Many companies will spend thousands of dollars on optimizing their pay per click marketing, search engine optimization, and even their websites but many do not take the time to optimize and test their form. Most website’s goal is to generate a lead for one reason or another. But even if you have a retail site, having the right form can increase sales. Your form should give you just enough information that you need at the current time. Resist the urge to ask for information you do not need at all or you can gather once you have establish contact.
Forms should always be edited and tested. A long, imposing form will turn many people away. The value of the additional information you gather from this long form will rarely outweigh the benefits of having more visitors fill out the lead form. Here are some of my top form tips:
- Keep your form headlines short and to the point but make sure the “hook” is strong.
- Form labels should be as short a possible without abbreviations.
- Organize form fields into logical groups.
- Eliminate and horizontal visual separators.
- Keep your form fields limited and only required.
Let’s look at some examples:
Using form optimization to generate more leads
I think overall this form is very good. I like the way the form is called out on the landing page as it really pops. I like the way the form uses its titles within the form field but on other fields it uses the titles outside of the field and this inconsistency creates some confusion. I would also shorten the form to include only the required fields to be filled out. Trying to get more information is going to lengthen the form and creates distraction. At the end of the day, a sales person needs to call this prospect to move forward the selling process so why not have them ask for it? Also, I would like to see the “opt-in” section of the form be included in the terms of use section and remove from the form. With some multivariate
testing this form can really be a conversion winner. I give it a 7.5 in current form.
how a form design can make all the difference in the world for your conversions
The form to the right has a lot of work to get into shape. Thumbs up for the big submit button and the image is in line with the product offered. Thumbs down for the overall layout as it is way to much information to digest, grouping of the form fields as you go from type in to drop down one after the other, many qualifying questions that can be asked on initial call, opt in option, the URL structure includes a folder of a major PPC vendor and that is a little odd, multiple tabbed landing page which I am not a big fan of and yet each tab offer very little additional content and there is a scrolling element that happens on the right hand side of the landing page is very distracting. Overall I give this form a 4/10 and to be honest I would perform A/B split testing to find the right layout then move forward with a multivariate test.
I think the key to your forms producing optimal results is to test. To be honest there should be no excuses in any website to perform testing as Google Website Optimizer is free and can be implemented in a few hours. You work hard to get visitors to your site, you can work just as hard in converting them!
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