E-mail list signup form questions.

Which methods work best?

[Perfection]

I'm going to be putting a signup form on my site for an email list I'm starting. I'm curious to know if there are any stats or general opinions on which methods work best. Like, for Adsense, there is a heatmap. It shows you the best places to put your ads for the maximum clickthru.

What I'm looking for are specifics about how to best get visitors to notice my subscriber form and then actually use it.

For example, will I get a higher signup rate if the button says "Sign Up" "Join" or "Subscribe."

Or... would I get better results putting the words "Email Address:" right above the text box, or would it be better if I had it say "E-mail Address" INSIDE the text box by default.

I'm basically looking a resource that has info like this. Also, opinions from your own personal experience are definitely welcome as well.

Thanks.

[physics]

I would think you could use the 'heat map' from AdSense for a general guideline of where to put the most important parts of the form. Then test different text for the buttons. I don't know a specific resource for email forms but you might want to look into resources on persuastion and conversion, maybe check out the book "Call to Action".

[Durham_e]

and have a flashing cursor in the first input field.
It's a proven winner.