8 Great Tips for Generating More Conversions with Forms
Forms are one of the most common ways in which your website converts its visitors into leads and gathers their information inside your CRM system for your sales team to follow up on. In this blog we’re going to provide 8 great tips on how you can design your forms for better conversion rates – all backed up by research!
Use An Encouraging Layout
According to an eye-tracking study carried out by Google, the layout of your form and its fields can influence whether a use is encouraged to complete the form. Three highlights from the study tell us that:
- The length of the form fields should match the length of the expected answer. Emails can be quite long, so this field should be one of the longest.
- The information you’re asking for should be clearly titled above the input field. This allows users to quickly and easily identify which information they are providing and where.
- You shouldn’t split your form into multiple forms. This can create the idea of it ‘never ending’, and the user doesn’t enjoy forms so don’t make the process longer than necessary. Also, one question per line is ideal.
Ensure Good Positioning
Having an intelligently designed form that follows all the top tips is great, but worthless if nobody ever sees it. You need to make sure you place your form in positions where users will notice it without difficulty. This can depends on the purpose of the page, but a few suggestions are:
- In the top banner (for conversion pages)
- At the bottom of a page (users will be familiar with this design so would expect it here)
- As a side bar
- And most obvious of all – your contact page
Limit Number of Fields
As you can probably imagine, users don’t want to spend much time filling out a form. They also don’t want to give away too much data. Seeing a form with lots of fields is a red flag for both of these so it’s important to limit the amount of information you’re asking for. We’d recommend only asking for the information that is 100% needed to contact them and continue the conversation. Research from Quicksprout found that fewer fields leads to higher conversions.
Use Appropriate CTA Colour
The colour of the CTA on your form needs to do 2 things simultaneously: align with the design of your website and stand out as much as possible – and the colour can have a big influence. The colour you choose should depends on the background colour the forms sits on, and the colour of your site. Make sure it doesn’t blend in. According to research, red CTAs perform best. However, this isn’t to say use red CTAs all over your website – especially if it doesn’t work with your visual identity.
Remove Captcha
We all understand the benefit of Captcha. It provides form security and prevents receiving spam leads. However, a study from Moz found that Captcha can actually be a hindrance and can reduce conversion rates by around 3%. There are other types of form security available, so the big question is whether you’re ready to accept a few spam leads in return for an additional 3% of actual leads.
Forms are just one part of your website that influence conversions. Discover which other components of your site you need to consider to generate more leads- Read More
Don’t Ask for Numbers
If there’s one piece of data that users are most unwilling to provide it’s their phone number. This is likely to be the result of years of cold calling for products and services of more or less zero relevance. Research shows that a form that asks for a phone number can experience high abandonment rates – especially if the field is mandatory. Changing the field to optional, or removing it completely can reduce abandonment from 39% to 4%. We’d suggest having a separate CTA underneath your form which is a ‘click-to-call’. This way users can complete the form, or decide to call if that’s their preferred option.
Provide Social Proof
Now, more than ever, users are looking at online reviews as evidence of a good product or service. Social proof is essentially a review of your product or service, used to highlight to prospects that others have a had a great experience. Placing social proof at a key stage in the conversion journey could be the slight push needed to encourage the user to submit the form. We’d recommend providing social proof through a plug in that provides reviews from a trusted source i.e. Google review or TrustPilot. This will provide prospects with additional confidence that the review is real.
Don’t Use ‘Submit’
The word ‘submit’ is probably the most overused and uninspiring CTA available. When you want the user to take action and complete the form, encourage them! CTA’s such as ‘Get started’, ‘Let’s talk’, ‘Start growing’ will actually provide some inspiration and motivation to the user as to what will happen by clicking the button. A key study from Hubspot found that using the word ‘Submit’ leads to lower conversions.
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Summary
While forms may seem like a relatively small component of a larger conversion strategy, they play a vital role in the gatekeeping of the data you need to generate leads. We’ve seen in this blog how miniscule changes can have quite profound impacts on the conversion rates. It makes sense then to optimise your forms as much as you can in order to enjoy a better level of conversion – and applying the tips outlined can set you on your way.