Getting people to your website is no easy feat, especially if you’re trying to convert users to members. You’ve probably spent time crafting marketing campaigns to help drive traffic and leads. But how do you make sure those leads stay and convert to full members of your site? 

Providing a great registration experience is key to increasing signups. If your process requires too many steps or makes the process confusing, you’ll lose out on registrations. 

We’ve gathered six tips to help improve your membership registration experience and increase signups: 

1. Be clear
2. Keep it minimal
3. Establish trust
4. Answer questions in advance
5. Go through the process yourself
6. Plan next steps

Let’s dive in. 

What does the membership registration experience include? 

The full registration experience is more than the signup screen. Registration begins at the sales pitch and ends with onboarding. At any point during that process, members can exit if they get cold feet. It’s important to make sure each of the following encourages a complete signup: 

• The pitch: a sales or landing page that gets their attention 
• Signing up: the page or section where members enter their personal information and sign up 
• The checkout experience: page or section where members complete the purchase 
• The welcome: a thank you or welcome page that acknowledges the new member
• The follow-up: a confirmation email with details about their new membership 

Tips for improving your membership registration experience 

1. Be clear

Make sure that in your pitch, members are fully aware of what they are signing up for. This means transparency around the pricing, the benefits of membership, and any other important information on your sales or landing page. 

For example, if there are tiers to your membership, let folks know up-front what those tiers are and what each tier contains. A “best value” indicator can direct folks who have trouble deciding. 

Being clear doesn’t mean that your sales copy needs to be boring or dry. You can still build excitement throughout the membership registration experience. Share screenshots from behind the member portal, sample premium content, or feature behind-the-scenes clips. Just make sure that what you share truly represents the experience members will have. 

2. Keep it minimal

Once the member is in the signup phase, create a signup page that’s fast, uncluttered, and convenient. Don’t go overboard on design elements, as a busy design can be distracting when folks are simply trying to find fields where to enter information. 

In addition, don’t fill the form with too much information. Make sure your signup form is collecting the essential information needed to begin a membership. A long form will deter folks. Consider a stream-lined “fast” signup form that can capture new members with simply an email and name.  

3. Establish trust

You want a customer to feel confident that they’re getting a secure, trustworthy experience. Make sure your registration process happens on your own website. If you send members somewhere else to register, this could cause distrust or confusion. 

Make it obvious that popular payment methods like PayPal and Stripe are accepted. Also add the payment logos for any other gateways you accept so members can easily see and understand the ways to pay. 

Another way to establish trust is to show other members talking about their experience. Consider adding one or a few testimonials to your landing page to instill confidence. Hearing from another member may be the push one needs to finish their registration. 

4. Answer questions in advance

If a potential member has a question and they don’t know where to get the answer, they might click away from your site altogether. Make sure you have an FAQ that’s easily visible and offers answers in a friendly and helpful tone. You could even consider a chatbot so folks can feel their concerns are addressed immediately. 

You can also populate this section by preemptively answering common questions folks tend to have about memberships. Address issues like payment types, refunds and cancellations, autopayments, membership tiers, and more.

5. Go through the process yourself

One of the best ways to improve your membership registration experience is to try it out yourself. Go through the process, from sales pitch to sign up to welcome email, as if you are a new member. Take it slow and read everything over: would this make sense to a complete newbie? Are you excited and compelled to sign up? 

If you feel too “close” to it, ask a trusted friend to go through the process with you or record themselves for you to watch. Not only will you understand how it feels to register for your site, but you’ll also be able to see where users are getting stuck, which can identify gaps or missing elements to fix. 

6. Plan next steps

The membership registration experience doesn’t end after a signup. Make sure that you have a thank you or welcome page after registration. Write in an excited and friendly tone, making the new member feel delighted in their decision. 

Plan a follow-up email so members know exactly what to expect with their membership going forward. Put yourself in a new member’s shoes—what information should they know? Keep it simple, and just include the important stuff. 

From there, you can create multiple emails for new members after signup to boost engagement. These emails can include explanations of benefits, helpful tips, recent blog posts, or anything that adds value for new members.

Improve your membership experience with MemberDash

It’s one thing to capture leads, but it’s another to convert. Your registration process sets the tone for how you want to be perceived by new members. With the above steps, interested folks should feel confident and excited about your membership. 

If you’re looking for a way to offer memberships on your WordPress site, MemberDash allows you to restrict any content you want with flexible memberships. 

Ready to give MemberDash a spin? Try out the demo and see what it’s like to have membership capabilities on your website!