When you run an online store or business, you need to create a comfortable, enjoyable experience for your customers. Part of moving them through the sales funnel is building brand credibility to gain their trust. You can use fully optimized forms to show them your business is the real deal so they’re quicker to purchase.
Did you know that more than 67 percent of site visitors will abandon your form forever if they encounter any complications? How accessible your forms affect how well they pull in visitors and convince them to take action. An unoptimized form that’s thrown together without the user in mind will easily fail to collect their information and turn them into customers.
If you want to improve your site’s contact forms, here are three simple tips to get started.
Reduce the Number of Fields
People are picky about how they spend their time interacting with a brand online. Your forms need to be simple and easy to fill out so you increase your conversion rate. If they ask for too much information, it’ll push customers away.
According to HubSpot, reducing the number of fields in your form from four to three increases conversions by 50 percent. A simple tweak to appease your online visitors makes all the difference in the user experience (UX) your site provides.
Get to the bottom of what information you need from visitors. You need to create different forms for different campaigns so you send the right message to the right audience. Regardless of what the form is for, make sure only to ask for the necessary details. The more you ask, the lower the chance you have of converting visitors.
Improve Security
People take their online security very seriously. After all, if they’re handing your business their banking and credit card information, they have reason to fear hackers and spammers. If your website forms show any indication that they lack security, it’ll turn away visitors for good. To build forms that convert, you need to take every step to reassure users their information is safe with you.
To make your forms more secure, you can enable a double opt-in feature that requires new subscribers to opt in twice before they join your email list. This prevents spam content and fake emails from joining and prevents your business from getting blacklisted.
Choose a reliable web host to store customer data and other information. If the servers storing your site’s information aren’t secure, you put it at a higher risk of getting hacked.
Enable reCAPTCHA, a security system that requires users to check a box before submitting their form. It uses a special code that bots can’t see so that only real users can proceed.
Optimize for Mobile
According to Pew Research, five billion people around the world own a mobile device. Smartphones make it easy to engage with brands and purchase products. Optimizing your contact forms for mobile is a must if you’re going to generate leads and build an email list.
Viewing your website and its forms on mobile makes for a different experience compared to a desktop. Everything is cropped onto a much smaller screen that users need to navigate with their hands. If any element on your site makes it difficult to browse your content, you’ll face a higher bounce rate and lose customers.
There are several ways to optimize your forms for mobile:
- Use a single-column layout. For both desktop and mobile users alike, it’s easier to navigate form fields that are on top of each other rather than side by side. They’re easier to read and complete.
- Make them easy to locate. Because they’re looking at everything on a small screen, mobile users need your forms to be easy to spot. Place them above the fold and link them in a navigation bar at the top of the webpage.
- Use auto-fill browsers. Auto-fill and autocorrect features make it easy for those using a smartphone to add their details based on what they’ve submitted before. That way, they don’t have to continue filling out the same information twice and can do so without mistakes.
Over to You
To collect your site visitors’ information and push them successfully through the conversion funnel, you need to build reliable, trustworthy forms. People don’t hand their information over to anyone. Improving the functionality and usability of your online forms ensures customers and gives them the push they need to subscribe and take action. How will you improve the online forms on your website?