A surprisingly smart, lightweight tool for news publishers

I recently tested out SignalKit, and if you run a heavy content site or a Google News publication, it’s actually a breath of fresh air. Most engagement plugins out there are bloated, e-commerce-focused popup builders that completely ruin the reading experience. SignalKit does the exact opposite.

It uses clean, non-intrusive banners to get readers to follow you on Google News or sign up for a newsletter. As a nice bonus for UX, it has built-in collision detection—meaning its banners won’t overlap with your ads or cookie notices on mobile screens.

I also love that it doesn’t drag down site speed. It relies on inline CSS, keeps all the analytics local to your WordPress dashboard (zero GDPR/cookie headaches), and lets you drop banners directly into articles using shortcodes.

The only catch: It’s a very new plugin with a low install count right now, so you are definitely an early adopter. But if you want a fast, privacy-friendly way to build your publication’s audience without annoying your readers, it’s absolutely worth testing out on a staging site.