Yeah, I like to actually picture a any online transaction from retail store perspective where you have people coming in. If you have a retail store and say "Everything Free Inside" on your door, sure you may get lots of foot traffic but almost no sales and lots of pissed off people.
Where are their website visitors coming from?
What is the messaging that got them there?
What are they trying to accomplish?
Does this product or service solve their problem?
Burying the sign-up button is an extremely simplistic hypothesis for a low conversion rate.