• The length of the form – is it too long?
• Is there help available for completing all of the form elements?
• Are validation messages clear and easy to understand?

Tracking a custom form is not a standard feature of most Analytics packages. This is how we would recommend doing it through Google Analytics.

1. Make sure your site has Google Analytics installed for all pages and it is tracking correctly.
2. Setup an over-arching goal within Google Analytics for the conversion page you want to track, the thank you page of a successful sale for example.
3. Specific events on your website can be tracked via ‘Event Tracking’ which is an advanced feature of Google Analytics.  Most forms within websites use JavaScript validation as a 1st port of call. We will integrate ‘Event Tracking’ within the existing JavaScript validation to track form events.

The ‘Event Tracking’ tag looks like this: _trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value). Let’s say for example that your form validates whether the 1st element of your form (first name for example) is required. If a user leaves this element empty and submits the form it will trigger the relevant piece of validation for this. The site may show an alert box which tells the user that this element has been left blank and is required.

Now let’s add an ‘Event Tracking’ tag within the piece of JavaScript code which has just been triggered, such as _trackEvent(My Website Form, Validation Error, First Name Blank). Now leave the 1st element of your form intentionally blank and submit the form. The same validation message will appear but this time the event will have been recorded within the Google Analytics profile for your website.

It gives us key information on how a website form is performing. What causes the most errors? How could I improve this? It allows us to actively make changes to a form and test whether it has improved the overall conversion rate. If monitored regularly & improvements are made it should lead to an optimally performing form!

Equally you could have 20 people visiting your site but if 10+ convert then obviously the page they are landing on is offering them the information/products the needed and therefore gave them the opportunity to complete one of your goals (Goals = Google Analytics). A good SEO strategy is often the balance between ranking well and having a perfect landing page. You cannot achieve both simply because customer usability differs from search engine best practice, the balance is the key to a successful strategy.

How can I achieve the right balance?

Here comes the interesting part……

Achieving the balance is a relatively easy thing to do, the only issue is that it is time consuming and inevitably a long process, with no easy way of testing any quicker. The simple ways are often the best, and this continues with A/B testing.

First of all……..What is A/B testing

A/B testing is essentially (I’ll save you looking on wikipedia) “a method of marketing testing by which a baseline control sample is compared to a variety of single-variable test samples in order to improve response rates. A classic direct mail tactic, this method has been recently adopted within the interactive space to test tactics such as banner ads, emails and landing pages.

Significant improvements can be seen through testing elements like copy text, layouts, images and colors. However, not all elements produce the same improvements, and by looking at the results from different tests, it is possible to identify those elements that consistently tend to produce the greatest improvements” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/B_testing

In Practice, A/B testing allows you to display 2 different web pages and monitor the results. Simply, you can optimize your pages within an inch of their lives, in order to find the best converting page. Google Analytics offers the perfect platform in which to execute this format of A/B testing.

Google Website Optimizer gives you an easy solution to find out the most effective page for your users.

With a couple of clicks and copying and pasting of code, you have a testing environment which gives you evidence about what your users like more, simple indications that people like one page more than another or simply people buy more on one page than another. This form of experiments can be done hundreds and thousands of times to denote the best way to set up your site.

Although I can’t tell you the best layout of your site, I can tell you the best way to find out.

If you aren’t doing A/B testing you are losing money! It’s that simple.