Even if you're a genius in directing traffic to your site,
traffic alone won't make you any money.
If your visitors leave without making a purchase, your
traffic is as useful as a fork is to eat ice cream. And
unfortunately, only a very low percentage of online
visitors buy something on their first visit.
That's why you will have to make sure to draw them back to
your site, establish a trusting relationship and remind
them of the great products you're selling.
How would you do all this?
Use The Power Of The Signup form. The signup form is one of
the most critical elements of your website because it gives
you the tools to turn a visitor into a prospect.
The moment visitors complete a signup form, they give you
the permission and the ability to start a dialogue - a
long-term relationship that will hopefully translate into
sales down the road. That's why it's so important to design
a signup form that attracts your visitors enough so that
give you their name and email address.
It needs to offer value and create trust. Designing a
signup form might not be as exciting as creating animated
Flash movies or experimenting with different website
designs, but it is lot more critical to get right.
Signup forms are a very important online marketing tool and
usually form the gateway through which revenue is
generated. We've seen signup rates go up by 8% just with
simple tweaks to the design of our signup forms.
We'll share these tweaks with you in this tactic and show
you how to design a killer form.
Designing Forms that Convert Well
1. Keep Your Forms Short and To the Point Shorter forms
generally get higher completion rates. So strip your forms
down and ask for the absolute minimum amount of information
you need from your visitors. For subscription forms this is
often just a first name and email address. Sometimes you
might want to ask additional questions to gauge customer
views or collect marketing data. In this case you need to
be very careful. Is the additional information worth the
drop in sales you might create from expanding the length of
your form?
2. Mention Your Privacy Policy People are often reluctant
to give out their email on the internet. Stating a privacy
policy in simple terms can often boost form completion
rates.
3. Watch Your Submit Buttons Be careful not to create any
obstacles to the completion of a subscription. This is an
unwise thing to do. How often would one need to actually
clear a form this simple and start over? The problem with
the clear button is that a significant percentage of users
who are in a hurry will click on that button, see their
data get lost, and then give up in frustration. Remove all
CLEAR or RESET buttons. They don't help and can create
problems when clicked on by accident. To improve the form
above we would also suggest renaming the SUBMIT button to
something more meaningful. Never stick with the default
text "Submit." Change it to something like:
·"Subscribe Now for Free Training"
·"Get Your Free Report"
·"Claim Your Free Audio"
4. Make Your Form STAND OUT Often, your form constitutes
the core of your most wanted response on a page. In this
case the entire goal of the page is to get a visitor to
sign up. For pages like this the form should stand out like
a zebra on a subway train. It must draw the user's
attention.
5. Use Multiple Pages to Boost Signups on Longer Forms
Often, you may need to collect more data than just a
visitor's first name and email address. Yet, adding more
fields to a form usually causes a drop in signup rates. The
way to do both is to have a 2-step signup. In the first
step, you request only a first name and email address. In
the second step, you can ask for any additional data.
6. Always Place Your Form Above the Fold The form should
always be on the top fold of your web page. This is the
portion of the screen that appears in the average visitor's
browser window without having to scroll down. Make sure the
entire form is visible above the fold and that the submit
button does not fall below the fold on lower resolution
monitors.
7. Embed the Form in Multiple Sections of Your Copy In
addition to placing the form above the fold, be sure to
also place the form at the bottom of the page. It's a good
idea to place the form within several sections of the page
copy.
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Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned
from having his own building company to a great online
business. Check out his site and see for yourself how he
can help you do the same at http://www.moneyacces.com
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