Internet Marketing - Matt Bailey [124]
The best practice is to associate the final price and the Checkout button. These two functions are “married” in a sense, because they should never be apart. The final price leads to the Checkout option, and because it is the next logical step in the process, it needs to be the most obvious contrasting element on the page.
Figure 11-24: There is no clear “next step” button; all the buttons are the same size and same importance.
To repeat an earlier point, just because you have ecommerce software does not mean that the software accounts for these “next step” actions or is built specifically to make the conversion process simple. The default settings and graphics are meant to get the action completed, rather than provide the best possible user experience. Customization is necessary to ensure that your cart software works for your store and your website.
eCost.com takes no chances in this regard (see Figure 11-25). The Checkout link is a large green graphic in a high-contrast presentation and is located to the right of and below the final price.
Figure 11-25: eCost.com’s bold checkout steps
There is no need to guess about the next step from this page, and yours should be as obvious. You have nothing to lose but more sales.
Check the Length of Forms
I love lead forms. I think lead forms are the easiest conversion to get and are completely overlooked, especially in the ease of programming it requires to get great data from very short forms.
In most cases, companies are only looking to get a name and an email address. If you are using a customer relationship management (CRM) system, then you can build from this basic level of information and grow it every time you build a relationship with that contact. The majority of problems with forms is based in a single issue. They are too long.
Value
The more information you require from a visitor to complete a form, the more value you need to offer. For access to a white paper, for example, an email address and maybe a company name are all that would be expected as part of that value transaction. However, how about requiring a user to set up an account, create a password, provide business information, and provide their first pet’s name? You’ve asked for too much information, and visitors will not see the value in providing that information, especially when they can simply go back to a search engine and find more information for less investment.
Your form needs to match the perceived value to the visitor. If you want to capture a lot of business data from a lead form, then your offering needs to be of equal or greater value and communicated well. Otherwise, visitors will abandon your form.
This was exemplified a few years ago when I joined a fantasy football league on CBS Sportline’s website. My league received an invitation to register and create our team from an email. Unfortunately, this email link brought us to a landing page that had 18 fields for registration. And all of them were required fields! Even more, no one wanted to take the time to create a password, and no one really saw a purpose in giving their address, zip code, phone number, and gender (see Figure 11-26a). Suffice it to say that only one of the 12 participants took the time to fill out the form.
A few days later, another link appeared in the email reminding the rest of the 11 participants to register. This link brought everyone to a different page (Figure 11-26b). This registration page required only the most basic information necessary to set up a team, and by the end of the afternoon, everyone in the league had signed up. A simple matter of value kept even the most hardcore fantasy football player from registering on the website,