4 basic rules for creating a killer signup.

If you are in the online business primarily for the revenue then you will need to place your focus on how to charge those customers. Bottom line, you need a signup page. However, depending on how its built it can send many different messages to users considering purchasing your product or services. Keep in mind that a signup page holds a direct influence on conversions (people giving you credit card details and hitting the submit button) so for this reason you might want to stick to the following when it comes to creating a flawless signup page:


1. Help the client, for god sakes!
Make it easy for the client, don’t go creating hurdles everywhere. I have seen many signups do this. Don't try to impress your users with a highly elaborated page, this isn’t the place to do so, it’s the place to collect.

Avoid redirections to other pages and cut down on steps. Position credit card fields closer to the top. Always use prefilled forms in the credit card expiration fields to avoid human error. Implement a hard coding message filter to avoid sending transactions with errors; this will only increase your decline rate. For example, if a user types 15 digits on credit card field and he is using a VISA, send him a message when he is typing, if your programming team can do this. If not, make sure to have filters placed before sending the transaction to the processor. Remember that a user would like to know as much info as he can when he is not able to make the purchase at your site. Also, try to have as many different options for the user to pay: Visa, Master Card, American Express are the standard but you might want to do some extra research depending on the country or area you are targeting, setup ACH (direct debit to their bank accounts), allow them to wire money, pay by cheque, payment by phone or if possible, payments via cell phone. This could help you convert those users looking for the latest technologic breakthroughs. But please, keep in mind that by setting up as many payment options as you can, you are setting a strong business image of your site.


2. Make it crystal clear.
I have seen many signups where it is not explained clearly to the user what he is actually purchasing. If it’s a product be as precise as you can with measures, titles, etc. If you are selling a membership you might want to include a link to the terms and conditions chapter explaining more in detail what does each membership package stands for. Always ensure that it opens in small tab so the eyes stay focused on the signup page. Make sure to tell the user who will be billing him. For this, make sure to test and confirm the actual billing descriptor of your site. You can do this by using your personal or a friend’s credit card. This will avoid making users angry or unnecessary calls to your customer service department because the user has no clue who is billing them.


3. Be Reliable and Trustworthy.
Of course, have an SSL certificate in your signup page. However, don’t use a cheap service for this. If you can afford it, become a verified merchant by VeriSign especially if you are selling lots of products. Have the name of your company and telephone numbers in place for any questions or create a FAQ page especially for the signup (again, always opening in small tab so their eyes stay in the signup). For more info on SSL's: http://www.verisign.com/ssl/

4. Analyze your data and monitor.
Once you have finally tested the signup page, integrated all the payment options and are finally ready to make it live you need to collect stats on the signup. Collect the date and email of every signup, analyze the declines results. Grouped them by country, sex, date, province, etc. By doing this, you can analyze buyer’s habits and trends for example; what are the best times to purchase? Why they aren’t purchasing in the morning? And finally, monitor the signup page. You can find out more about these services following on twitter @pingdom
Or visit http://www.pingdom.com

And finally, even though this is not included in the main points, it’s very important to avoid having menu options present in the signup. Make sure to focus the user’s attention on the purchase.

I hope you make the most out of this info…

Merchant accounts. A very simple concept.

Lets begin by stating that merchant accounts are the base of this whole internet deal. Yes, without them websites couldn’t charge users for the products sold and that would mean a complete different world. Ok, you might be one of those currently thinking: Ya, who pays for stuff on the internet now days? Well, there are many of us out there still doing it so, if you are currently exploring the idea of launching your own website and pretend to charge users for a service, product or a subscription, sooner or later you would have to get familiar with term "merchant account". To begin with, lets clarify that the term merchant account does not only relates to the Internet. There are basically three types of them, which are: MOTO or Mail Order/Telephone Order, Retail and Internet merchant accounts however, since the purpose of this blog is sharing knowledge of the many options out there to charge users online, we will use the term to refer to the last type.

A merchant account is simply a bank account for your online business that allows communication with a gateway, which is only a company that works as a “translator” between the websites payment page and the bank. What happens is that the gateway sends the encrypted information introduced by the user on the payment page to the bank, the bank responds to this request and sends an reply back to the gateway to either charge the credit card or reject the transaction. Bottom line, user gets charged (or declined) and the website gets such credit into his bank account. Now, keep in mind that all this communication occurs within fractions of seconds. Now, depending on your websites target audience (industry), volume or how the user will see the charge in his credit card statement (refer as Billing Descriptor) merchant accounts can be categorized as follows. Please keep in mind that I am only categorizing them to the provide an easier way to understand the terminology. For example, a brand new site (startup) within a low risk industry could begin with either a third party account or a first party account.

Industry:

1. Low Risk merchant accounts: Used for standard ecommerce websites where users purchase a product or service, unrelated to a highly fraud activity and usually selling to all audiences.
2. High Risk merchant accounts: Used for industries such as gambling & adult.

Volume:

1. High Volume: refers usually to processing above 25k-50k per month and with processing references.
2. Startups: Processing history has not yet been established.

Billing descriptor:

1. First party: Allows users to set their own billing descriptor reference in credit card statement of users, the company name and customer service number will appear on it. Example: CBSSRVCS+8005555555
2. Third party: With this kind of accounts the payment page is hosted outside of your website. This means user will be redirected to another link/page to enter their credit card details. This is the fastest and easier way to obtain an account to start doing business however, depending on what you are selling its not the most effective payment option. The most known worldwide its Paypal. But there are others such as 2checkout and alertpay.