We recently looked at calls to action and how effective they are at driving conversion. But what can be said of a good CTA without also looking at its bigger, more obvious cousin, the online form? Online forms are a staple of every website whether it’s on the homepage or contact page and provides an instantaneous communication channel between motivated users and your brand. We’re going to look at online forms and how you can optimise them for more effective conversion rates.
A Versatile Tool
First off, forms can be effective in various places on your website. As tools on homepages, they provide users with immediacy and access to information. For example, if you have a mortgage company and users want to estimate what their repayments will be, adding a form with a built-in calculator is a useful way to provide instant results and capture contact details for motivated users.
Similarly, if you place a form on a contact page, the chances are they will have visited your site, explored your services or products and actively looked for a contact form, again providing an avenue for motivated users to contact you for further information.
This makes forms one of your primary tools for lead generation and a measurable one at that as you can track the number of people who contact you through your forms. So how can you maximise their effectiveness? Here are a few ways to improve the form (sorry) of your forms.
Make it Visible
Placing your forms in the eye line of the user in places like above the fold is a great way to increase engagement and drive more traffic to use a form. In content hierarchy, content above the fold is your most valuable with this area being where users spend most of their time.
If possible, try to move useful forms above the fold and place less important information like trust signals or image galleries further down the page. This way you’ll have an instant CTA that can be reached in a matter of seconds. As with the mortgage calculator example above, you can combine tools with forms to create useful applications to drive traffic and convert users.
Combine Online Forms with CTAs
As discussed in the previous blog, CTAs bring about action in a user and show them how to move to the next step. Make sure you have effective CTAs alongside your forms to try to drive more traffic to complete a form. Use short snappy text and creative language to make your CTA stand out from the crowd and you’ll find your form fill-ins increase.
Remember when talking about CTAs you’ll need to think about the intro text a form; i.e. the text that explains what the form does as well as the buttons used to try to complete the conversion. In both, you should emphasise immediacy with phrases like ‘instant results’, ‘quick guide’ and other terms that speak to how simple the form is. You can also mix things up a bit with creative button text like ‘Start your adventure’ or ‘Find my dream home’. Whatever your industry or service, there is often a need that users want to be addressed. Tap into it with your CTAs and you’ll see your forms perform better overall.
Keep it Clear and Concise
Finally, keep your form and the area around it clear and concise. Once you’ve got a user on your form, the last thing you want is to confuse them with errant hyperlinks or instructions to go to another page. Make your form stand out and keep the content focused solely on the form and you will find you lose fewer users to drop off or labyrinthian web layout.
We hope you found this article useful. If you’d like to find out more about our amazing SEO services and how we can help optimise your site for success, please contact us today. Our multi-disciplined team of expert digital, design and development experts are on hand to streamline your website and get your forms boosting conversions.