It’s pretty common nowadays to land on a website and be greeted by a form of some kind. The question I ask is how often do you actually submit a website form? Website forms can play a crucial role in how well your website converts visitors. As a business owner, you will want to gain the most website submissions possible. In this article, I will be discussing 4 ways in which you can alter your website forms to gain even more submissions.
Let’s begin…
My first point regarding website forms is just how many fields do you have on your form? Just exactly how many questions are you asking a visitor to answer? Long forms with a lot of fields can be the number 1 reason why people feel ‘scared’ into not contacting your business. Often it’s the case that if a website visitor is greeted by a massive form on your website they will most likely leave your site and go somewhere else, or just browse your site and not actually contact you. You need to have a think about what questions and information you need from the visitor in order to move them onto the next step (whether it’s a quote request, requesting a call back etc.). Don’t think that you need to try and ask every question under the sun to a visitor to learn everything about them. Once you have their main details you can then contact them yourself and ask any extra questions you may have. This being said if you’re asking detailed/technical questions that you need to know the answers too this can improve the quality of the lead, as the person who completes it is a lot more likely to be interested in your business/service.
Following on from having too many questions within your form, you don’t want to clutter it with questions which aren’t actually relevant. You need to make sure you’re only asking questions which are actually important and you can use to make a quote/get back to them on. A great example of this is a request a quote form, you need to think what you actually need to know to be able to offer them a quote. Don’t start asking questions which don’t actually fit into a relevant category. The longer you make a form the less likely someone is to fill it out. Get key information from them and then once you have their contact details you can reach out to them and ask them more about their quote needed/request made.
Having certain fields on your website form mandatory is an essential step as it helps to actually gain real and relevant information. You wouldn’t want a quote request form not to have mandatory contact detail fields as how else would you get these? But the key thing to remember is that not every field needs to be mandatory. Having all your website form fields set to mandatory can often seem daunting to a visitor and they may get turned off from actually reaching out to your business. Only make the most important fields mandatory. Contact name and way of contacting them are the 2 most important fields that you need. So you know who you’re contacting and a way of contacting them (whether via phone, email or another way). From this, you can always contact them and ask for more information or any questions you may have.
Testing, testing, testing, this can go a very long way! Testing your form fields is a great method for gaining even more from your website forms. Never settle just for the form fields you currently have. It may be the case your current form fields are off-putting and turning potential customers off from contacting your business. Even a simple form may be rubbing people the wrong way. And it’s not just form fields that you can test. Testing your form field’s text can also go a long way. The more you test the more data you can get and then from here you can make a decision as to what you need to do next.
If you’ve been reading this article and can clearly see that your website forms do not follow the above rules you need to take action immediately! The longer your forms are off-putting the longer you will be missing out on new potential customers and clients for your business. If you’re still struggling with your websites conversion rate than you need to contact an expert. Here at the JDR Group, we can help review your website and suggest how you can improve your conversion rate. Get in touch today and speak to one of our specialists.