Ways to Improve Your Website’s Online Forms

Your website can be considered one of the most important parts of your online marketing platform. It’s a powerful tool that lets you advertise your branding and key information.

It can also be used to collect useful information from users that engage with your website. The best way to collect this information is through your website’s online forms.

Online forms not only make your website interactive but they also allow you to collect valuable data, generate leads, and simplify dynamic information processing.

Forms increase efficiency and offer other benefits like:

• reducing incoming calls and emails
• providing accurate and consistent information
• aiding in the organization of collected information
• unifying data in a combined, easy-to-access location
• streamlining your overall processes

Let’s take a look at simple techniques to improve your web forms and get better results. These tips will help you get more out of your website and help you boost conversions.

Your online forms should be prominent

Whether your users already know their way around a website or is simply perusing, your form should always be accessible. Access points to the conversion forms on your site should always be prominent and if possible, always available on every page a user visits.

Have clear calls to action that point to your form

To give your visitors proper directions, you need to have calls to action that stand out. You can use unique fonts or bold colours to attract attention. These necessary site elements shouldn’t be overlooked and must be clearly visible to the user.

Lessen click-through

Reduce the steps needed to get to your form or your visitor might lose interest. Ensure that when they click your call to action, they reach the form straight away without being led elsewhere on your site first.

Design your online form with style

Appearance is vital, even for your forms. The form’s design plays a great role for both usability and conversion. Your form should be neat, simple, and designed to fit the look and feel of your website. It should be visually attractive and encouraging for users. Try using clear fonts on a contrasting background or consider placing your labels inside the form fields to conserve space and keep it clean.

Display Inline Error Messages

Error handling is particularly important on forms. Appropriate error messages will make it easy for users to complete the form correctly and also ensure the quality of data.

Try placing the error messages on alert boxes on the confirmation page after the form has been submitted or beside their respective fields.

Simplify your form

Fewer form fields lead to a higher conversion rate rate so try to simplify your forms as much as possible. Forms that have fewer fields and steps are a lot easier to use and often produce better conversions. Try to minimise the number of fields in your form. If a field is not needed, remove it.

It should be mobile-friendly

All forms on your site should be responsive and need to be tested on various mobile devices to ensure they are providing the best mobile experience.

Forms are an essential component of professional websites. Once you have them in place, it’s also crucial to evaluate how well they are performing. You can use Google Analytics to measure the form’s activity from the start to end of every site user’s visit to understand possible obstacles that you need to overcome. Additionally, using a plugin such as Gravity Forms will allow you to export all the submissions as a CSV file for you to further analyse the data offline. An online form can be a simple but very effective way to build your customer database, generate leads and, ultimately, increase sales.