This presentation is from Affiliate Summit West 2017 (January 15-17, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada). Session description: In this session, I will review 9 ways you can increase your Form Conversions including using Google Maps APIs, Mobile Usability and Modal Windows. We’ll even get your Mom to help out!

1. 9 Ways to
Increase Your
Form Conversions
Rich Plakas January 15, 2017
Start Time: 1:00 pm End Time: 1:30 pm
Session: 3B Location: Champagne 3

2. Question:
What is a Good Form
Conversion Rate?

3. Answer:
Conversion Rates
Will Differ for
Different Websites,
Industries, Etc.

4. Don’t Compare Your
Conversion Rates to Other
Sites.
Instead, Spend Your Time
and Resources Improving
Your Own Conversion Rates.

5. An Easy Way to Measure Form
Conversions: Google Analytics
• Set Your Form to go to a “Thank You”
page after a user completes the Form.
• Set up a Google Analytics Goal with
Custom -> Destination -> “/thankyou”
• Optionally Set up a Value

8. 1. Limit Input Fields
“Less is More.”
The quicker someone can fill out your
form, the less likely they are to Abandon
it before finishing the form.

9. 1. Limit Input Fields
“I Love Filling Out Long Forms!”
-Said no one ever.

10. 1. Limit Input Fields
• Only ask for the information you really need.
• For example, if you DON’T need the person’s phone
number, then remove the phone number field completely.
• Alternatively, you can make the Phone Number field
optional (not required).
People are usually more weary about giving out their phone
number vs. giving out their email address.

11. 1. Limit Input Fields

12. 2. Autocomplete Fields
If you are asking for information such as a mailing address,
use the Google Maps API code for “Place Autocomplete
Address Form” (or similar code).
This code will start to autocomplete their address as they
type it in, saving time as well as preventing typing
mistakes.
Another option is to ask for Zip Code first, and then have
the form autocomplete the city and state.
Implementing either of these depends on the form software
you are using. Ask your web developer to help you do it.

13. 2. Autocomplete Fields

14. 3. Field Spacing & Location
Make sure your fields are spaced out far enough and
labeled clear enough to prevent “entry confusion”.
This was most commonly seen when the city field was
placed on top of the zip code field.
An easy fix is to add more spacing above the zip code field
or move it to the right of the state field.
Fields should flow logically & naturally.

15. Look through your previous submitted form entries for other
common mistakes that people might be making.
We have seen form entries where people were entering
their First and Last name in the First Name field.
This happened when the Last Name field was placed to the
right of First Name field.
The solution was just to place the Last Name field below
the First Name field for better visibility.
3. Field Spacing & Location

16. 3. Field Spacing & Location

17. 4. Add Checkboxes/Dropdowns
Add selection checkboxes and/or dropdowns for common
inquiries instead of only having a general note paragraph
field. (You still want to keep that paragraph field!)
Not only does this make it easier (and quicker) for
someone to fill out your form, it will also make it easier for
you to segment form entries after.
Again, we are trying to reduce the time and friction required
to fill out your form.

19. 5. Mobile Usability
It is 2017, Is Your Form Mobile Friendly?
Check your form’s mobile usability.
Have you tried to fill out your form on your
smartphone.
Was it easy?
Did you get hung up anywhere?
Are any fields bleeding off the screen or missing?

20. 5. Mobile Usability

21. 5. Mobile Usability

22. 6. Avoid Negative Copy
Avoid using negative wording such as:
“We Won’t Spam You”
and instead use a positive version such as
“We Respect Your Privacy”

23. 7. Change Your Call to Action
Change your Call to Action – CTA
On many forms the default Call to Action to complete the
form is:
“SUBMIT”
Or
“REGISTER”
The word ‘submit’ can have a negative connotation and it
doesn’t tell me what will happen when I hit that button.

24. 7. Change Your Call to Action
Better CTAs would be:
“Contact Me” “Send Me Free Tips”
“Send Me a Free Estimate”
“Send Me a Free EBook”
Make sure your CTA Button stands out, is obvious and
easy to press on mobile.

25. 7. Change Your Call to Action

26. 8. Testing & “The Mom Test”
Document and Test the changes you make to your Form.
Add a calendar entry such as “January 18, 2017: We changed
the CTA from ‘Submit’ to ‘Sign Me Up!’
Be aware of external factors when making changes and testing.
For example, we find the week leading up to April 15 to be very
slow for most sites (except Accountant websites!)
What do I do if I do not have enough Form Submissions to do
proper A/B testing?
Do “The Mom Test”

27. 8. Testing & “The Mom Test”
WTF is “The Mom Test” ?
Your page and form should be simple enough, that my non-
technical Mom can figure out how to fill it out.
When designing a form (or a web page for that matter) we
often suffer from being to intimate with the product or
company.
This leads to form (and page) design that assumes the
person visiting your website & filling out your form has the
same intimacy or knowledge (when in fact they do not).

28. 9. Modal Forms & Multi Step Forms
A Modal Form “Pops Up” when a user clicks on a button such as
“Sign Up”.
Some recent research suggests modal window forms convert
better because they activate a part of our brains that make us
want to complete something we started.
Be cautious though as Modal windows don’t work well on Mobile
Devices.
If you decided to use them, please test and have a solution that
also works on Mobile Devices.

30. 9. Modal Forms & Multi-Step Forms
As of January 10, 2017, sites that use Interstitial modals (or pop-ups)
on mobile pages may lose some Google Ranking Mojo!

31. 9. Modal Forms & Multi Step Forms

32. 9. Modal Forms & Multi Step Forms
Multi-Step forms show only part of the form at a time.
They can make a longer Form appear visually “less
overwhelming” compared to a single page Form that
actually has less fields.
Showing the ‘Percent Complete’ helps our brains want to
finish since we can see a visual representation of “The
End”.

33. 9. Modal Forms & Multi Step Forms

36. 9. Modal Forms & Multi Step Forms
You can replicate some of the Modal Effect by having a
button or link for the form that jumps down to the form
which is on the bottom of the page.

37. Clicking the Button or
the Link will Jump You
Down to the Form
Section on the Page.

38. Q & A
Rich Plakas
rich@connectedsystems.us
www.connectedsystems.us
@RichP on Twitter
Contact Info
Approximately 12 minutes of Q&A