Sign ups are still thought to be of a standard design, a bit of basic content with a simple "sign up" button below. The common thought that if you remove the button that your website will suffer a decrease in people signing up for more information on that particular product or service.
A recent study on the matter came out with some interesting results. The report used an existing website and instead of having a few pictures and a bit of text alongside the sign up button they replaced it with a call to action to learn more about what this service/product offers. The sign up button would then be placed on this sub page once the website visitor had learnt more about the service/product.
Once they'd implemented this change they experienced an increase in sign ups of 350%. The conclusion the report came to is that people weren't ready to sign up at the old first stage, they wanted more information there and then and once they'd experienced what they could be getting they were much more likely to be 'ready' to sign up.
