Web forms can be used to help you collect orders, leads, subscribers, inquiries and feedback so it's important to optimize their conversion rates. Often taken for granted, they are one of the essential elements of your lead generation and marketing efforts. Most visitors don't want to spend time filling them out, so designing a web form that provides great user experience is imperative.
When designing and developing your website, you need to pay extra attention to the form because it can have serious benefits. Expedia, for example, increased their profits by $12 million by removing one redundant form field.
Follow these best practices to increase your web form's conversion rate.
When designing and developing your website, you need to pay extra attention to the form because it can have serious benefits. Expedia, for example, increased their profits by $12 million by removing one redundant form field.
Follow these best practices to increase your web form's conversion rate.
1. Make it stand out
To maximize completion rates of your form you need to provide a good user experience, to encourage sign-ups. If you want to set yourself apart from your competitors you need to make your form stand out. A plain, generic form can be boring and detached, however a quirky, unique design communicates personality and friendliness, helping to make the submission process more enjoyable. Use white space to give prominence to the form, allowing it breathing room to stand out from the rest of the information on your page. Adding a splash of color can generate an emotional response, and aid in easily distinguishing between input fields. Directional cues can help guide a visitor's attention in a more literal way using triangulation to create focal points. For example, arrows are a directional pointer that demand attention; they may not be subtle, but they work. Using color to highlight required fields is a non-intrusive way to ensure the user doesn't miss an important field.
To maximize completion rates of your form you need to provide a good user experience, to encourage sign-ups. If you want to set yourself apart from your competitors you need to make your form stand out. A plain, generic form can be boring and detached, however a quirky, unique design communicates personality and friendliness, helping to make the submission process more enjoyable. Use white space to give prominence to the form, allowing it breathing room to stand out from the rest of the information on your page. Adding a splash of color can generate an emotional response, and aid in easily distinguishing between input fields. Directional cues can help guide a visitor's attention in a more literal way using triangulation to create focal points. For example, arrows are a directional pointer that demand attention; they may not be subtle, but they work. Using color to highlight required fields is a non-intrusive way to ensure the user doesn't miss an important field.
Your form should be easy to scan, with each element visually distinct. A well-designed form should have properly aligned fields, with the button size matching those of the fields. Form logic and layout are significant factors in web form conversion.
2. Keep it concise
A long form with scores of required fields is tiresome for users, and while it's tempting to collect as much information as possible, a lengthy web form can be intimidating and scare people off.
Keeping the form simple and smaller will make the user feel like they are accomplishing more in a short space of time. Longer forms also tend to require more personal information, which can discourage people from completing them. Making a conscious decision to employ concise forms to capture only the essential information is often more cost effective, with a lower cost-per-lead. Hubspot analyzed over 40,000 forms on landing pages from their customers and found that 3-5 form fields generated maximum conversions. If you absolutely must include extra fields, then clearly explain why you are collecting certain information. For example, Mint is a money management tool that doesn't ask you for your bank details during sign up because they focus on converting the visitor to a user first with a simple, straightforward form. You can add your bank details later.
For certain websites, long forms are unavoidable, so the key is to break them up into manageable chunks to ensure they are user friendly. Consider A/B testing to compare shorter and longer versions, and see whether the extra data collected is valuable enough to lose certain leads because of the form length. While a short, concise form won't generate more interest in your product or service, it can dramatically increase a user’s willingness to sign up and become a potential customer.
5 Tips for Designing a Web Form with a High Conversion Rate was first posted in http://mashable.com
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