In a previous post, we discussed the three keys to improved PPC campaigns: keywords, ad text and landing pages. Both paid and organic traffic have the opportunity to convert by filling out various forms on your website.

You may have discovered that your number of completed forms does not live up to your expectations. If this is the case, check in Google Analytics to see what the drop off is between your form pages and your thank you pages. If the drop off is significant (in my opinion, more that 50% of your traffic) your form may be intimidating to your visitors. There are several approaches to remedying the situation:

Landing Page and Form on the same page

Often, a visitor is brought to a landing page that is descriptive and useful, and a call to action (CTA) is placed as a call out to click on to be taken to a form page to fill out to receive more information. This can be an effective series of actions. But consider a landing page with the form on the same page. In practice, this truncating of clicks has increased conversions with our clients by as much as 240%

Minimizing Content on the landing page

Sometimes, a visitor arrives at a landing page, and is overwhelmed by large paragraphs, wordy Headings, and distracting graphics or charts. Our experience has shown that reducing the content density with a clear and concise heading, brief, bullet points that state clearly what the outcome of filling out the form will bring, and a short form on the same page, can increase conversion by as much as 127%.

Reducing Fields on Form Pages

There is often a disconnect between sales and marketing when the subject of cutting down form fields begins to be discussed. Marketing is tasked with driving new opportunities down the sales pipe to the sales team, while the sales team wants the leads to be as pre-qualified as possible before landing in their laps. However, by performing the research of looking at form page drop off mentioned above, bring up a good argument to the case of reducing form fields.

When considering the reduction of form fields, consider what information is essential to pursue the prospect (Name, email or phone number) and what information is useful to pre-qualify the lead (territory, number of employees, budget, etc). The sacrifice of some useful data may encourage qualified prospects who are otherwise put off by a longer form to take the time to fill out a smaller form.

Minimizing this friction by reducing the number for fields has increased conversions by as much as 166% (client reduce form fields from 20 to 4)

Other companies have tried similar adjustments with similar results. Learn at the Marketing Experiments Blog how testing 9 field, 7 field and 5 field form affected conversion rates.

Have you improved your conversion rate on your forms? Share your success!