I have been doing a bit of reading into Copywriting of late and I was hoping to streamline some of my site's pages to covert better. I run a forum that gets around 2000 uniques a day and on my index page I use the word "Register" a lot but I have read that this isn't ideal, because many people have negative connotations with it. So I was wondering how could I invite people to "Register" without using the word "Register"?
I think you're going about it the wrong way. Yes, changing a single word can help some, but you're missing the point. You need to first focus on giving them a reason to register. When I see something I want, the wording doesn't matter as much. Use register, join, create, setup, or whatever else you want. If you fail to build up desire, you've lost the battle. And if it's a free forum, the lack of registrants should tell you that you've failed to create desire. Rather than spending time looking for alternative words, I'd research and figure out what is turning people off. Could it be pointless posts? Too much negativity? Lack of a reason to participate? The problem might be that your forum isn't engaging. And all the word changes in the world won't overcome that.
I'd have to agree (once again) with Junction. Creating your pages so that they build up interest is critical. I don't think the problem is having "register" or whatnot on the page. It should be a no brainer for people to register if you have spawned the interest in them that you are obviously trying to. Restructure your content so that there is no possible other option besides registering. Good "wanted" content = more registrations
You register to get government papers. You JOIN a community. So join us won't you...we're all family here *smirk* Failing that, try both words in a thesaurus.
Oh no! Don't let it become a habit. You might never return from the abyss. Another way to warm it up is to welcome non-members to create their virtual identity so they can participate.
What are the benefits of registering or joining? Make a list. Then change 'Register here' to something like 'get your <benefit>' or '<benefit> here' and that sort of thing so it is clear that by registering or joining the visitor gains something more than another membership. Phil
My forums already get's a considerable amount of registrations every day. If you are comparing traffic to registration rates of my forums to other forums in the industry mine probably has the best conversion rate from visitors to members in the industry - and retention isn't too bad either, I'm just wondering if wording could give me another 10 or 20% improvement, you know what I mean. I definitely understand the principle of a quality product essentially markets itself and negates the need for a great sales pitch, but there is no harm in having a great product with a great sales pitch... . I'll have to try this one. This isn't a bad idea either - though I sort of already have something similar to this, though I'm sure I could apply more of it and make these features more prominent.
Agreed with Southwark, give a list of the benefits users will get on joining you and then use some attractive phrase, i.e. 'Be a Part of the Community', 'Let's get in' etc