Adding a 2-Step Email Signup Component SEO Split Testing Lessons from SearchPilot

Adding a 2-Step Email Signup Component SEO Split Testing Lessons from SearchPilot

Earlier this week we asked our Twitter followers what they think happened to organic traffic when we added a 2-step email signup component to pages.

Almost 64% of those who answered thought this change would have no detectable impact on organic traffic while almost 32% thought this would result in a negative impact to SEO.

Well, majority of the guesses were incorrect. In fact, this particular test resulted in a negative impact to SEO (and conversion rates). Read on to learn more!

The Case Study
Email is a powerful marketing channel, but there can be trade-offs between different approaches toward capturing users’ email addresses and permissions. In our latest case study, we explore how one approach to email capturing impacted SEO.

We tested adding a signup component that involved two steps: it appeared at the bottom of the page, encouraging users to sign up for email updates. Once clicked, it expanded to a larger component and centered itself in the middle of the page so that users could input their email address. Our goal was to begin capturing email addresses on these pages without obscuring the whole page with an immediate overlay.

We tested this change full funnel and hoped that by only showing the larger email capture pop-up to those users that had already indicated they were happy to submit their email, we would avoid negative impacts on users who didn’t want to subscribe. Below are examples of how the 2-step component appeared on both desktop and mobile devices.