There are many different types of opt-in boxes, and it’s important to test different types in order to find out which type works best for your traffic.
Pop-Over
If you’re a regular internet user, you’ve almost certainly seen pop-over opt-in boxes. These boxes pop up on a web page over the content, obscuring the content from view.
Some webmasters and bloggers refuse to use these, because they claim their visitors will get annoyed and leave, but that isn’t true. Yes, they can annoy some visitors, but as long as the box is easy to close and doesn’t pop up too often, it won’t bother the majority of users. In fact, many people may be glad to have an easy way to opt in for more information, especially if they’ve enjoyed your content.
MarketingSherpa.com posted an article about how they increased their conversion rate by 1000% by using a pop-over opt-in form. You can read that article in its entirety here:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article/case-study/how-to-get-1000-increase
Light Box
A light box is a type of popup box that pops onto the page itself, darkening the page in order to draw attention to the opt-in box. Some people find this too intrusive, but they can be remarkably effective.
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.com made a post on his blog that stated how he experienced a huge increase in opt-ins once he added a light box opt-in form. Not only that, but his traffic did not decrease at all. So the light box was not putting off visitors. He increased his opt-in conversion rate without decreasing his visitors.
Splash Page
Splash pages are becoming more popular these days. A splash page is basically just a very short page that is shown upon someone’s first visit to a website or blog. This page offers the visitor the opportunity to subscribe for more information or to keep up-to-date on the latest information from that site.
You may hear some people refer to splash squeeze pages as being pushy, but think of it this way. Many people actually do want to be informed about subjects they are interested in. This type of squeeze page gives visitors the chance to opt in, and if they choose not to subscribe they aren’t shown the page again. If you use this type of squeeze page, be sure you make it so it will not keep showing it to visitors every time.
At the bottom of the page, visitors should be presented with a link to skip to the main site if they don’t want to opt in to your list.
In Post
Another potential location for your opt-in form is within your blog posts or articles. If you have great content, this can be remarkably effective, because the quality of your content will naturally make people want to hear more from you.
This type of box works best when you put it at the end of your blog posts or articles and use text such as “If you liked this article, enter your name and email address for more content like it.”
Feature Box
Many blogs have a featured area at the top that is typically used for displaying featured posts, but this can be one of the most effective places to include your opt-in form.
In fact, you can even have special functionality built into your blog that will replace the opt-in form with featured posts or something else once the visitor has subscribed. This means you won’t lose that valuable space by wasting it on people who have already joined your list.
Opt-in Bars
An opt-in bar sits as a small strip at the top or bottom of the page. It is less obtrusive than other types of opt-in forms, but it may be less noticeable. The good news is that because this type is so subtle, you can use it along with other types of forms to draw additional attention.
Many people prefer to use the slide up opt-in form, which is a type of opt-in bar. Whenever the mouse hovers near the end of the page, the form slides up and asks for the opt-in. You can you a service like InstantSlideUp to create this type of bar on your site.
>> http://www.instantslideup.com
Another service called HelloBar lets you create a bar that lets you add a thin strip with a message at the top of your page. Whenever a visitors clicks that bar, the opt-in form will drop down.
Sidebar Opt-in
One of the most popular locations for an opt-in form these days is in the sidebar of a blog or website. It is simple to set this up using a blog, because a text widget makes it easy to paste the code for your opt-in form.
This location isn’t a good space for a generic opt-in form. You’ll want to offer something enticing to get visitors to join your list, because you have very little space with which to convince them to subscribe. A free report or e-Book is usually a good choice.
You could also create a highly clickable banner and place that in your sidebar, linking it to your regular squeeze page. This will allow you to use your sidebar while still making the most of your traffic with a well-designed squeeze page.