Creating and launching your first online registration page can feel like writing your first book report; it might feel awkward, disjointed, and stale. Online forms are awesome, and luckily we make them super customizable, and fun to build. Unfortunately, in the midst of that, people get lost in the hairy details.We’ve found a handful of things we consider to be some rookie mistakes, and some pointers on how to solve them (hopefully) before they happen.

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Please take heed to our advice and avoid these 5 rookie mistakes.

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Making forms too long.

We see this ALL. THE. TIME. It isn’t to say we are frustrated, or anything of that nature, we just love to see people make the best forms known to man! It seems most are nervous about the ‘what if’s’, and in that spirit they create a novel, however it is important to get your customers in and out quickly. We have really nifty features like conversion rates, where it tells you how many purchases versus pageviews you are getting. We love to see great conversion rates, and one thing we notice is that people with longer, bloated forms tend to have lower conversion rates. The reason? People get lost in their forms, and don’t hit the almighty ‘submit’ button at the bottom because you are blasting them with all the details before they have even fully committed.

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Things to solve this? Keep it short! Remember, you can always put more info in your confirmation page AFTER they have decided to join your event. Better yet, have a FAQs section on your website for them to reference if they have questions later. Placing a contact e-mail to someone on your team is always a great thing to do as well.

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Unnecessarily using the ‘Multi Reg’ feature.

We have a super stellar feature called ‘Multi Reg’. Don’t know what it is? Click HERE to see more about it. In a nutshell ‘Multi Reg’ allows customers to add multiple people within one transaction. Pretty cool, eh? While we think this is an awesome feature, there are some events where people just don’t purchase registrations for others. An example might be a very expensive, or VIP event where others simply aren’t going to foot the bill for another. I’ve seen many times where we ask users if they expect anyone to use that feature and they say, ‘oh no, we prefer or need people to all purchase completely separately’.

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Is that you? If so, we love giving people options! Simply turn that feature off! What this will do is save your customers an additional click/step (when determining whether they go to billing, or adding another registrant) your demographic didn’t need to begin with. While MultiReg is the best way we have seen this type of feature implemented, remember to know your crowd. If no one will use it, don’t use it.

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Using distorted or copyrighted pictures.

Nothing makes us happier than good looking forms! One of the easiest ways you can do that is by creating or using high resolution pictures. People view your forms on screens of ALL different sizes now a days. For this reason we strongly encourage people to use quality graphics.

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For instance, we suggest people have their background pictures 2,000 pixels wide. Why so big? Because someone on a huge screen could be viewing your form, as well as tablets or phones. So take that into consideration when using graphics on your forms. It is also important to not use copyrighted pictures on your forms. No one likes stolen pictures, whether done intentionally or not. Here is the thing, if you found it on Google Images, chances are it is copyrighted. Try to avoid this in your attempt to keep everything in best practice.

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*Pro Tip: Instead of dealing with the quarrels listed above, simply use our high res and royalty free batch of pictures we give you access to! When adding pictures you’ll see an option to ‘use one of our photos’ if you use one you can ensure it will be copyright free, and high resolution.

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Focusing on the 1/10 and not the 9/10.

We get a lot of questions from clients here at Webconnex HQ. We are usually amazed at the scenarios people can think of. “What if a customer visits on January the 5th, at 11:05 PM and wants to pay with this method, in this way...we need to make sure that is dealt with”, things of that nature.

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While we appreciate the creativity of our users and that they want to meet the needs of everyone, we love to see people stop worrying about the 1/10 customer, and focus on the 9/10. Think about this, what if you spent hours, or days, trying to get everything fine tuned for that one weird scenario, and lose the attention of the 9/10 of customers, ultimately making it more difficult/confusing for the majority. It breaks our form design hearts when this happens. While our products are highly customizable, and people can usually tweak things as tightly as they want, use that power for good. Use the flexibility to make 9 sales...not 1.

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The more you focus on making a cohesive form for most people, the better experience and more sales you will get. Get a feel for your form, ask your colleagues and potential customers what they want out of a form. Whatever the majority says, go with that and focus your efforts there!

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Getting caught up on pennies, not the dollars.

We’ve seen people spend hours, literally, on finding where 2 pennies have gone. Let’s be honest, as any business owner, bookkeeping can be difficult. It is hard, tedious, and bookkeepers earn their keep! Unfortunately the downside to this can be that people get confused by their own accounting, that they spend so much time trying to pick up after themselves. What that usually leads to are people who want a gateway (the people who process payments) to speak their accounting language, and their language only.

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So where does that leave you? Well, flexible...that is where. Remember that things won’t always be perfect, and know that if you are focusing on where that penny or two went, it is somewhere, just maybe not where you are looking in that instance. Have some patience and grace, and all will make itself clear!So long as you set things up correctly BEFORE your event starts, things should be smooth sailing going forward. So cross your T’s and dot your I’s. Know your math, and know your numbers, but everything should flow smoothly with a good foundation.

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As a final thought; make your life easier. When you do things correctly the first time, your life becomes all the better for it. Like the old saying states, “Measure twice and cut once”. We have tried hard to make the most flexible and user friendly forms one could make and we have succeeded in that. So use our software to your advantage, don’t caught up in the weeds. Set yourself up for success, and instead of getting lost in the ditches, come have fun in the sunshine!