Fine-Tuning Your Sign-Up Page Todd Follansbee WebMarketingResources.net New Haven, CT - Feb 22, 2007

The sign-up page for a subscription or white paper is the "money page" for many sites and determines success or failure. An exit from the sign-up page is rarely recovered.

Conversion analysts have studied signup pages for years, trying to get it right. One formal study measured the drop off rates for each field in a signup form. Nearly 13% dropped off because the address was required, 12% because it required too much time, 17% because users didn't trust the site. Let's summarize some of what is known:

• Keep the form simple, and then make it simpler. You need a very good reason for every field on the page -- your marketing department's curiosity for metrics is not a valid reason. Try for e-mail address only with name optional. Plan to collect more information after you have the signup. When the marketing department resists, explain the drop off rates for each field, the cost per conversion, and the potential lost ROI for each lost signup.
• Clearly mark required fields with an asterisk, a yellow background in the field box, or possibly even a red field label. Putting "name" in the actual name field can help.
• Put a simple dark border around the entire signup form and make the background color slightly different than the rest of the page to distinguish it. This change identifies the size (and lack of complexity) of the form, which is reassuring.
• Avoid offensively "loud" colors. Who wants to take the time to fill out a form that hurts your eyes?
• Briefly note your sign-up policies, regarding how your sign-up's information is used, and link to a privacy policy page. Lack of a policy statement is a major factor in drop offs.
• Repeat the benefit of signing up in one or two sentences right in the initial eye path and bold the key words. If users are signing up for a newsletter, mention frequency and link to examples. For e-mail, explain what users will get and when to expect it.
• Make sure that the form remains on your domain and follows the look and feel of your site so it is clearly identifiable as your page. Maintain navigational consistency with navigation bars, etc.
• Offer a less demanding engagement option than a full sign up. If users aren't ready to sign up for a direct contact offer, then suggest a newsletter, link them to some past issues, reinforce the sales element and try to get them to come back. Offer them an e-mail link for more information.
• Provide a clean and simple unsubscribe option.
• Except in rare cases, a form that takes more than two minutes will lose a huge number of sign-ups. Again, keep it brief.
• Provide friendly, helpful error correction messages when users fail to fill out the form completely. Statements like, "Sorry, we are unable to complete the form without your X information," are gentler and less annoying than "Subscription failed -- error line 27a."
• Test the procedure on 5 people. Bring them to the site and ask them to review the information, find the signup page and fill it out. Listen to your respondents' experiences and pay attention to ease of use and trust building.
• Enable easy "forward to a friend links." The signup page is often the last chance to make this happen. Build a document or landing page solely for referrals with compelling product information and an easy link to the form.

While we have a good idea about what works, we are often surprised by what we continue to learn. It is a mistake to believe we know it all, and a bigger mistake to believe our potential customers and subscribers already know (and trust) us before they complete a sign-up form. Ongoing testing is essential to create a sign-up page that pulls visitors in rather than sends them packing. If you keep your forms simple while conveying the trustworthiness of your business, your visitors will afford you the opportunity to develop a continuing relationship with them.

Todd Follansbee is founder of WebMarketingResources.net. He is a usability and persuasion consultant who has been testing user behaviors on web sites for over 10 years. His methodology for improving conversions recently won a top ten award in Entrepreneur Magazine. For a limited time, Todd is offering a special small business one hour site review and consult for only $125. Improve your user experience and your bottom line. For more details visit here. http://www.webmarketingresources.net/reviewoffer.html