Can you help me understand current best practices in getting users to sign up for/ open an account on a website?

Good start, but I can think of about a million things to make the website better, with user acquisition being the primary goal (I do this for a living, and needless to say, am super passionate about it, as I am about helping other entrepreneurs).

On the product side, your login flow and onboarding are just 2 of the touch points that can be improved. Also, there is an opportunity to vastly improve the user experience, in some cases with some small tweaks. I may also be able to help streamline your software development process and reduce your time to market. Just let me know or set up a call if this sounds interesting.

I went through your website and I can see so many improvements.

Firstly, I can't quite understand what your website does when I get on it. I would still be confused if you wouldn't have explained it yourself above. That is bad.

I'd suggest you start with making your website copy a lot better. A good copy goes a long way. Good copy can get your users/visitors to do what you want which is sign up for an account in this case.

After the copy comes the User Experience and User Interface. I see a lot of improvements small and big that can increase your conversion rate. Here's a hint, your Sign Up button is not so prevalent on the homepage. It could be improved. Using just plain Sign Up is not as effective as it could be when accompanied by a handful of the most important reasons for why they should Sign Up.

Your layout looks cluttered at the moment. It could use white space. Cleaning it up and setting it up more like a landing page then a listing page can be a lot more effective. You can effectively tell your visitors/users what to do in that way.

I have a lot more suggestions in mind that could make your website/process very effective. I'd be happy to discuss them in detail through a call.

I took a glance at the site. The site needs a total re-design. There are many things that you need to work on.
1. Design/ Look and feel
2. UI
3. Login
We can talk more and I can explain.