Hi all, Yesterday I asked forum users to comment on my new custom landing page (seen here) and one commented that I should never use CAPTCHA. Is there any research that backs this up? i.e. is it known to turn people off? Cheers, -------------------- Dave
I haven't seen any specific research for it, but my guess is it wouldn't hurt much. I don't use them untill I start getting spam. It also depends what its for. For example I wouldn't use a captcha on a newsletter sign up form coz you don't care if a spam bot signs up for it.
You want to make the lead and signup process as easy as possible. I recommend not using it at first If you get a lot of spam leads or auto botted leads then add the captcha...
well your trying to create a conversion so you don't want to make it any harder then it needs to be to get the user to convert. SOme people cant figure out CAPTCHAs for the life of them.
I've been testing landing pages both for a living as well as a hobby, and the shorter the form is - the more conversions you have. period.
I agree. People look for any reason not stop them from making an impulse purchase. The longer your form or the more hoops people have to dump through to get something, the more of a chance there is for a person to say this isn't worth it... I didn't really want it any way.
That simple, agree. There are alternatives to capcha that do not inconvenience the user, e.g. token session matching. Capcha will effect conversion depending on the distortion of the characters, eye sight of the visitor and education level.
I can only agree with the other posters here. Capcha is very NOT user friendly. Considering that a big % of people surfing the web are not super techie, it can easily confuse/annoy/anger normal users. Think of it this way, YOU need THEM to make money... THEY don't need YOU. So the easier you make it for THEM. The more money/conversions YOU will make.
You should never capture any personal details on the landing page of a Google AdWords campaign unless absolutely necessary for the offer.
I'd highly recommend to use captcha only when you're forum has many, many loyal users. At that point, they'd be happy to type in captcha codes.
Why would you possibly want to use a Captcha? The idea of a landing page is to make the 'transaction' (purchase, signup, opt-in) as smooth and hassle-free as possible. Any extra 'step' needed to complete the transaction will lower your conversion rates. Just remove it altogether. You don't care if a spam-bot completes the 'transaction', unless you are running a script that is eating up precious bandwidth like poor Eli's QUIT tool
Just my two cents, for the record: I agree with most of the rest of the posters here in that you should not use CAPTCHA on your landing page. Even if you are getting spammed, as long as the spam isn't being posted to a live site in public view, you can deal with that to keep your forms short. Take your typical newsletter sign-up, for instance: There are typically one to two fields (email address and name) and a submit button. I do not have the research on this, but I'm making what I feel is a safe assumption in that adding a CAPTCHA to that would decrease sign-ups to a noticeable degree.
Thanks for all of your comments people. I've got rid of the CAPTCHA completely, and will be keeping an eye on the progess of the PPC campaign accross the week....should be interesting! Cheers ---------------------- Dave branded usb drives
Sorry this is not about yout original captcha question, but i see that you have allmost no text on your page, and none of wich you have is descriptive of your product. Isnt this very bad for SEO and also very bad if youre using AdWords?
Yes it is and will effect quality score on both. Even though it is not about Captcha it is a valid observation, good eye!
I disagree. They will only type them because they'd feel it's worth it - it would still not be a pleasure. Why not just use Akismet?