A good website takes potential customers and drives them to conversions with great design and easy-to-understand action paths. That action, almost every time, requires the user to fill out a form. So why do so many people use generic web forms, with unnecessary fields and “blah” design?
The form is often the last step in the conversion funnel on your site. You’ve convinced the user that they need your service or product, and now they are ready. Why not present them with something that matches your branding and standards?
Optimized web forms can greatly increase conversion rates on a site. With some forethought and design, you can make filling out a form quick and simple for your users – leading to more conversions and more opportunities to win business.
Today we have a guide to creating optimized web forms that increase conversion rates. We will start by defining a purpose for our form, and then walk through the best practices for designing forms.
Have a Purpose
One quick way to determine how long your form should be is to think about if you need more leads or if you need better leads.Short forms are easy to fill out. Asking for just a name and email will remove a lot of barriers and get more people to fill out the form. However, you won’t be pre-qualifying these leads.A longer form will likely get fewer people to sign up, but these people will be more qualified. You can ask questions that filter out poor leads before they reach the sales team. You’ll end up with fewer leads, but the ones that make it through will also likely be better.
Best Practices
Part of having web forms on your site is making them user friendly to give your user the best experience possible. The end result is always to convert your prospect or to get your client to take a certain action – improving their experience will do this naturally. There are some general best practices when building (or hiring someone to build) web forms.
Keep it Simple
- Only ask for the information you absolutely need, and nothing more.
- Place your form fields in an order that makes sense for your user.
- Show examples of what you are asking for (e.g. [email protected]).
- Add short cuts like being able to toggle through form with your keyboard.
- Don’t make all information mandatory, just the basics.
Offer a Clear Message
- Let your users know what you are asking for or what you expect by making the forms clear and concise.
- Give clear error messages so user knows they entered something wrong and give feedback on how they need to fix it.
Give Proper Feedback
- Highlight mandatory fields to avoid wasting peoples times.
- Give clear direction or steps so user knows how to fill out form.
- After form is submitted, let user know it was done correctly and what to expect next.
Design is Important
- Just because web forms are intended to gather information doesn’t mean they have to be boring – add design.
- Come up with something unique or interesting – a symbol, icon, unique colors, or dynamic design elements.
- Don’t over clutter your web form with design. Keep it professional and in line with your overall look and feel.
Software & Tracking
- Unlimited Form Variations
- Unlimited Fields
- Automatic Publishing of Changes
- Robust Reporting and Analytics
- Marketing Segmentation
- Marketing Automation
- No Bot Spam Without CAPTCHA – No CAPTCHA forms increase form submission by as much as 40%.
Final Thought: Build Trust
An extremely well built and designed web form is only as good as the site it is on. If your overall site doesn’t convert well or attract visitors, neither will your form.
Users need to trust you (learn how to build trust on your site) before they will give out all their personal information, therefore a facelift of your overall site may be in order, not just your web forms.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein