down on Intrusive Interstitials in the coming months. Don’t believe us? Research has shown that 68% of search users want to block a website for using too much intrusive advertising.

We’re definitely one of that 68%! So we thought it would be a good idea to share what the alternatives are. But before we begin:

What are Intrusive Interstitials?

We’ll give you a brief overview of what Intrusive Interstitials are, as our in-depth post has covered everything you need to know. You can find it by clicking here.

Intrusive Interstitials are pop-up adverts that appear when you visit a web page.

They could be anything from a pop-up that covers the main content of a website, or a stand-alone advert that requires the reader to dismiss it before continuing their journey through the website.

From January 2017, Google is going to apply a ranking penalty on any website that uses these Intrusive Interstitials to impede user access to website content.

So you want to avoid these penalties? That leads us nicely into:

What are the alternatives to intrusive advertising?

Landing Page Conversion – Instead of having an intrusive pop-up advertisement, why don’t you change the landing page on your website? The perfect example of this is Google Documents. By changing the design and having the opt-in box at the top of their design, Google have managed to survive their own policy.

Opt-In Boxes – You might already have an opt-in box on your blog or website, so make the most of it. If you offer specific products or services to your readers, then use this box as a data capture form and offer free downloadable content.

Sliding banner adverts – Having a sliding banner advert is similar to have a static opt-in box, but when the user navigates towards the bottom of the web page, the advertisement moves with them. They’re still aware of the advert, but its not restricting access to the content.

Slide-In Footer Advertising – A slide-in footer advertisement has the same principles as the above sliding banner advert, but it comes in at the bottom of the page once the reader has reached the end of the content. It doesn’t restrict access to your copy, and the reader won’t get angry about their journey being interrupted.

So there we have it, our top alternatives to Intrusive Interstitials. Their time is limited, and we couldn’t be happier. Personally, we think that pop-up advertising should have been outlawed years ago.

If you want to learn a bit more about the history of Google updates, then take a look here.

What do you think about Intrusive Interstitials? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so leave a comment below or get in touch with us on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin.