How many fields should you have in your form?

A very common question we get asked all the time is how many fields should I have in my enquiry/competition entry/registration form. The short answer is that if you have less fields, the number of conversions will be higher. However, this needs to be balanced against getting the right information.

Eloqua analysed 1,500 forms over 3 months and came to this conclusion:

"…most of the forms seem to settle between 5 and 10 questions in exchange for an average 40% conversion rate…"

Think carefully though about the need for the field. Will you ever actually use that data, if it means that more users would submit the form if it wasn’t there? Too often we have seen examples of fields being required on a form with little or no plan of how to use that data later.

(via thedailylark.com)