3 Quick And Easy Steps To Boost Your Conversion Rates

This is a guest post by Jesus Ramirez from MarketingUnfolded.com.

Sometimes as we design our sign-up forms we forget about the most important piece of the whole sequence… the prospect.

We forget that they are people too, with fears, and pre-conceived notions and we often overlook the steps we can take to ovoid their un-easiness.

By simply looking at your sign-up form we can make 3 quick and easy changes to increase your conversion rates, they are:

conversion rate

1. Removing Unnecessary Fields

In most cases (at least in internet marketing) the email address field is the most important. But do you really need a physical address? Or a phone number?

If the answer is “no”, then definitely remove these, they are only creating confusion and anxiety in the sign up process. You need to have a short and unintimidating sign-up form.

You should also do a split test and see how you perform with just asking for an email and leaving out the name.

By keeping all the unnecessary fields you are giving your prospects more excuses to leave.

In my website I choose to just stick with email, if I need any other information for other offers then I will ask for them as I need them.

2. Tell Your Prospects Why You Need The Extra Information

If you must absolutely have more than a name and email, you must have a truly valid reason on why you are asking for the extra information.

Make sure that you explain it to your prospect in the sign-up form.

Remember people are very hesitant on giving away their personal phone number because they don’t want to get telemarketers trying to sell them something while they are having their dinner or doing some important work.

They don’t want to give you their address because they don’t want more junk mail than they already have.

To overcome these fears you must explain why you need the extra information. Remember it might be obvious to you, but it won’t be to your prospect, so tell them!

Remember most of your prospects just want to know why you need a particular piece of information before they give it to you.

3. Add Your Privacy Policy To Your Sign-Up Form

If you have a privacy policy and you are not linking to it from your sign-up form you may be losing a lot of leads! Remember most people just want to be assured that you are a legitimate person that won’t spam them or bother them.

By linking to your privacy policy from your sign-up form you put your prospects at ease and they feel more comfortable giving you their information.

Most people will never click on the privacy link, but the 1% that do, will be directed to your privacy page where their worries will be put to rest, and you can close them on that page by adding a sign-up form.

This is something that Copyblogger does, and it seems to work very well for them.

The Bottom Line

When you’re designing your sign-up form it’s very easy to get caught thinking of only what you want and what you need.

A better approach is to design your sign-up form in the needs of your prospect. Accept that they are skeptical, and that the value you provide might not be readily obvious to them.

You need to take these steps, and any other steps that you can, to make sure they can easily, and comfortably give you their information. Remove all the obstacles and confusion, remember…

It’s all about putting them first.

 

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56 thoughts on “3 Quick And Easy Steps To Boost Your Conversion Rates”

  1. Very good thoughts on the conversion-problem. We have it as well. From my experience, it is the best to just ask someone who did not grow up with the internet, what they do, and how they do it, so e.g. browse the website. You might be surprised what they tell you!

  2. Hi Jesus,

    I usually don’t read any privacy page link but yes if I find a site useful and informative and their sign-up form only consists Name and Email ID then I won’t hesitate to sign up.

    1. I’m like you Aaron,

      I agree Aaron, useful, and valuable information is very important.

      But it’s weird, some people just feel more at ease when they see that “privacy link.”

      It just makes everything seem more legitimate and proper.

      Thanks for the comment by the way!

  3. It is very important to keep your sign up forms very simple. People today are all about speed so the easier and faster they can sign up the more likely they will be to do so. Good post.

  4. Great tips, in my opinion the most important step from these 3 is to have a clear privacy policy and a simple statement on your sigh up form that email addresses will not be shared or sold, this can make a huge difference in the conversion rate of your sigh up form…

  5. Great tips Ramirez. There is no need capturing emails if you can’t convert them. On thing remains certain, people who decides to subscribe to your list, are already pre-sold. I have seen an increase in my email list, when I removed every unnecessary stuffs.

    Right now, I only ask my prospects to give me their email address. Well, I don’t need a name to sell to them. By asking for their email address alone, they usually subscribe within 2 seconds.

    BTW: I like your blog, your content is cute. Keep up the good works.

    1. Michael,

      You couldn’t be more right, removing all the unnecessary fields makes it easy for people to sign up. and you are right, you don’t need their name to sell to them. As long as you provide a great valuable product.

      Thanks for checking out my site Michael! Hope to see you come back soon.

  6. Hey Ramirez !
    I really admire and appreciate your firm and well fabricated tips on how to design our sign-up forms for getting better conversion rates.I agree with you that easy sign-up forms attract more leads than messy one.From messy i exactly mean what you have explained here,i think only name field and email field makes users more comfortable for signing-up and if there is a need for more informations then we can tell them personally via emails about why we need more info and how it can help them more,i think it will do 2 things together,1st is that we can develop our faith on them and can make them feel that we give personal importance to them and the 2nd thing is that by doing so we can get more informations about them easily.Thank you for sharing such a great,valuable and informative content with us.

    Good Luck and God Bless!!

    With Regards!
    Samuel Joshua

  7. Conversion rates are very essential and determine the success rate of a business. Yes, reducing the unnecessary fields is important and the sign-up form should be as succinct as possible. The person designing the sign up form must check himself if he feels tedious in filling the form.

    1. I agree Rosalia,

      You must go through your entire process for yourself to see how your prospect will feel when they go through the process themselves.

      Thanks for your comment!

  8. Hi Jesus, very good tip about the Privacy page. Even though I myself barely read it completely most of the time, I do atleast skim through parts of it. If anything looks missing or out of place, it can certainly lead me to have my doubts about signing up.

    -Jean

    1. You said something very important Jean,

      “If anything looks missing or out of place”

      You have to make everything, seem right, and in place.

      That is the point. You cannot give reasons for your prospects not to give you their info. Remove all these road blocks and your conversion rates will soar!

  9. Hi Jesus,
    Very interesting post. We’ve found the same thing – too much is too much and they just click away. You are totally correct in explaining exactly why you need the additional information and that it is safe and will not be sold. We’ve found that you get more for less! Thanks so much for sharing.

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