The number of analytic metrics involved with your business website can be dizzying. You built a website to accomplish specific goals like achieving a high ranking on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) for the keywords that are most relevant. You also built it in order to walk customers through an effective sales funnel toward conversion and sales. There are quite a few intermediate steps to reach that goal, and one of them is getting website visitors to opt in to your mailing list, so you can send them newsletters and other marketing touches that will help move them toward conversion.

Customize Opt-In Forms For Better Results

Customizing your opt-in form can yield surprising results, if it's done well. There are some best practices you can employ for the best possible results.

• Visual Branding- Most importantly, when you customize your opt-in, you should look at it as a visual branding opportunity, and make sure that the overall effect is in keeping with your visual branding package (colors, fonts, logo variants, and other images approved for use) and brand message.

• Set Expectations - The opt-in form should give them an idea of the tone of the materials you'll be sending them in the future; it should give them a taste of your company's "personality." It should also let them know how often they will hear from you and what type of material you send out.

• Clean Design - An opt-in form is a fairly small piece of real estate, so you need to ensure that every pixel is used to good effect: Highlighting key points, leaving plenty of white space, including visual elements. The fewer fields you include on your form, the more likely it is that people will complete it.

• Skip The Generic CTA - One often-overlooked piece is the action button itself; typically, they say something like "Submit." Changing that button text grabs attention. Depending on the image you need to develop, you could go with anything from "Sign me up!" to "I'd Like More Information," "Get Free Updates," or a super-casual, "I'm In!"

The Importance Of A/B Testing

How do you know whether the changes to your opt-in form are effective? A/B testing offers different ways to evaluate and analyze the performance over different versions. The more data you have on the "control" version, the better your results will be when you run an A/B test. If you're creating an entirely new version, you'll get less specific results, but you can quantify the overall effectiveness, compared to the original. If you're adjusting an existing opt-in, make changes in the smallest increments possible, so it's easier to nail down what changes produced given results. The most effective A/B tests involve versions that are identical, except for a single change.

Get Verified Results With Custom Opt-In Forms and A/B Testing

By building on your visual branding to customize your opt-in form, you can increase your subscription rate significantly. The importance of A/B testing in evaluating and fine-tuning that increase simply cannot be overstated. Take the time to work this process to your best advantage!