when it comes to paysite design, a good join page is very important. no matter how good your tour is, a join page with issues can keep your signups to a minimum.
first off, technical issues. a join page that uses java or the latest flash can lose 10% of your signups as some people keep their java off or don’t have the latest flash - a lot of people are one version of flash behind. also 10% on average of your surfers are in 800x600, so if you have your join buttons in the farthest right 200 pixels, those surfers won’t even know that the buttons are there and can’t join.
next comes looks. a beautifully made tour with a crappy join page can be pretty jarring. guys who are on the fence may think twice as will guys who found the look of the tour one of the things that made them consider joining. also those who are naturally suspicious may not trust a site with a non-professional looking join page.
and of course, if your join page doesn’t seem to go with your tour, you’ll lose some potential members. examples i’ve actually seen of things on the join page that don’t go with the tour include: girls/str8 sex on the join page of gay tours, 18 year old girls on mature sites, site titles on the join page that aren’t the same as the title on the tour, fairly smooth guys on hairy sites, pornstars on amateur sites. remember, your join page is the closer - a guy looking for bears may wonder if your site delivers if there’s a non bear on the join page.
the bottom line is if you combine any two of the issues above - or any other issues - on your join page, these things alone can cut your signups by 20% or more. and isn’t that worth taking the time to make sure your site has a strong join page so you can maximize those signups?