Concerning community member conversion

Dennis, the iNET community coordinator, and I had an interesting conversation this morning regarding member conversion rates and our online communities. Conversion rate is a metric that we watch pretty closely here, being the percentage of unique non-members visitors to one of our online message board communities that become members in a one-month period.

Certainly, a lot of factors can affect conversion rate of an online community. We think there are a few key ones that are worth taking the biggest look into:

Quality of content. This one should be the easiest for a prospective member to figure out. If the content on the site is great and attractive, then people will hopefully want to come back for more. If folks find that their questions are being answered, and that the conversation in the community is deep and rich, they might be persuaded to sign up and find a home there.

Ease of registration. How hard is it to become a member? How easy is the signup form? How many mandatory questions are there? Is it a visually appealing process? Does the process seem safe and secure. I would argue that the typical vBulletin registration process we use is slightly unwieldly and in need of an UI update. That’s something we’re definitely going to address in our communities soon.

Attitude. This is the most subjective of all. What is the attitude of the community’s members and moderators? The prospective member may take a look at the spirit of the message board, and try to answer some tough questions. Does it seem like members are treated fairly? Do senior members make new members feel welcome and at home? Is the community pretty good at not feeding the trolls? Does the community stay on topic? Are the rules posted and clear? Do the moderators treat everyone with respect? If a member prospect answers any of these with a ‘no,’ they’ll likely second-guess signing up, or if they do–they might not stick around for long.