A simple fact: no business website is complete without a signup form.
Consequently, improving conversion by tweaking the signup form and its presentation is crucial when you’re aiming to increase signups and quote / service requests. In general, long forms equate to low conversion but not all the time. There are other factors influencing conversion.
Other than the length of forms …
Hubspot’s Joshua Porter points out 4 factors more powerful than form length:
- Motivation – influenced by the kind of payoff/value the users expect.
- Friction – reduce form length, avoid time-consuming fields, reduce validation errors, write clarifying and encouraging microcopy.
- Information asked for – “Don’t ask for unnecessary stuff”.
- Brand – famous brands are more trusted than unknown brands.
It’s relatively easy to do something about the first three.
To increase motivation, for example, you might want to offer a reward.
We’re only human
Increasing motivation involves addressing what Porter calls behaviors “core to the human experience”:
- We want attention.
- We collect things.
- We want status.
- We are vain.
- We make judgments accordingly.
Reducing friction means allowing people to achieve these wants as quickly as we can while asking for as little appropriate information as possible.
Even if the signup form is long, it’s how it’s presented that can affect conversion. Security features, if not implemented well (such as hard to read CAPTCHA) can deter conversion.
Getting people to trust your brand is hard — especially if your business is a newcomer. Achieving trust in your brand takes time and involves improving other areas in your business like corporate identity, product quality, marketing, among others. Trust in a brand shows users expect quality and great value from the service or application.
It’s in the motivation
All these four factors are actually aimed at increasing user motivation, which ultimately leads to increased conversion.
“Signup is not about filling in forms. It’s about motivation.”, says Joshua Porter.
He recommends:
- Getting users started quickly.
- Making signup painless, the commitment low.
- Providing descriptions catering to all levels of motivation.
- Showing what other users are doing with your service.
Motivate people well enough, and they’ll line up for your service — but don’t hold up the line with poor signup forms.
Don’t forget to test and fix your forms
Perhaps the best question to ask is “what’s wrong with my signup forms?” Test your forms. Find out what’s causing people to drop off, and fix it. That’s probably the simplest way (also the one with the most variations) to increase conversion through signup forms.
If you need helping testing or auditing your website forms, contact us today and we would be happy to help!
