4 Quick Tips for Optimizing Your Lead Forms for Conversion

Learn key ways to boost your lead form conversions.

A lead form is a website form that visitors fill out to request more information about your services. Every website that sells anything should have one. Why? 

Lead forms give your website visitors an easy, no-pressure way to contact you, which is especially important since the bulk of your website visitors are likely not ready to buy. Lead forms also give you important information to use to move leads through your sales process effectively. 

Read on to learn how you can calculate your lead form conversion rate, what rate to shoot for, and tips to boost conversions.

How to Calculate Conversion Rate on Lead Forms

You can calculate your lead form conversion rate as follows: (# of conversions / # of views) X 100.

If 100 people viewed your lead form and 30 filled it out, for example, your conversion rate is 30%. 

What is considered a “good” conversion rate? The average landing page conversion rate across all industries is 2.35%, but the best-performing ones are bringing in 5.31% or higher. Over 10% is a great conversion rate to aim for, but anything between 6% to 9% is above average.

Certain factors, like where your form is located on the webpage and its purpose, can impact its conversion rate. Let’s explore some improvements you can make to boost your form’s conversion rate.

How To Optimize Your Lead Form for Conversion

Here are some lead form best practices that can increase your conversion rate. 

1. Keep the Number of Form Fields at or Around Four 

There's significant research showing that the fewer fields you use, the better. A study conducted by HubSpot found that three fields were the optimal amount for conversion. ImageScape found that dropping their form fields from 11 to four increased the form’s conversion rate by 120%. 

Four fields should give you enough room to ask for the user’s critical information, such as: 

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Phone number

Depending on what you sell, your industry, and the form’s purpose, you may need to ask for more information. As an insurance agent, for example, it may be helpful to ask the visitor what type of coverage they’re interested in. 

The bottom line: The fewer form fields you use, the more likely conversion is.

2. Place Your Form Above the Fold 

“Above the fold” means any content a visitor sees toward the top of a webpage before they scroll down. A recent eye-tracking study by Nielsen Norman Group found that users spend over half of their time on a webpage (57%) viewing the information above the fold. 

Remember, you want to make filling out a lead form as convenient as possible for your visitors—if they have to scroll or search for it, it’s less likely that they’ll fill it out. 

The bottom line: Put your lead form, along with any other important information, above the fold on your website.

3. Only Ask for Necessary Information, or Make Unnecessary Information Optional 

As stated above, three to four fields is the ideal number to aim for. However, in some situations, there may be additional information you want to know—if this is the case, make the extra fields optional. 

Making all of the fields required can scare off leads that don’t want or have the time to share a ton of information. In one case study done on Expedia, 37% of people were abandoning their form at the field named “phone.” Once they added the word “optional” to it, the conversion rate nearly doubled.

Stick to the essentials. You can always get additional information from a lead during your meeting with them.

The bottom line: Make nonessential fields optional to simplify your form and improve conversion rates.

4. Ensure Your Lead Form (and Entire Website) Is Responsive 

Over half of all web traffic worldwide is done on mobile. With that being said, responsiveness should be a priority across your entire website. 

For your prospects, there’s nothing worse than searching for something on mobile, being interested, and then not being able to take the next step. A bad user experience can create distrust and frustration, ultimately driving visitors away from your site. 

See the difference between a responsive lead form and a non-responsive one below:

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On the non-responsive version, you can see that the fields and some text are cut off and they don’t scale to the size of the screen. This requires users to scroll right and left to fully read the questions and engage with the form, making it much more inconvenient.

The bottom line: Make your entire website—especially your lead forms—responsive. Test them out on several devices and operating systems (Android, Apple, tablets, etc.) to ensure ease of use.

5. Use Clear, Compelling Copy

Visitors should be able to tell what the purpose of the form they’re filling out is, what happens after they fill it out, and where to put specific information. In addition to this, you want to use one concise, straightforward call to action to let the user know what they need to do to finish this step in the process. 

The bottom line: Use short, easy-to-understand language on your lead form.

How to Build a Lead Form in AgencyBloc

It’s vital for your website visitors to be able to quickly leave their information with you and move on with their day—a lead form is a perfect way for them to do that. While there are several tools available to help you build a lead form, the most convenient way to manage your lead forms is within your current CRM or agency management system (AMS). 

AgencyBloc has a lead form builder that helps you quickly and easily create a lead form to use on your website.

In addition to this simple lead form builder, AgencyBloc’s Workflow Automation feature makes it easy to immediately follow up with leads—once a lead fills out your form, they will appear on your dashboard as an activity/to-do with the details. 

As you can see, one of the biggest benefits of using AgencyBloc solutions is that our platform keeps all of your critical lead data and the actions you take on it in one place.

This blog was originally published on 7/7/2016 and updated on 6/25/2019, and again on 6/17/2022.

Posted by Kelsey Rosauer on Friday, June 17, 2022 in Automated Lead Routing & Assignment

1. data management
2. lead nurturing
3. selling