The people really do make the event, which is why it’s important that you drive as many attendees as possible to yours using a great online registration form.

But how do you write an online registration form that’s straightforward to fill out? And what can you do to ensure that it gets as much exposure as possible?

We’ll tackle both of these questions with these quick tips:

• Start with an online registration form template. The easiest way to start building your registration form is by using one of our online registration form templates. These templates cover different types of events, and once you find one that you like, you can use it as is or customize it however you’d like.
• Stick to the essential fields. What do you really need to know about a participant before they register for your event? Name? Email address? Dietary restrictions? Payment details? Include these essential fields in your online registration form and forget about the rest.

If there’s anything non-essential that you’d still like to know about participants (like demographic data or event speaker preferences, for instance), put together a pre-event survey that includes all your non-essential fields. You can email this survey to participants after they register for your event.

• Use preset options in your fields instead of text fields whenever possible. For example, instead of asking participants to type out their dietary restrictions, create a field with drop-down options, like “vegan,” “halal,” and “nut allergy.” This makes it easier for your form takers to respond and lets you organize and analyze your responses more effectively.
• Be upfront about the cost of attendance. If people are expecting to pay one price for your event, the online registration form isn’t a good place to tack on surprise fees like equipment rentals and taxes.

To keep your form completion rate high, be upfront about the cost of attending your event before people make it to your online registration form. You don’t want potential attendees to reconsider the value of your event and leave your form mid-way through.

• Keep your registration form short and to the point. Unless it’s something they have to complete for work or school, people tend to lose interest in long online forms relatively quickly.

Keep your form concise by including only the essential fields, by limiting your use of text, and by choosing a compact form layout that minimizes scrolling time.

• Make your form trustworthy. Some design elements, like logos and brand colors, build trust with potential participants. Include these elements but keep their use at a minimum to prevent your form from becoming difficult to complete. To learn more about designing your form, check out the theme designer.
• Make it easy for participants to share your registration form with friends and colleagues. The more the merrier, right? As many as 70% of event planners say that making an event go viral is critical to the event’s success. For an event to go viral, people need to be able to access information about the event (including the registration form) and to share that information with others.

There are a handful of ways to share your Wufoo form with the world. You can include a link to the form in an email or embed the form directly on your website. It’s also easy to integrate Wufoo with a variety of email marketing and customer relationship management platforms, which means you can easily share your online registration form using your favorite platforms.

Lastly, don’t forget about social media! Having people share your online registration form across social channels is a surefire way to get it in front of more potential attendees. To encourage social sharing, add social media sharing buttons to your registration form’s confirmation page.

With these tips in mind, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty in building your very own registration form. Get started today!