August 11, 2011 at 18:57Registering on a site can reduce traffic to your site by 80%
Or not even lower it, and you simply will never know that you could have several times more site users.
We inherited registration from the past. This is a natural organ of the site, developed in the historical context of the development of the Internet and sites in general. But today it’s just a rudiment that doesn’t annoy people, but pushes your site in ratings and lowers the amount of numbers on the counters.
In the world of modern technology, almost any information can be found on the Internet. And what is usually disappointment mixed with slight annoyance when you are separated from the treasured file by only one process - registration. Most often, it is registration that causes a lot of negative emotions and annoyance: you will have to fill in the fields once again, refresh the page and wait for a response from the server, and eventually get a disappointing message - such a user already exists, e-mail is incorrectly typed, invalid characters, too short password and fill in all the fields again, then wait for the activation letter ... A familiar situation? Do you think if there are alternatives to your site or service on the Internet, the user will go through this, or will he just return to the search result in Google and try another site? How do you do it yourself?
Another situation when you are looking for an answer to a question. And along the way you find different discussion threads on the forms. It's one thing to just read and find the answer there, and another to write thanks for the answer. Or give an answer. It often happens that looking for something you come across unsolved problems, the answer to which you know, and it will not be difficult for you to write one sentence and solve the problem for a person on the forum, but you do not do this because you do not want to register just to leave a message in a place you might never return to.
Sometimes I just wonder why the owners of the forums do not open public access (which means without registration) to add messages to the topic. Isn't that why they created this site? To someone stumbled upon it by chance on the Internet involved in a dialogue. So that someone who leaves a question receives an answer or a review? What do you select 100 registered people in the database or 1000 forum users?
Perhaps, when creating a registration, site owners are motivated by good intentions - to find out more information about their users, to have a guarantor when carrying out a transaction, or simply to get enough data for analysis, however, registration often gives users only negative emotions. And what to do in such a situation, so that the wolves are full and the sheep are whole?
Oddly enough this sounds, but the most important and most useful advice that you can give is to get rid of registration. Let people do everything - leave comments, create posts, add files - without registering. It will be ideal if you provide the opportunity even to carry out payments without registering, because many sites have already come to this and are working successfully, for example TemplateMonster.com .
Let registration for your users will be a special advantage to exchange personal messages or have your own avatar, signature.
Use the Engagement technique. First, a person visits the site. Leaves a message or posts something, then begins to receive notifications that his post has been commented out, or rated, but anything to return it to the site. He returns, visits again, comments, votes (everything is not registered) and receives even more notifications that his comment is rated and his rating was important ... And in the end he will want to personalize and register.
But if you still can not do without registration, then make it quick and completely simple, so that the user spends a minimum of his time on this process. Below are a few unified tips to optimize the registration process and thus take care of your users. The main essence of all the tips comes down to the fact that you have to give your users a choice, and not force them to register without fail:
1. The first and most important thing is the possibility of authorization through social profiles Facebook , Vkontakte , Mail.RU , Twitterother. This is probably the most important tip. If it is, then all the other points can not be read. Honestly, I would not do registration on my site at all. Only the possibility of social authorization. And it’s great that this trend has already begun to appear and there are already sites or services that have completely refused to register and successfully use only social authorization. For example, AngelDesk feedback system .
I’ll even probably predict that after 5 years, approximately 20% of sites will not have their own registration system. After all, in front of us is waiting for another global holder of user accounts like Google+.
2. On the registration page, be sure to indicate what advantages the user will have if he signs up. This will be an additional incentive.
3. Minimize the number of required fields. You can make a form with dozens of questions, but make 2-5 questions mandatory. Most users do not like it when they are obliged to do something and even more so, to provide additional information. However, of their own free will, without feeling pressure from the outside, they can fill in all the fields.
4. Required fields must have a simple input. If you created such fields, then these should be radio buttons, checkboxes or drop-down lists. It is not a good idea to force the user to enter text in the required field.
5. Refuse confirmation by mail. Such confirmations only cause irritation, and registration takes longer than the user expected - because he will also have to check the mail, follow the link, and in some cases, enter an additional code. Another noticeable minus of such registration is that letters can be qualified as spam by the mail server and not be received.
But, in some cases, confirmation is necessary. In this case, you can use the confirmation via e-mail with a delay. Those. allow the user to enter the site immediately after registration, but if within 2-3 days does not confirm the email only then suspend access.
6. Use solutions that allow you to instantly check the correctness of filling fields ( AJAX technology) For example: the uniqueness of the login, e-mail, or the correctness of entering any data, etc. This will allow you to not refresh the page several times and significantly speed up the registration process.
7. Immediately after the registration is completed, automatically log in the newly registered users and redirect to a page that promotes further work and familiarization with the site (for example: rules, a site map or payment methods) or to a page with a welcome text or to the page that he wanted to go to, but was sent to register.
8. Refuse to automatically check for password complexity. At first glance, it seems that this is a very useful feature that makes the user think about security. But most often it happens that the user has 2-3 passwords that he uses during registration. And the ultimatum requirement to change one of them to a more complex one leads not only to the possible loss of a new password and the loss of time during its recovery, but also to the outflow of potential customers from the site.
9. Allow the user to upload an avatar and other personal information, the presence of which is more important for the user than for you. This can be a great incentive to register and get the opportunity to express themselves among other users of the site.
Perhaps all these recommendations will seem too “ideal” and impossible to you, however, the modern rhythm of life and the permanent acceleration of processes make it clear that time is the most important value. That is why it is worth thinking about reducing time costs in absolutely all processes, even in such seemingly “frivolous” as registration. After all, where you find yourself tomorrow depends on today's decisions.
We inherited registration from the past. This is a natural organ of the site, developed in the historical context of the development of the Internet and sites in general. But today it’s just a rudiment that doesn’t annoy people, but pushes your site in ratings and lowers the amount of numbers on the counters.
Are you sure you understand the essence of the problem?
In the world of modern technology, almost any information can be found on the Internet. And what is usually disappointment mixed with slight annoyance when you are separated from the treasured file by only one process - registration. Most often, it is registration that causes a lot of negative emotions and annoyance: you will have to fill in the fields once again, refresh the page and wait for a response from the server, and eventually get a disappointing message - such a user already exists, e-mail is incorrectly typed, invalid characters, too short password and fill in all the fields again, then wait for the activation letter ... A familiar situation? Do you think if there are alternatives to your site or service on the Internet, the user will go through this, or will he just return to the search result in Google and try another site? How do you do it yourself?
Another situation when you are looking for an answer to a question. And along the way you find different discussion threads on the forms. It's one thing to just read and find the answer there, and another to write thanks for the answer. Or give an answer. It often happens that looking for something you come across unsolved problems, the answer to which you know, and it will not be difficult for you to write one sentence and solve the problem for a person on the forum, but you do not do this because you do not want to register just to leave a message in a place you might never return to.
Sometimes I just wonder why the owners of the forums do not open public access (which means without registration) to add messages to the topic. Isn't that why they created this site? To someone stumbled upon it by chance on the Internet involved in a dialogue. So that someone who leaves a question receives an answer or a review? What do you select 100 registered people in the database or 1000 forum users?
Perhaps, when creating a registration, site owners are motivated by good intentions - to find out more information about their users, to have a guarantor when carrying out a transaction, or simply to get enough data for analysis, however, registration often gives users only negative emotions. And what to do in such a situation, so that the wolves are full and the sheep are whole?
Get rid of registration
Oddly enough this sounds, but the most important and most useful advice that you can give is to get rid of registration. Let people do everything - leave comments, create posts, add files - without registering. It will be ideal if you provide the opportunity even to carry out payments without registering, because many sites have already come to this and are working successfully, for example TemplateMonster.com .
Let registration for your users will be a special advantage to exchange personal messages or have your own avatar, signature.
Use the Engagement technique. First, a person visits the site. Leaves a message or posts something, then begins to receive notifications that his post has been commented out, or rated, but anything to return it to the site. He returns, visits again, comments, votes (everything is not registered) and receives even more notifications that his comment is rated and his rating was important ... And in the end he will want to personalize and register.
But even then make sure registration ...
But if you still can not do without registration, then make it quick and completely simple, so that the user spends a minimum of his time on this process. Below are a few unified tips to optimize the registration process and thus take care of your users. The main essence of all the tips comes down to the fact that you have to give your users a choice, and not force them to register without fail:
1. The first and most important thing is the possibility of authorization through social profiles Facebook , Vkontakte , Mail.RU , Twitterother. This is probably the most important tip. If it is, then all the other points can not be read. Honestly, I would not do registration on my site at all. Only the possibility of social authorization. And it’s great that this trend has already begun to appear and there are already sites or services that have completely refused to register and successfully use only social authorization. For example, AngelDesk feedback system .
I’ll even probably predict that after 5 years, approximately 20% of sites will not have their own registration system. After all, in front of us is waiting for another global holder of user accounts like Google+.
2. On the registration page, be sure to indicate what advantages the user will have if he signs up. This will be an additional incentive.
3. Minimize the number of required fields. You can make a form with dozens of questions, but make 2-5 questions mandatory. Most users do not like it when they are obliged to do something and even more so, to provide additional information. However, of their own free will, without feeling pressure from the outside, they can fill in all the fields.
4. Required fields must have a simple input. If you created such fields, then these should be radio buttons, checkboxes or drop-down lists. It is not a good idea to force the user to enter text in the required field.
5. Refuse confirmation by mail. Such confirmations only cause irritation, and registration takes longer than the user expected - because he will also have to check the mail, follow the link, and in some cases, enter an additional code. Another noticeable minus of such registration is that letters can be qualified as spam by the mail server and not be received.
But, in some cases, confirmation is necessary. In this case, you can use the confirmation via e-mail with a delay. Those. allow the user to enter the site immediately after registration, but if within 2-3 days does not confirm the email only then suspend access.
6. Use solutions that allow you to instantly check the correctness of filling fields ( AJAX technology) For example: the uniqueness of the login, e-mail, or the correctness of entering any data, etc. This will allow you to not refresh the page several times and significantly speed up the registration process.
7. Immediately after the registration is completed, automatically log in the newly registered users and redirect to a page that promotes further work and familiarization with the site (for example: rules, a site map or payment methods) or to a page with a welcome text or to the page that he wanted to go to, but was sent to register.
8. Refuse to automatically check for password complexity. At first glance, it seems that this is a very useful feature that makes the user think about security. But most often it happens that the user has 2-3 passwords that he uses during registration. And the ultimatum requirement to change one of them to a more complex one leads not only to the possible loss of a new password and the loss of time during its recovery, but also to the outflow of potential customers from the site.
9. Allow the user to upload an avatar and other personal information, the presence of which is more important for the user than for you. This can be a great incentive to register and get the opportunity to express themselves among other users of the site.
Perhaps all these recommendations will seem too “ideal” and impossible to you, however, the modern rhythm of life and the permanent acceleration of processes make it clear that time is the most important value. That is why it is worth thinking about reducing time costs in absolutely all processes, even in such seemingly “frivolous” as registration. After all, where you find yourself tomorrow depends on today's decisions.