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Building your list, Keep your form simple

by craig crawford
16 replies
(For newbies creating an optin form for their site.. or wanting more info!)

I see so many people trying to make things too fancy or go into way too much detail!

You need to keep your form simple as possible, and clearly present the incentive for opting in.

You only need their email address. You want your potential subscribers to opt into your list as easily as possible. (Unless you really want to personalize emails. then add the name field too)

When presenting your offer/incentive.. Make it stand out and be as appealing as possible! nice smart graphics help!

making your own can often make them look ameture and portray newbieness! (which isn't usually aimed for - unless people are following your journey out of interest etc.)

Try not to put too much information on there too! It will make the web form look ugly and stretched! People want to find out what you have to offer! rather then skim through a abundance of text!

Although, I have removed a webform from my sidebar now, and I have created a graphic with my incentive and a "click here" button. Which sends them to a squeeze page! The squeeze page then tells them what they are signing up for! And seems to work as they have already took action clicking the original button.

It seems to work quite well

Hope this helps,

Craig C
#building #form #list #simple
  • Profile picture of the author Devin X
    Banned
    Very true, my man. Although it's quite the trick to make the form as simple as possible, and yet having it convey extreme value.
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  • Profile picture of the author TwitterKing
    Couldn't agree more. Make your opt in form EASY and simple! The biggest mistake I've seen people make is actually adding a CAPTCHA to their form.
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  • Profile picture of the author bmokranus
    this is true, and i had this expererience, simple and clean forms converts well.
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  • Profile picture of the author BackLinkingNinja
    Fully agree! Also a nice quality 3D graphic will help, see http://www.howtomakeanebookcover.com , also a simple arrow and strong headline. Here's a good source of free graphics Easy Graphic Generator
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  • Profile picture of the author paul nicholls
    by making your squeeze page really really simple you are in effect making it really blind meaning people don't really kn ow what you are actually giving away

    This then means your subscribers are not always going to be as targeted so your front end conversions will be a lot lower

    It's all bad it just means you will sometimes get more subscribers but less targeted, but being able to get more subscribers will sometimes make up for the lower conversions that you get because you are making your squeeze page more blind

    I get a steady 35 - 55% opt in conversion on my squeeze page. I generally like to use a video on my squeeze page so that people can see me or hear my voice. This instantly builds a bit more credibility and trust rather than just using a standard text squeeze page.

    Bottom line is just do what works for you and your products

    Paul
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Paul, I think the OP was talking about the opt-in form itself, as opposed to the content surrounding it.

      If all you want is the biggest possible list, all you need (in addition to motivating copy/content) is a text box for the email and a submit button.

      If you want to filter out marginal prospects, make them jump through more hoops.

      You can also inject some personality into the form with your labels. I came across one the other day that cracked me up. The name field was labelled "what do your friends call you (at least to your face)" and the email field was labelled "best email". The submit button said "Let's do this!".

      I didn't, because the copy wasn't nearly as good as the form.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bill Hugall
    I like the getting their names and using them in my emails. People feel far more connected to someone who is talk to them and not selling to them. My goal however is to educate my prospect base not just sell them stuff. I agree that some people complicate things though and make their pages way to hard to figure out what is going on.
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  • Profile picture of the author NewRiseDigital
    Totally! The opt in form should be as simple as possible to fill in, remove any mental barriers and doubt when you build your landing pages by just collecting the email address. You can always get additional information by offering a secondary offer in one of your autoresponders further down the line. Good landing pages have brief targeted copy with a lean signup form. Make sure the form is ALWAYS above the fold too.....
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  • Profile picture of the author Sarevok
    This dude is speaking money.

    (Again, I've seen some very fancy copywriters pull it off otherwise, but 99.99% of the time I'd wager very short and compact headline will outperform anything else).

    EDIT: I remember seeing someone with a VERY LONG form (I'm talking like 20 questions, believe it or not they seemed to be doing well); sometimes it can be good to be totally different. Make a list of your competition, and then do the TOTAL OPPOSITE. "They have a short form, I'll have a ridiculously long form". Not saying it's good in most situations, but the lead might be potentially better. (And you'll know everything about them if you have them fill out a small novel lol).
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    In one of my niches I have split tested numerous opt in pages and the one that came out best every time was a long form sales copy like page but with an opt in box at the bottom instead of a buy button. The simplest one is not ALWAYS the best.
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  • Profile picture of the author srpudlo
    I totally agree with your post! Too often, the opt-in form is so confusing people just click "back" because either too much info is wanted that they don't care to share or else it's just flat-out confusing...keep it simple.
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