How does putting a trial sign up code mid-blog post effect SEO? Do you think it will make my content seem less pleasing, therefor decrease the page rank??

[Karibeaulieu]

I'm working on driving trials for our product - we have a number of blog posts that rank on page #1 of Google, and we get 2-3 trial sign ups per day from them.

I'd like to put trial signup boxes about midway down each post to see if I can increase the number of trial signups that come directly from our blog.

Do you think I can be "penalized" for this, since it's mid- blog-post content?

Do you think Google will view this negatively?

[HiveDigitalInc]

Great questions...

If you feel the calls to action you are adding are relevant to the content and add value to the page, then there should not be any problem adding them in.  Do you currently have the sign-up forms in other locations on the page?

This is definitely something you could easily test by making the change on 1-2 posts and not others, and seeing if there appears to be any negative impact.   Considering this would be "supplemental" content to the page, I would definitely make a point to try and give them a non-intrusive call to action.

Cheers,

Jake

[BlueCorona]

Hi,

I don't see a reason why Google would penalize you for putting the signup box midway through your blog content unless it creates a negative user experience; Google does track signals like bounce rate and time spent on page, and if the box placement ends up causing people to leave your page sooner or leave your page before taking another action, you may see your listing ranking decrease. However, if placing the box higher on the page results in more conversions and does not detract from user experience, you shouldn't be penalized for it.

[Linda-Vassily]

If people are enjoying your posts, they may well want to have a trial signup. This is a very common practice and a lot of the reason people have blogs to begin with.