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If I was to rename this article, it would be, "20 Kinds of Best Practices and Why They Won't Work".

It is bad news to rely on best practices that are unsupported by data or testing. This article gives you 20 reasons why.

There are a number of best practices when it comes to creating forms on your landing pages.

Fewer fields increases conversion rate. Avoid conversion killering fields like address unless you absolutely need them. Add qualifying questions only to increase the quality of leads. "Submit" is not a proper call to action. No best practice is best for everyone, though. This infograph does a great job of putting some numbers behind the development of the right form for your landing page.

 @conversion_team It's easy to cut prices.It's hard to build up the value of what you offer in words and images. If you can occupy the high-price category in your niche, life gets much easier.

So, I was pleased to find this article which makes a bold statement: "Avoid Best Practice Conversion Rate Optimization"

What?

While your competitors are testing button color, you can be comparing yourself to the competition, being open about your profits, and doing the math for your visitors.

Best practices only get you so far. Here are some alternatives for online success.

Best Practices For UnsubscribingPosted March 5th, 2008 by Bill McCloskey <!--{PS..0}--> John Engler of Unsubcentral had some great comments based on my article last week and the problems I was having unsubscribing from a newsletter. I'm providing them verbatim with his permission…. Read the rest of this entry » v

 @conversionIQ has a list of ecommerce sites that seem to be doing things right. These are sites that follow best practices, and thus we would assume they are enjoying high conversion rates and strong revenue per visit.

Of course, if we were to make a list of 50 ways your site could improve its conversion rate and RPV, we'd be right on about 25 of them. That's why we always back our recommendations up with a series of A/B or split tests.

Nonetheless, it's always good to look at those online athletes that are at the top of their game.

Would you like a free strategy session with a Conversion Scientist?

We've been studying business video in the lab using eye-tracking equipment. Cisco offers some very helpful tips on how to choose the right video for your business. 
You can request to be notified when our ground-breaking study is complete. 

We can detect pages with low scroll rates using click-tracking software like CrazyEgg. When we see a page with poor scroll performance, we have two options: Move key content higher on the pageAdd cues to increase scrollingHere are some ideas for how to increase scrolling.

WORD OF WARNING

Use of animations and parallax should be used with extreme caution. Test into these treatments as they may detract from your content, and introduce technical problems on certain devices and browsers.

My advice to my clients is to put as much (or more) effort into your images as you put into your copy on a web page. Here are some great tips on how to craft images that work with your copy to advance your value proposition.

For those of us with short attention spans, here is almost every best practice in conversion each described in two sentences or so.

I particularly appreciated the distinction of "Lift Versus Shift."

 @peeplaja - This is about as complete a summary of home page best practices that I've ever seen. Peep could have made this an eBook. There are some great examples, specific recommendations and tons of links to other resources. This ambitious post covers:Map out buyer personasCraft a value propositionBuild a connectionUse proper visualsDefine most wanted actionCreate call to actionWrite user oriented copyAdd trust elementsTest lengthCheck load speed

 @KISSmetrics offers a fantastic tour of landing page best practices. They offer 50 points with an example for each from businesses that have been successful on the Web. From seductive headlines, to creative copy to building trust to design, you will be inspired for your next landing page development task. 

@SeeWhy provided one of the most mind-changing ideas to come out of last week's Conversion Conference in New York:

Shopping Cart Abandonment Isn't Necessarily Bad

Some shoppers must abandon once or twice before they can buy.

But when it's time to close the deal, you don't want your shopping cart to choke. This infographic is a fantastic summary of the best practices to keep someone in the buying process, and getting them back if they need to abandon. 

This is a great overview of Landing Page best practices complete with examples. You'll find a lot in common with our Chemstry of the Landing Page presentation. Headlines and Ad Copy Clear and Concise Headlines Impeccable Grammar Trust indicators Call to Action Buttons Lose the Links Visuals (images) Above the Fold Always be testing

Three strategies that keep you from losing some of your hard-won visitors from our friends at KISSMetrics. Exit-intent Technology more Persistent Cookies (cookies tend to persist around my waste) Ad Remarketing

I always tell my audiences that exit-intent popovers will increase lead generation and often increase sales in an ecommerce setting. However, there is a negative brand impression from them. Nobody likes popovers, if you ask them.

Now we have some data on what people THINK about exit-intent popovers.

This is a great list of "don'ts" if you're considering email marketing.

Thank you and confirmation pages are an overlooked opportunity to keep conversion scenarios going.

 Roll over the images at the top of this page. We know video is rocking conversion. Here's an innovative way to integrate video into a category page from apparel etailer J.Crew. I don't know if this feature is actually increasing conversion rates for J.Crew. Have you tried something like this to good effect?