In a perfect world, having a form on your website would be as easy as posting the form and raking in the leads generated by the form. Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. It turns out that having a quality conversion form takes a lot of work. Constant refinement is necessary in order to get the most of the forms you place on your website.

Set it and Forget It? Forget It.

Many website owners operate by the philosophy of “set it and forget it”. That is, they create one form one time and immediately forget all about it. They’re happy to review the submissions that come in through the form, of course, but they never go back and tinker with the form once it gets posted.

The “set it and forget it” mindset is a mistake, especially in the world of inbound marketing. In reality, every aspect of that form is a potential area for lost leads. Until you get your hands dirty and play with the form, you never know what’s turning people off. Having said that, every part of the form is also grounds for potential, to get even more leads than your conversion form currently generates.

Form Length

According to QuickSprout, the most common reason why people don’t fill out conversion forms is that they’re just too long. If you’re not getting the leads you want, you might want to see if you’re asking for unnecessary information. Your form should contain no more than five fields, and ideally you should only have three. Get the good stuff -- name and email address are musts -- and leave the extraneous stuff for another time.

Landing Pages

Landing pages are great for giving specific groups of customers unique messages. They’re also great for testing different aspects of your marketing message. Include different forms on different landing pages and see which ones work best. You can then use the information you find to create a more standard look for your forms across your company’s site.

“Submit” Button

No matter what you put in your form, the one thing you can count on is a consistent “Submit” button… right? Not exactly. Believe it or not, that button plays a big factor in whether or not people give you their information. The design of the button is significant; a more visually appealing “Submit” button will lead to more conversions than a plain text button. You may also want to consider the text that appears in the button. Instead of simply saying “Submit”, calling attention to the offer that comes with the submission (i.e. “Download white paper”) may be a better approach.

More Forms

Just because you have a form somewhere on your site doesn’t mean it’s being seen by your visitors. The SEO Group states that nearly half of their conversion forms were submitted on pages that weren’t the company’s contact page. It’s important to have forms on every page of your site so that you don’t miss the chance to generate new leads.

Think Mobile

Mobile Web browsing has increased dramatically in recent years. In fact, according to Smart Insights, mobile browsing now accounts for more than a quarter of all Web traffic. It’s in your best interests to make your forms as mobile-friendly as possible. Not only does this mean minimizing the number of fields, but it also means making dropdown menus as easy to navigate as possible and clearly labeling each field.

The Bottom Line

It might seem silly to think that a simple conversion form could have such a big impact on your lead generation efforts. But it’s very possible that you’re missing out on big-time leads because of minor issues with the forms on your website. At the very least, it’s worth your time to look at your forms and see if there’s anything you could do differently. Make the forms as appealing to the viewer as possible, don’t ask for any unnecessary information, and make sure they’re just as easy to use on mobile devices as they are on desktops.