Google is launching some new features for Google Forms, which it says will enhance the user experience, particularly for students, educators, and professionals.
Users can now use templates from the Google Forms home screen. There are templates for custom feedback, event sign-ups, quizzes, etc.
You can also now get real-time email notifications when someone responds to your form.
“In addition to the summary of responses currently available in the Forms editor, you can now see individual survey responses as well,” a spokesperson for Google says. “This will save you valuable time when analyzing your Forms. You can also print or delete individual responses from this screen.”
“Now, if you are a Google Apps for Work or Education user, you can get a quick overview of who has responded to your form and who you are still waiting for responses from in the summary of responses,” the spokesperson adds. “Use the ‘Send reminder email’ feature to remind just those who haven’t already responded to your form.”
Finally, users can use add-ons and edit scripts in the new Forms editor.
Facebook is testing a new ad unit called Lead Ads, which enable users to fill out forms on mobile with a few taps of the finger.
A Facebook spokesperson tells WebProNews in an email, “Until now, filling out forms on mobile has been tedious. Lead ads allows people to avoid a lot of the pain points, like having to leave one app and start a form in another app, and having to enter all of their information from scratch. Just a few taps and people are done.”
As you can see from the image, it’s basically a three-step process for the user, and even the third step is simply completing the action.
The ads automatically populate contact information like email addresses that users have already given Facebook. Some of the ads let people sign up for things like newsletters, price estimates, follow-calls and business info. They use a native signup flow within Facebook.
As the company explains in a post on its business blog, “Like our other ad formats, we’ve built this ad type with privacy in mind. People can edit their contact information, and information isn’t sent to the business until a person clicks the ‘submit’ button. Advertisers may only use this information in accordance with their privacy policies, which we make available in the lead ad before people click submit. Advertisers are also restricted from re-selling lead information to third parties.”
The ads could go a long way in increasing conversions because Facebook’s right. Forms, particularly on mobile, can be a pretty big pain in the butt, and the less the user has to do, the more likely they are to go through with the action you’re seeking from them.
For now, the testing of the new format is only limited to a small group of businesses, but in various parts of the world. It’s unclear when the company might expand the test.
Google has been making a lot of moves to get mobile users a better user experience. As you may know, the company recently announced a pair of ranking signals for this purpose. One that’s already in effect will return in-app results for signed-in users who have those apps installed on their devices. The other one, which is coming next month, places emphasis on sites that are mobile-friendly in general.
Google is now stressing the importance of helping mobile users fill out online forms on your website, and while this may not be directly related to search, it can certainly help in the conversions department, which is probably the reason you’re wanting to rank highly in the first place.
Back in 2012, Google launched support for the “autocomplete” attribute in Chrome, aimed at making it easier for people to fill out forms on websites. Chrome now supports it for form fields according to the current WHATWG HTML Standard so webmasters and developers can label input element fields with things like “name,” “street address,” etc., without changing the user interface or backend.
According to the company, many webmasters have increased the rate of form completion on their sties by marking up their forms for auto-completion.
Here’s an example of the markup for an email address field.
“A lot of websites rely on forms for important goals completion, such as completing a transaction on a shopping site or registering on a news site,” Google says in a blog post. “For many users, online forms mean repeatedly typing common information like their names, emails, phone numbers or addresses, on different sites across the web. In addition to being tedious, this task is also error-prone, which can lead many users to abandon the flow entirely. In a world where users browse the internet using their mobile devices more than their laptops or desktops, having forms that are easy and quick to fill out is crucial!”
Google put out a video about the “autocompletetype” attribute a couple years ago. In that, Matt Cutts explained how the auto-completing of forms can help you get users to “whisk right through your form” and do what you want them to do.
“Making websites friendly and easy to browse for users on mobile devices is very important,” Google says in the blog post. “We hope to see many forms marked up with the ‘autocomplete’ attribute in the future.”
Here’s a look at Google’s recommended input name and autocomplete attribute values:
“This is important,” said Google’s Gary Illyes in a Google+ post. “Not because it will give you higher rankings, but because filling out forms on mobile is a nightmare without autocomplete.”
He also said he’s not hinting at this being in the search ranking algorithm for mobile.
For more on getting your site mobile-friendly, read this.
Google has launched a new version of its Forms Google Drive app. It now includes collaboration features, so you can edit forms with others in real time, not unlike features in Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.
“If you need to work with two colleagues on a survey, all three of you can work on the same form simultaneously and even have a group chat on the side, without leaving the form,” says Google software engineer Nick Santos.
Google has also made some editing changes for those working alone. Changes are auto-saved, and edits can be easily undone or redone.
“Improved copy-and-paste will let you copy a list of bullets from the web or multiple rows of text from a spreadsheet; then, when you paste into a form, each line will be appear as an individual answer. And you can use keyboard shortcuts to get things done more quickly,” says Santos.
The update is rolling out over the course of the next several days.
Facebook is launching a new registration tool for site owners, which utilizes a single line of code. "For users it means quicker ways to sign up for new sites with Facebook, while seeing what information they’re sharing, and which friends have already connected," a representative for Facebook tells WebProNews.
The company refers to it as an alternative to Facebook Login (which is the current name for Facebook Connect), when you want to provide an option for users without Facebook accounts, your site needs additional info that Facebook doesn’t provide, or a traditional HTML form suits your site more.
"For users who are logged into Facebook, the registration tool will pre-populate fields with information they’ve already entered on Facebook, saving them time and specifically showing what information the website is requesting," the rep explains. "Nothing will be shared with the website until the user decides to connect and click ‘Register’."
"Website owners can also customize the fields to ask for additional information, which the user can enter without sharing any information back to Facebook," she adds. "Once an account is created, the site will become customized for that person, filtering content based on the actions of their friends, such as comments, reviews and likes."
The tool actually has the potential to increase conversion rates (possibly e-commerce sales).
"By minimizing the friction associated with signing up for a new account and making it easy for people to bring their friends with them, we’ve seen that people are more likely to complete the sign up process, stay on sites longer, share more content and come back more often," says Facebook’s Paul Tarjan. "For example, in beta tests with FriendFeed, Facebook sign ups increased 300%."
This will no doubt be an attractive offering for a lot of site owners, considering how important the Facebook-hosted social graph is becoming to the web. If it can increase conversions and it only requires a single line of code, lots of sites will likely jump on board.
