How to Post Sign-up Links on Your Web Marketing Site

Placing a sign-up link in every online presence possible is a great way to collect web marketing information with explicit permission. A sign-up link is a text box, button, or text that usually links to a sign-up form or a confirmation page that allows your subscriber to enter and submit additional information and preferences.

Some means of putting sign-up requests on a site include

• Text boxes: These allow your subscribers to enter information without clicking through to an additional sign-up form. Text boxes can ask for an e-mail address, or they can contain several fields making up an entire form.

• Buttons: These are graphical representations of links that take the subscriber to a form to complete and submit. Buttons can be images with text, flashing boxes, icons, or other creative graphics.

  A sign-up button should stand out, but don’t draw too much attention away from the content of your website for visitors who are already subscribers.

• Text links: These are short headlines of plain text linked to a sign-up form. Text links are ideal if you want to add an option to subscribe within the context of other information or if you want to put a line of text in your e-mail signature.

• Check boxes: These are usually employed on multiuse forms to save additional steps. For example, someone who is making an online purchase already has to fill in her name and address, so adding a sign-up check box to the shipping form is a great way to gain permission to use the information for shipping the item and sending future e-mails.

  If you use check boxes, leave the box deselected (cleared) as the default setting because you don’t want people who overlook the box to become disgruntled when they receive future e-mails and feel that they were added to your list without their permission.

• Social applications: Social media sites such as Facebook allow applications to be added. You can build your own e-mail address collection applications, or you can use handy plug-ins built by your EMP.

  

  Credit: Courtesy of Casa Alvarez Mexican Restaurant

Whether you employ forms, buttons, text links, or any other element, experiment with different placement ideas. You can place a sign-up link almost anywhere that HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is possible. Try adding a sign-up link to the following locations:

• On every page of your website.

• On social media sites.

• In your e-mail signature.

• On your blog or personal website.

• In banner ads and online advertising.

• On other websites (with permission).

• In e-mails that your noncompeting colleagues send to their customers (with permission).

• In online directories.