Opt-in forms are easy to overlook as a key part of your email marketing strategy. But if you think about it, the opt-in form is really your subscribers’ first experience with your email program.

A well designed opt-in form will go a long way to supporting your list growth plans. Here are 5 quick tips for improving your conversion rate:

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You wouldn’t drive your car for 50,000 miles without getting the oil changed and the tires checked. If you have let an entire year go by without getting under the hood of your email marketing program, you don’t know what’s working and what’s about to break down the next time you send.

Testing the mechanicals is just one of the items that need to be checked or tested in your email program. See how well your email program performs according to these essential diagnostics:

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I came across this neat little flash built color application this morning made by Adobe, which allows you to create color palettes and save and adjust them on the fly. I have seen tools like this before but the interesting thing about this one is the ability to save color palettes into a community and then rate them.

It takes a few minutes to get used to the interface, but there are some pretty handy features, like create a palette from a rule which includes Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, Shades and Custom. When you adjust your base color it changes the other colors in the rule to give you a full palette.

Check it out at kuler.adobe.com

The Web browsing Audience today mainly uses 2 browsers, FireFox (27%) and Internet Explorer (55%) where as depending on your email list the majority of your messages could be rendering in up to 10 different email clients. This is the biggest challenge and difference between Web Design and Email Design.

Email Design and Web Design do have one thing in common though - and that is to make the design as accessible as possible, here are 5 ways to avoid designing inaccessible email.

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You’ve probably heard of the Poynter Institute’s now infamous Eyetrack studies that reveal how visitors to your website scan pages, what they focus on and what they miss. These are the studies that first revealed the issue of banner blindness in 1999. The last Eyetrack Study (Eyetrack III) was released last year and contained over 300 pages of in depth information of value to Internet marketers. Every time I revisit it, I glean some new tidbit of very useful information.

This week’s revelation comes courtesy of SiteProNews – smaller font sizes encourage visitors to read more and scan less. Yup – reducing the font size on your website might get your readers to focus on the content of your page rather than scanning the headlines. And, on the topic of headlines – underlined headings can discourage visitors from (gulp!) reading the paragraphs that follow.

I’m looking forward to the next update – Eyetrack 2007 due out early next year.

Related Links:
1. Poynter Article: EyeTrack ‘07: New Study Probes Online and Print
2. SiteProNews Article: See Your Website Through Your Visitors Eyes