Testing and Switching Out Opt-in Form Placement

As this 30-day list building challenge is drawing to a close (just two days left, my does time fly), I thought it was important to start talking about some things you are going to want to do going forward. If there is only one thing you keep doing regularly going forward, I hope it is testing and tracking.

Know Your Conversions

Improving your conversion rates is one of the best things you can do for your list building and your online business in general.

We’ve talked extensively about different things you can test on your opt-in forms and in your opt-in pages. I encourage you to keep working on that on a regular basis.

Keep trying to beat your previous conversion rate and get better at writing opt-in copy. Remember even small increases in conversion percentages can have a huge impact on your overall list growth over time.

Placement = Visibility

We haven’t mentioned much about testing opt-in form placement, until now. Most of us will start out by sticking a form at the top of our sidebar. Something easy to test here is if a right-hand side navigation bar (and thus opt-in form) or a left-hand one works and converts better.

If your theme allows you to change that easily, it may be worth testing.

Next, you want to look at other positions. We talked about pop-up forms in a previous form. They are definitely worth a try and are something good to have in addition to the on-page opt-in form.

Here you may want to test pop ups that pop up right away, vs. various different delays, vs. having an exit pop up and see what gets you the best overall results.

Last but not least, there’s a lot you can do in your actual blog article itself. In a previous article, I mentioned adding an opt-in form at the end of your articles here and there. It’s actually something you can try with every single blog article.

As discussed before, you have two options: place them into your theme or individually into your articles. Edit your theme to make the same opt-in form display at the end of each article. For increased conversions, edit each article, write a custom invitation to join your list, followed by an opt-in form.

While you’re at it, try adding the form in the middle of your blog article, or even towards the beginning. Different blog articles will work better with different opt-in placements.

The Rundown

As with anything else, the key is to try new things, test them and see if it works better than what you’ve been doing so far. This practice should not end with this challenge but become part of your branding strategic arsenal! You want to build positive Habits of Action rather than fall back into a continuous Pattern of Inactivity.