DonorDigital recently released a report, Perfecting Your Page: Can donation page optimization boost online giving? Apparently the answer is yes.  Report highlights:::

• Bigger donate buttons help convert more donors
• Color of donation button can also increase conversion, but not all colors will work well
• Streamlining donation form by eliminating unneeded fields will increase conversions
• Politeness gets better results over a forceful call-to-action when reminding constituents why donating is important
• Using forceful language such as ‘Donate Now!’ doesn’t work better than simply saying ‘Submit.’

Thanks to Amnesty International, which detailed its findings in the report, which can be downloaded free from theDonorDigital site.  They used the firm Optimost to do multivariate testing, where multiple parts of a web page are tested on a live web site.  Although product was expensive, apparently the results in additional donations more than made up for the cost.