Driving conversions with your website is a strategic process. You need to figure out who you’re targeting, build your landing page accordingly, and make sure you’re creating enough value for prospects to click through.
With all this going on, it’s easy to overlook the lead generation form itself. In reality, however, the form has a huge impact on your conversion success and should be given a great deal of thought.
To help you maximize your lead generation efforts this year, we’ve compiled four easy ways to optimize your landing page forms:
1. Keep It Simple
The best form design is one that is short and sweet. If you want to maximize conversions, start off by minimizing the amount of form fields you require. Simply don’t include fields that aren’t absolutely necessary. Each additional piece of information that a visitor has to give up is one more chance to frustrate them into abandoning your page.
As an example, Expedia improved their yearly profits by $12 million each year by removing one single field (the optional ‘company’ field), reducing visitor confusion and leading to far more conversions.
2. Add Some Value
Oftentimes, landing page visitors get cold feet. They might decide it’s not worth giving up their contact information, or they could simply get bored and decide to navigate elsewhere. Once your form is in front of them, hook them by offering something in exchange for their valuable information.
If you’re a B2B company, you could offer something like an eBook or a case study. If you’re selling directly to your audience, offer a coupon or promotion. Applebee’s has created a great example of an optimized lead generation form . They offer a birthday special in exchange for your name, email address, and date of birth. You get a free birthday meal and they get a valuable lead.
3. Display Errors Transparently
People are going to make errors when they fill out your form. Maybe they skip a mandatory field, or perhaps make a typo. If you want them to fix these mistakes, be very clear about what’s wrong. Make sure your form field shows them exactly where the error was, and how to fix it. Ensure that the entire form isn’t erased after an error occurs, or people will become annoyed and bounce from your page.
4. Make It Easy
In other words, don’t be a stickler about formatting. If people want to include a period next to their middle initial, let them. Don’t require phone numbers to include dashes or parenthesis, or else watch frustrated prospects disappear.
If data must be in a specific format, be sure to hold your landing page visitors’ hands. Be clear about the exact information you’re looking for or use a drop-down menu. Even better, you can create a script that automatically translates the user’s information into the format you require.
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