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5 Ways to Increase Form Conversion Rate

By Forminit in Guides • Published June 14, 2020

The five most effective ways to increase form conversion rate are: reducing the number of fields, writing action-oriented CTA button text, designing mobile-first, clearly marking required fields, and replacing visible CAPTCHAs with invisible alternatives like reCAPTCHA v3. Research shows that limiting fields to three can guarantee a minimum 25% conversion rate.

TL;DR: Increase your form conversion rate by reducing the number of fields, writing action-oriented CTA button text, designing mobile-first, clearly marking required fields, and replacing visible CAPTCHAs with invisible alternatives like reCAPTCHA v3.

Forms are part of almost every online transaction - event registration, job applications, lead generation, newsletter signups, and support requests. The difference between a high-converting form and one that users abandon often comes down to small design and UX decisions. Here are five proven techniques to optimize your form conversion rate.

What Are the Best Ways to Increase Form Conversion Rate?

Contact form conversion rate optimization relies on the minor details that you can apply. If you want to effectively reach the maximum conversion rate, then you need to focus on the right techniques. Here are 5 tips that you can get started:

1. How Many Fields Should Your Form Have?

Fewer form fields equal greater conversion for many cases.

Your contact form should be simple.

If you take away one thing from this article, that would be eliminating unnecessary form fields that can significantly increase the conversion rate of your contact form.

According to this research by Quicksprout, limiting the number of fields to just three can guarantee a minimum conversion rate of 25 percent. But in some cases such as collecting sales leads, fewer form fields can also lead to low-quality leads and decrease the perceived value from your form.

For example, if you’re giving away a free checklist, you might only want to collect basic fields like first name, last name, and email. But if you’re giving away something more important like an ebook, you may want to ask for more detailed information with more form fields.

For this reason, we suggest you select the right number of fields according to your specific use case. You can also check our Codepen page to see ready-to-use simple form templates.

2. What CTA Button Text and Color Works Best?

According to studies, the word “submit” is not descriptive enough. Your submit button is more than just a button. It’s an opportunity to convince your visitors that they should fill out those last few fields. Leaving “submit” as the submit button text on your form is a missed opportunity.

Here are some examples for your form calls-to-action:

  • Download this ebook
  • Subscribe Now
  • Show me this presentation
  • Claim this offer
  • Save your seat

By improving the copy of your CTA, you can radically increase your form conversion rates.

Another important aspect is the color you select for your CTA button. The key is to choose a color that fits your current design, but you also want to have a button color that screams “click me.” According to several case studies, red is the highest performing color. But green and orange are other great alternatives to go with.

3. Why Is Mobile-First Design Critical for Forms?

If you’ve ever filled out a form on a phone, you know how painful each additional field can be. Thinking mobile-first is crucial (e.g Google’s mobile-first indexing approach) and forms should definitely be part of your mobile-first strategy.

There are several important design aspects that you should consider such as whether you put field labels above or to the left of your form elements and what you set as your default options for certain fields.

Coming up with a visually appealing and UX-friendly mobile form is unbeatable and they are easier to use and faster than their alternatives.

4. How Should You Mark Required Fields?

Research from the Baymard Institute says it’s useful to clearly delineate which fields are optional while also noting which fields are required.

Denote your required fields with asterisk(*)

Required fields are typically denoted with an asterisk (*). Optional fields will not have an asterisk. So make sure that on your forms, you denote which fields are required and which are optional.

Checkout HTML5 form validation rules explained here to add more validations to your HTML contact form.

Here’s an example:

<form action="https://forminit.com/f/{your-endpoint}" method="POST">
    <label for="name">Full Name*</label>
    <input type="text" id="name" name="name" required />
    
    <label for="email">Email Address*</label>
    <input type="email" id="email" name="email" required />
    
    <label for="phone">Phone Number</label>
    <input type="tel" id="phone" name="phone" />
    
    <button type="submit">Submit</button>
</form>

5. Should You Remove CAPTCHA from Your Forms?

Let’s face it! Nobody likes to use Captcha even though they are doing a good job of filtering the spam submitters. According to Moz’s study, having Captcha on your forms decrease conversion rates by 3%.

This isn’t to say you should forget about security. It’s a very important component of building trust. Forminit provides machine learning spam prevention and also offers invisible reCAPTCHA to improve your form conversion rates. Checkout Forminit documentation to set up a Google reCAPTCHA v3, aka invisible reCAPTCHA to improve your form conversion rate.

Don’t let robots spam your form :)

BONUS: Consider Starting A/B Testing Your Contact Forms

As mentioned above, there are many things that you can use to increase your form conversion rates. If you still feel like your conversion rates aren’t reaching up to your expectations, you might start testing your forms to see what causes a negative impact. In that case you might want to dig a little deeper and start A/B Testing your forms.

Here are some factors that you can check:

  • The placement of your form on a landing page
  • The placement and color of your form CTA
  • Colors of surrounding images or the page branding
  • Words in your headlines and your surrounding copy
  • Form alignment, the number of form fields and form length
  • Form labels and text placement
  • Form type (full screen, pop-up, etc.)

Summary: How to Maximize Form Conversion Rate

The key areas that impact form conversion rate are: number of form fields (fewer is better for most use cases), CTA button copy and color (action-oriented text outperforms “Submit”), mobile-first design (most form submissions happen on phones), required field indicators (asterisks reduce confusion), and invisible spam protection (visible CAPTCHAs reduce conversions by 3%).

The common thread is friction. Every unnecessary field, confusing label, or extra click reduces your conversion rate. Audit your forms for friction, test changes with A/B testing, and use tools like Forminit that provide invisible spam protection (reCAPTCHA v3, hCaptcha) so you don’t have to choose between security and conversions.