How to Create Online Forms that Boost Conversions: The Ultimate Guide

Online forms are like the digital magnets of your website, designed to capture essential information from visitors with ease. They're incredibly simple to implement on your site, adaptable enough to gather any type of information you deem necessary, and can be fully customized to mirror your brand's identity.

This customization ensures that your web forms don't disrupt your website's aesthetic but instead contribute to a seamless, professional look.

For visitors, filling out these forms is straightforward, facilitating a smooth pathway to subscribe, learn more, or purchase, thus enhancing their engagement with your company.

Today, we will talk about how to create an effective, responsive and interactive and user-friendly online form, where to find free online form templates, and how to pick the best online form builder.

We will provide detailed insights on how to improve your conversion rates, fine-tune your data collection tactics and boost the performance of your online forms.

So, if you're looking to make your online forms better and turn more visitors into customers, you're in the right place.

Why Online Forms Are Essential? +Examples

Online forms can handle a bunch of different jobs, from getting new leads to sealing deals directly. Here's why they're essential:

Act As a Lead Magnet

Online forms gather essential information from potential customers, thus help you in capturing new leads.

HubSpot uses detailed contact forms on its landing pages to capture information, offering valuable resources in return. This exchange not only generates leads but also builds a database of potential prospects interested in specific services or products.

Customer Engagement:

Engaging customers requires ongoing dialogue, and online forms provide just that.

Airbnb uses online review forms for feedback, turning customer experiences into actionable insights to improve their service and engage users by showing them that their opinions matter.

Direct Sales

Online forms facilitate direct sales by simplifying the purchase process.

For example, Amazon sets a high standard for simplifying the purchase process with its highly optimized checkout forms. These forms are a key component of Amazon's success, offering a frictionless buying experience that takes customers from browsing to purchasing in just a few clicks.

Customer Support

Efficient customer support relies on understanding customer issues quickly and thoroughly. Customer support forms play an important role in this regard.

Zendesk’s support forms help categorize and prioritize customer support requests, ensuring that users receive timely and relevant assistance, which in turn fosters customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Increase Email List or Subscribers

You can even use online forms to grow your email list.

Sephora leverages online forms effectively to enhance its digital marketing strategy. On their website and mobile app, Sephora invites customers to sign up for their Beauty Insider program through an engaging signup form. This form doesn’t just ask for an email address; it invites users to share their beauty preferences, birthday for a special gift, and other personal details.

This strategy allows Sephora to send highly personalized recommendations, exclusive offers, and birthday treats to their subscribers.

Types of Online Forms+ Templates

Here’s a look at some of the most common types of online forms and their significance, along with a mention of a free template to kickstart creating your own:

Newsletter Signup Form

Newsletter signup forms are crucial for businesses looking to build and nurture an email list. Companies can keep their audience informed about the latest news, offers, and content by inviting website visitors to subscribe to newsletters. These forms often ask for basic information like name and email address and might include preferences to customize the content for the user.

Here's a free template you can use to create your newsletter signup form, ensuring you capture all necessary details to grow your marketing reach.

Payment Form

Payment forms are the backbone of e-commerce and online transactions, allowing customers to purchase goods or services directly from a website. These forms need to be secure, user-friendly, and efficient, providing input fields for payment details, billing information, and shipping addresses.

Use this free template to design a payment form that can be easily integrated into your checkout process, offering a seamless experience for your customers.

Job Application Form

In the recruitment process, job application forms are invaluable. They collect detailed information from candidates, such as contact information, education, experience, and skills, in a standardized format. This simplification aids in the screening and selection process.

Here's a free template for a job application form that you can customize to suit the specific needs of your open positions.

Event Signup & Registration Form for Webinars and Workshops

Event signup and registration forms help manage attendee information for events like webinars and workshops. These forms can capture contact details, preferences, and even payment information for paid events. They are essential for planning and executing successful events.

Check out this free template for an event signup form that can be adapted to any type of event you're organizing, helping you manage registrations effortlessly.

Contact Form

Contact forms are essential for any website, providing a direct line for customers or visitors to reach out for support, inquiries, or feedback. These forms typically include fields for the user's name, email, subject, and message.

This free template for a contact form can be easily added to your website, so you never miss out on valuable communications from your audience.

Appointment Form

Appointment forms streamline the process of booking appointments for services ranging from hair salons to medical consultations. They allow clients to select preferred dates and times, providing businesses with organized schedules and minimizing the back-and-forth communication typically required to book appointments.

Check out this free appointment booking form template:

Demo Booking Form

Demo booking forms are a critical component of product marketing and sales strategies, especially for software and technology companies. They offer potential customers the opportunity to schedule a demonstration of the product, facilitating a direct engagement that can lead to increased interest and, ultimately, sales conversions.

Try this free template to create a form that captures essential information and preferences, making it easy for prospects to schedule a demo at their convenience.

Order Form

Order forms simplify the process of purchasing goods by collecting all necessary details from the buyer in a single step. This is particularly useful for businesses selling customized products, such as a T-shirt company that might use a T-shirt order form to request specific sizes, colors, and designs from customers, ensuring accuracy in orders and customer satisfaction.

This free template can be adapted to include product options such as size, color, and design, helping ensure accuracy in every order and enhancing customer satisfaction.

Lead Generation Form

Lead generation forms are designed to capture the information of potential leads, often in exchange for access to a resource, such as a white paper, or a subscription to a newsletter. These data capture forms are a key element in building a database of prospects who have expressed interest in a company's products or services, enabling targeted marketing efforts.

Try this free lead capture form template to design a form that's both engaging and effective at converting visitors into leads, laying the groundwork for targeted marketing campaigns.

Subscription Form

Subscription forms are used to sign up users for recurring services or memberships. They are vital for businesses looking to build a steady base of subscribers, providing a straightforward way for users to enter their information and choose their subscription preferences.

Here's a free template to kickstart your subscription process, offering an easy way for users to join your community or service.

Whether you're creating an intake form, a poll, a tax collection form, or any type of registration form, having the right tool is essential. With versatile online form builders, you can design and implement any type of form to suit your business needs, enhancing your ability to collect data, engage with customers, and streamline your operations. The key is choosing a platform that offers the flexibility and features you need to create forms that are not only functional but also user-friendly, ensuring your audience has a positive experience every time they interact with your business.

So now that we are talking about online form builders, let’s quickly review the best one I found:

What is the Best Online Form Builder?

involve.me is a free form builder that empowers businesses to create engaging interactive content such as forms, surveys, calculators and quizzes. This platform is designed to facilitate user engagement and interaction, driving higher response rates and valuable insights. involve.me offers an intuitive and user interface with a multitude of customization options, making it an effective tool for brands looking to enhance their digital engagement strategies.

You can create different types of forms with involve.me including simple forms, customer feedback form, registration form, basic contact form, payment secure forms, intake form, appointment form, job application form, multi-step forms, custom forms and much more.

Key Features

The platform offers a simple and intuitive drag-and-drop form builder, making content creation seamless and hassle-free.

Integration: You can integrate involve.me with a wide array of popular tools like Google Analytics, Mailchimp, and Slack, thus streamlining your workflow.

Advanced conditional logic functionality: This allows you to create forms that change based on users' responses. This leads to a personalized experience for each user, increasing engagement and completion rates.

Templates: A rich library of professionally designed customizable templates that you can use as a starting point for your forms.

Mobile-friendly forms: All forms are responsive and mobile-optimized and display correctly across various devices and screen sizes.

Data analytics: Gain in-depth insights into your form performance with metrics like completion rates, average completion time, and drop-off points.

Payment options: Integrates with popular payment gateways such as PayPal and Stripe. This makes it easy to handle one-time or recurring payments, subscriptions, and donations directly within your forms or landing pages.

User-friendly interface: A highly customizable interface. You can use custom fonts, colors, and images, or choose pre-designed templates.

Also offer AI features, like AI for generator to create quick forms, AI text generated element to provide unique responses to individual users, as well as AI analytics reports.

Some other prominent features include:

All Question Types: Utilize a diverse range of question formats including single choice, multiple choice, single image choice, multi-image choice, drop-down menu, rating, and slider to engage users and gather varied data.

File Uploads: Enable users to easily upload documents, photos, and other files directly through your forms, facilitating a comprehensive data collection process.

E-signature: Incorporate electronic signature fields for legal agreements, contracts, and any form requiring a verified user signature, enhancing form authenticity.

Opt-in Checkbox: Add opt-in checkboxes to comply with data protection regulations and gather explicit user consent, crucial for email marketing and other communications.

Google Map: Embed Google Maps into your forms for location-based questions or to allow users to pinpoint and share a specific location.

Social Links: Integrate social media links to encourage users to connect with your brand across platforms, boosting your social engagement.

Coupon Code: Implement fields for coupon or discount codes, perfect for promotional campaigns and e-commerce transactions.

Captcha: Employ Captcha verification to protect your forms from bots and ensure that submissions are genuine, maintaining form integrity and security.

Date & Time Picker: Let your visitors choose the date and time they want to schedule the meeting with you. 

Button: A customizable button that can take users to the previous page, next page, jump to a specific page, or link to an external URL or email. You can also use it as a CTA button or label it as required, for example, “Submit Button”.

Free Text Input: Use this content element to ask open-ended questions.

Media Gallery: Access a media gallery feature that allows you to search for and add free images to your forms, enhancing visual appeal and engagement.

How to Create an Online Form:

With involve.me templates, you can create a stunning online form within minutes! Let's dive into the step-by-step process of how to create an online form using involve.me templates:

Step 1: Sign Up and Choose a Template

To get started, sign up for a free account.

After logging in, you can browse through a wide range of pre-designed templates tailored to different industries and use cases. The involve.me template gallery provides a starting point, making the form building process quick and straightforward.

Step 2: Customize Your Form

After selecting a template, customize it using content elements on your right. With involve.me's drag-and-drop editor, you can edit text, add images and videos, and adjust the styling to match your brand. Create personalized questions with multiple options, dropdowns, or sliders.

For instance, when designing a newsletter sign-up form, including a contact form section along with opt-in checkbox features enriches your form's functionality. Similarly, for an appointment form, incorporating elements like a schedule appointment feature can significantly enhance user interaction. Select and integrate design elements based on the specific type of form you're crafting, ensuring it's perfectly equipped to meet your objectives.

Pro tip: involve.me seamlessly works with popular tools and platforms like MailChimp, Google Analytics, and Zapier, among others. Integrating your form with these services can simplify data collection, automate processes, and enhance your marketing strategies.

Step 3: Preview, Publish and Share

Before going live, test your form across different devices to ensure a seamless user experience. Once satisfied, publish the form on your website or share it directly with your audience.

Using AI to Create Forms

Alternatively, you can also create form using involve.me AI form generator.

Step 1: Insert Company’s URL

Simply navigate to the AI form generator and insert the company’s URL.

Step 2: Select Project Type

The next step is to decide whether you want to create a form, survey or quiz.

Step 3: Give a Prompt

Now provide a prompt describing your specific use case in detail.

This description guides the AI in generating a form that's perfectly suited to your unique requirements.

You need to clearly define the purpose of your form. Are you aiming to gather feedback, register users for an event, or simply collect basic contact information? This purpose will drive the nature of the prompt you provide.

For instance, if your goal is to create a registration form for a webinar, the prompt could be:

"Develop a form that captures essential attendee information, including name, email, and professional interests."

These prompts help the AI understand the type of questions and layout that would be most effective for your form.

Step 4: Preview and Publish

Before going live, it's essential to preview your form. Once you're satisfied with the form's functionality and appearance, it's time to publish it.

Embedding Forms on Different Platforms

Integrating forms into various digital platforms, such as websites, social media pages, and blogs, is essential for capturing leads, feedback, and inquiries from a wider audience. Here are some tips and instructions for effective form embedding:

On Websites: involve.me offer embed codes that can be easily inserted into your website, allowing the form to appear as a natural part of your site. For a smoother user experience, consider placing forms on landing pages, in sidebars, or as pop-ups that trigger based on user behavior.

Social Media: Many social media platforms allow for the integration of online forms directly within your profile or posts. For example, Facebook offers the option to add a call-to-action button that links directly to your form. This can be particularly effective for running targeted campaigns or collecting sign-ups for newsletters and events.

Blogs: Embedding forms within or at the end of blog posts can capture readers' interest at peak engagement moments. This approach is effective for newsletter sign-ups, downloading additional resources, or simply asking for feedback on the content.

How to Embed?

You can embed your online forms on WordPress website, Wix, Weebly, Shopify, WooCommerce and other similar platforms using embed code or URL provided by involve.me. Learn from this detailed guide to know more about embedding your forms.

When embedding forms, always ensure that they are mobile-responsive, as a significant portion of users will be accessing them from mobile devices. Test the form's functionality across different platforms and devices to ensure a seamless experience for all users.

Sharing Online Forms

Beyond embedding online forms on websites and digital platforms, involve.me offer innovative ways to share these forms to reach a wider audience and engage users across multiple touchpoints. Sharing forms via QR codes, email invitations, and social media shares are effective strategies to maximize visibility and participation. Here’s how each method can amplify your outreach:

QR Codes: QR codes offer a quick and seamless way to direct people to your online forms. When scanned with a smartphone, the QR code instantly navigates the user to the form, making it ideal for event registrations, feedback collection at points of service, and accessing forms in public spaces. This method bridges the gap between offline and online interactions, expanding your form’s accessibility.

Invite by Email Option: Use the “invite by email” feature to directly reach out to your target audience’s inbox with a personalized invitation to fill out your form. This approach is particularly useful for survey distributions, exclusive event registrations, or collecting detailed feedback from a select group.

Social Media Share: Social media platforms offer a vast arena for engaging with a diverse audience. Share your online forms on social media and tap into the potential of viral sharing and increased visibility. This method is perfect for reaching out to participants for public surveys, promotional contests, or sign-ups for webinars and workshops.

Data Analysis and Reporting of Online Forms

Once your online forms are active and collecting data, now is the time to analyze and report on the information gathered.

involve.me provides a comprehensive dashboard where you can view responses and trends. This data includes user inputs, interaction patterns, and completion rates, giving you a holistic view of how your form is performing.

You can also use involve.me AI generated analytics report to gather useful insights from your audience responses efficiently. This means you can understand your audience's preferences and behaviors without the need to manually sift through endless amounts of data.

Integration with Marketing Tools

Online forms serve as a bridge between your website visitors or customers and your marketing automation tools, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, email marketing platforms, and other software, streamlining and automating a significant part of your workflows. With involve.me, you can integrate your forms with a number of third-party tools.

For example, when you integrate online forms directly with a CRM, every form submission can automatically create a new contact or update an existing contact's details within your CRM database. This seamless transfer of data eliminates the need for manual data entry, reduces errors, and ensures that your sales team has immediate access to up-to-date information on leads and customers.

Email marketing tools also benefit from integration with online forms. When a visitor submits a newsletter signup form, their email address can be automatically added to your mailing list, triggering a welcome email series or other targeted campaigns without manual intervention. This automation helps maintain a constant flow of engagement with your audience, personalized based on the information they've provided through forms.

Furthermore, integrating online forms with analytics and marketing automation tools can facilitate more sophisticated marketing strategies. For example, depending on the specifics of a form submission, you can automate personalized follow-up emails offering products or services tailored to each user's interests, significantly enhancing the user experience and potentially boosting form conversion rates.

Tips to Optimize Form Performance

Optimizing the performance of your online forms is crucial for boosting form completion rates and ensuring that you gather the data you need without frustrating users. Here are some targeted tips to enhance your forms:

Be Clear and Concise: Questions should be straightforward and easy to understand. Write concise field labels. Avoid technical jargon or ambiguous terms that might confuse respondents. The clearer the question, the more likely users will complete it.

Use Logical Flow: Arrange questions in a logical order that naturally progresses from one topic to the next. This makes the form feel more like a conversation and less like an interrogation.

Do not Add Unnecessary Questions: Evaluate each field for its necessity. The fewer fields a user has to fill out, the more likely they are to complete the form. If a piece of information isn't critical, consider leaving it out.

Use Conditional Logic: Implementing conditional logic in your forms can help minimize visible fields to users. This means additional questions only appear based on previous answers, keeping the form shorter and more relevant for each user.

Make It Mobile-Friendly: With the increasing use of mobile devices to access the internet, ensuring your forms are mobile-responsive is non-negotiable. A form that is difficult to navigate on a smartphone will likely be abandoned.

Improve Field Design: Form design can significantly impact user experience. For example, ensuring that your form fields are large enough to easily tap on a mobile device and that the font size is readable can make the form filling process smoother and faster.

Provide Instant Feedback or Error Message: Implement instant validation for form fields (like indicating a valid email format). This helps users correct errors as they go, rather than facing a list of errors at the end of the form, which can be discouraging.

Optimize Load Times: Ensure your form loads quickly by optimizing images and being mindful of third-party integrations that may slow down your page. Slow load time leads to increased form abandonment rates.

Wrapping Up

I hope you've found this comprehensive guide on online forms enlightening—from crafting and sharing your forms to embedding them across platforms, analyzing incoming data, along with tips on boosting form performance.

Whether you are a part of an HR department, a marketing or sales team, now is the perfect opportunity to begin creating your online conversion forms with involve.me.

Start using this powerful online form builder to enhance your digital strategy and achieve your business goals.

FAQs

What other types of forms can I create with involve.me form builder?

With involve.me, you can craft various forms, including fillable forms, multi-page forms, W9 forms with signature, order forms, registration forms, intake forms, and many others to suit diverse needs.

What makes involve.me the best online form builder?

Its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, wide range of customization options, integration capabilities with powerful tools, and a rich selection of templates make involve.me a top choice for any form creation requirement.

Is involve.me free to use?

involve.me offers a free tier suitable for beginners, with paid plans available for those needing advanced features and integrations.

Can I use involve.me for surveys and quizzes?

Absolutely, involve.me is great for creating interactive surveys, quizzes, and polls, offering a dynamic way to engage with your audience.

Can AI form generator create Google Forms?

While involve.me offers powerful form-building options, it's designed to create forms within its own platform. You may not directly create Google Forms but can generate similar and more customized forms.