The most effective way to convert or collect leads using promotional tactics is through popups, but poorly placed ones will wreck your users’ experience on WordPress. If you’re in search of improved site functionality, speed, and usability, you could consider disabling pop-ups. In this guide, we’ve covered all the relevant methods to Disable pop ups in WordPress so that your visitors enjoy a seamless browsing experience.
Why Disable Popups from WordPress?
Pop-ups are directed towards grabbing the attention of your visitors. However, when they cross the threshold in terms of frequency or inappropriate use, they can generate a lot of problems: frequent bounces and frustrated opening up possible SEO issues. Let’s talk about why you may want to consider the option of disabling pop-ups on your WordPress website.
Negative Impact on User Experience
The primary reason for disabling pop-ups is the enhancement of user experience. Primarily, pop-ups are pesky, particularly if they show suddenly or block content. Annoyance can lead to abandonment—the smooth, interruption-free session is required to hold the audience captive.
SEO Issues
Though a website provides an easy user experience, Google’s algorithm always rewards that site. Examples of relevancy would be the penalties in search engine rankings that a website receives because of pop-ups that are too intrusive and modal in nature, especially for mobile devices.
Mobile Responsiveness Challenges
An unoptimized pop-up would severely hamper usability on mobile devices. Such pop-up is, for instance, going to cover almost everything on small screens, making navigation by a user impossible. Mobile-friendly websites must always focus on smooth navigation and accessibility.
Faster Loading Speed of the Website
Pop-ups can massively slow down your website because they use heavy JavaScript and load external scripts. By disabling pop-ups, you will increase the speed of your website loading and overall performance, which is very relevant when it comes to retaining visitors and smooth browsing.
Improve Accessibility
A website that makes heavy reliance on pop-ups can pose difficulties to users with disabilities. Therefore, the disabled pop-up ensures that all users have an easy time navigating around your site, including those who use screen readers and those who have mobility impairment.
How to Disable Pop-Ups in WordPress
Of course, there are a number of ways through which the flow of pop-ups in WordPress can be disabled. There are many techniques by which pop-ups can be created: through plugins, through embedded codes, or even specific settings available in your theme. In this section, we will walk through some methods on how disable pop-ups on your WordPress site.
Disable pop-ups by Deactivating or Adjusting Plugins
Most pop-ups to create pop-ups on WordPress sites are created using pop-up plugins. By deactivating or adjusting the settings of the plugin, he can disable pop-ups that are created using some pop-up plugins like OptinMonster, Popup Maker, or Thrive Leads.
Step 1: Identify the Plugin Responsible for the Pop-up.
Before disabling pop-ups, you will have to identify the plugin below that created the pop-ups. To find the plugin:
Go to the page where the pop-up appears.
See if the pop-ups were attached to a certain plugin installed or are elsewhere in the plugin documentation.
The most-popular pop-up plugins are OptinMonster, Popup Maker, and Sumo.
Step 2: Deactivate or Modify Settings
You can now deactivate or change the settings once you have identified the plugin causing the pop-up.
Deactivate Plugin: Visit your WordPress dashboard, Enhance Access, then Click on Installed Plugins. Navigate to the pop-up plugin, and click Deactivate to stop running it.
Adjust Settings: Do not deactivate the entire plugin; go into plugin settings and disable pop-up functionality. This is typically available in each plugin to leave pop-ups disabled or set up conditions when pop-ups are not shown (e.g., only after a certain time has passed or on specific pages).
Step 3: Test Your Website
After deactivation or the change in setting, navigate back to your website and then refresh. Ensure there is no pop-up appearing now.
Disable Pop-ups by Editing the Files of the Theme
For pop-ups hard-coded into your WordPress theme, you may have to disable the pop-up by editing the theme files directly. This comes greatly in handy where pop-ups are not controlled by a plugin but are configured using JavaScript or an embedded code.
Step 1: Access Your Theme’s Files
- From your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance > Theme Editor.
- In the Theme Editor, locate the header.php, footer.php, or any custom JS file that might contain the code for the pop-up.
Step 2: Remove or Comment Out the Code
Look for the JavaScript or HTML code responsible for triggering the pop-up. This may include JavaScript libraries or inline pop-up scripts. If you identify the code, you can either delete it or comment it out to prevent the pop-up from triggering. Here’s an example of how to comment out the code:
<!– <script>
// Your pop-up code here
</script> –>
Step 3: Save Your Changes and Test
After making the necessary changes, save the file and check your website. Refresh the page to ensure the pop-up is no longer appearing.
Disabling Pop-ups Using Custom CSS
Another possible solution to stop pop-ups is the use of Custom CSS. If a pop-up can be controlled by a specific CSS class or ID, it can be easily hidden using custom CSS.
Step 1: Identify the CSS Class/ID of the Pop-up
Inspect the page using the browser developer tools (right-click on the pop-up and choose Inspect) to trace the CSS class or ID responsible for making the pop-up visible or invisible.
Step 2: Add Custom CSS to Hide the Pop-up
Once you’ve located the class or ID, you may then write CSS to hide the pop-up, like so:
.pop-up-class {
display: none !important;
}
To add this CSS to your site:
- Go to Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS in your WordPress dashboard.
- Paste the CSS code and click Publish.
Disable Pop-ups Using JavaScript
If you prefer using JavaScript to disable pop-ups, you can target the pop-up’s triggering event and stop it from firing. Here’s an example of how to do this:
document.addEventListener(‘DOMContentLoaded’, function() {
document.body.classList.add(‘no-popup’);
});
You can place this JavaScript code in your footer.php file or use a plugin like Insert Headers and Footers to add custom code.
Use a Browser Extension to Stop Pop-ups
If you’re not the owner of a website and still want popups to stop disturbing your surfing on WordPress sites, browser extensions like AdBlock plus or uBlock Origin may help.
- Installation is quite simple, and pop-ups get blocked by it across all WordPress sites as well.
Disable Pop-ups Using a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Some websites have the feature of CDN, which uses it for the fast and quick delivery of the contents of the site. Pop-ups loading via CDN would be required by you to adjust the CDN settings or maybe purge the cache in order to avoid the popups.
Conclusion
Pop-ups can be used for a conversion and promotional powerhouse, but they must be used tactically. If your goal is to enhance user experience, reduce bounces, and promote SEO, the best option for your website might be to disable pop-ups on WordPress.
By following this guide through, you will perform an effective disable for pop-ups, no matter whether they are controlled by a plugin, custom code, or theme embed. Also, test your website after performing the changes to see if the pop-ups are gone.
In any case, should you wish to bring back the pop-ups, you will be able to do so simply by reversing these steps.
FAQs
Why is it necessary to disable pop-ups on a WordPress website?
Pop-ups become most annoying while browsing and can be considered one of the most irritating online experiences for a visitor. Well-designed pop-ups really frustrate a visitor and make them leave because he could have been collecting information about something specific from that site; instead of getting his work done, it makes him grumpier. Whereas, disabling pop-ups facilitates increased speed and mobile responsiveness rank and also improves SEO rankings as Google penalizes sites for intrusive pop-ups on a mobile device.
It is possible to disable pop-ups from your WordPress website without using a plugin.
You can disable pop-ups from your WordPress website without using any kind of plugin. If the pop-ups are in-built into your theme or are directly coded into your site, then you need to have access to editing your theme files, which typically include header.php or footer.php, as well as inserting custom CSS or JavaScript into the theme page. When plugins are used to generate the pop-ups, the easiest solution would be to deactivate them or do adjustments to the settings of the plugins.
What if pop-ups alone appear on particular pages of my website?
They can really limit appearances-distinct pop-ups. Mostly, in such instances, you would only need to change one or two settings on the pop-up plugin, and then you should be able to restrict pop-ups to appear tags or completely on specific pages. Otherwise, if the pop-up has been hardcoded, such events will require modifying the files of the theme to make it not appear on the required page.
Can a pop-up be rendered invisible on a mobile device?
Yes, you can do that through the settings of your pop-up plugin. This means that almost all of their modern versions have options that allow one to define when or where a pop-up will appear, especially with individual triggers designed for the mobile user. You can also hide pop-ups from mobile devices with CSS specific to those devices using media queries.
Example CSS to hide pop-ups on mobile:
@media screen and (max-width: 768px) {
.pop-up-class {
display: none !important;
}
}
What if I want to disable a certain kind of pop-up, such as one that asks for email sign-ups?
If you only want to disable particular pop-ups-like the one that asks for emails-you can either change conditions from your pop-up plugin to selective disablement or find the specific class or ID for that pop-up so that you can hide it through custom CSS. Most pop-up plugins also allow you to deactivate some campaigns commonly associated with exit intent and time delay pop-ups.