There are numerous places that you can put your opt-in box. But which one is the right one? That depends on your goal for the page it displays on.

If your primary goal is to grow your list, then your opt-in box has to be “above the fold”… that is a visitor to your website should not have to scroll down to see it.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, should it go to the right, left or center?
There will be those who tell you’re that putting it on the right or left converts better than the reverse. But, ultimately it depends on how you will be designing your page and what kind of other content will be there, too.

Often, when all you’re going to have is a headline and opt-in box, the box should go in the center. If the content is more robust — a blog, a sales letter for your opt-in bonus, a video — putting it to the left or right depends greatly on:

• How busy the site is
• What you want the visitor to see first

For video and audio squeeze pages, you usually want the person to watch the video or listen to the audio first, so the opt-in box goes on the right. But on a blog, I’ve heard that putting it on the left works better because then the box will be seen first.

But, sometimes list-building is of secondary importance. That is when placement of your opt-in box is dictated more by the content. For example, I’ve seen sales pages that place an opt-in box about half way down or even at the bottom of the page. In these cases, the box is placed strategically where visitors often leave the sales page because they aren’t interested in buying now.

As you can see, there is no “one-grand rule” for opt-in box placement. Like everything else in website design, it depends on your goals and the results you want to achieve with each page. Your best bet is to choose the location that is the most promising and then test it.

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Want to know what all five deadly mistakes are? Grab a copy of my new book, Home Sweet Home Page: How to Fix the 5 Deadly Mistakes Authors, Speakers and Coaches Make with Their Website’s Homepage.