Businesses put in a lot of work to reach interested people, so it’s always great when a new contact lands in your inbox out of nowhere. A contact form lets you connect securely with the people who want to know more about you—and jumpstarts your relationships with customers.
Contact forms are straightforward (and pretty hard to mess up), but some are definitely better than others. Here’s how to optimize your contact forms and boost your form conversion rate.
Best practices for your Contact Form
When it comes to collecting new leads, two things matter: quantity and quality. So how can you increase the number of qualified responses you get from your contact forms? Here are some simple ways to build contact forms that encourage people to approach your business.
- Add context to the contact. Why do people contact your business? Add context to your Contact Us page (“Get in touch with a sales agent“ or “Reach out for support”) so people understand why they might want to fill out your form. You can also build multiple contact pages—for example, one for sales inquiries and one for support questions.
- But keep it brief. It’s good to add context to your Contact Us page, but make sure to cut out any fluff like extra form fields. Hubspot finds that cutting out a form field can improve your conversion rate by up to 50%. If you need to edit your fields, consider axing the phone number field. People tend to abandon forms that require their digits.
- Hide extra fields with conditional logic. It can be hard to keep your forms brief when you’re trying to qualify leads at the same time. Get all the information you need and keep your form short by adding hidden questions with conditional logic. These questions only pop up when it makes sense. So say you ask for a country and the respondent chooses “United States.” Another field could pop up asking the respondent to choose a state.
- Use the right type of form fields. Some people use default text fields for every contact form question, but this can mess with autofill. Use the right type of field (like first name, last name, email, address, and so on) so autofill works for your respondents.
- Embed your form. When you embed your contact form on your website, you’re putting it directly in the path of customers and potential customers. This makes it easier to find, which is always a plus for people who are trying to get in touch. It also displays your form in context, so customers can take action right away.
- Make sure your form is mobile friendly. Presentation is key. Contact forms with a responsive design look great on any platform: desktop computers, tablets, mobile phones, you name it. Form design can feel a little technical, but don’t worry—Wufoo has you covered here with responsive mobile web forms.
- Anticipate common questions. If people contact you to ask the same questions over and over, you might want to include links to help articles on your Contact Us page. This is especially true if customers use your contact form to troubleshoot common issues. By linking to a potential answer, you’re providing proactive customer service.
- Suggest other ways to connect. What’s the best way for people to reach you? Email, phone call, online chat, social media? If there are alternative ways to connect, list them. Some people who land on your Contact Us page might want to reach you another way. You could also include a CTA for those people who want to take more direct action.
- Tell people what to expect next. Don’t leave your leads in the dark! After someone submits a contact form, direct them to a confirmation page that outlines the action you plan to take. A simple message like “We’ll be in touch by email” or “Expect a call within the hour” will go a long way.
What to do after you’ve set up your contact form
You received a response from your contact form! That’s definitely cause for celebration, but what you do next matters even more. Set up a process that lets you respond to contact form requests quickly and helpfully, so you can provide top-notch customer service and turn new contacts into new customers.
- Respond quickly. The faster you respond to a contact, the easier it is to turn that contact into a customer. Luckily, you can set up Wufoo forms so you receive a text message as soon as you get a response. The ideal time to get back to a lead is less than 5 minutes. If you can’t make contact that fast, you can also automate a response.
- Route requests to the right person. One of the keys to responding to contacts quickly (and helpfully!) is making sure your responses land in the right inboxes. You can accomplish this with lead routing software, or you can simply create different contact forms for different inquiries—one for support, one for sales, one for partnerships, and so on.
- Get feedback. How are you doing? Without feedback, it’s always hard to tell. Find out what your contacts think of your response process by sending a follow-up survey. Ask respondents to rate your response time, as well as their interactions with your reps. You’ll get a better picture of customer experience and may even uncover gaps and opportunities for your team to tackle.
A great contact form gives you the chance to talk to people who are excited about your business, cement customer relationships, and provide the right support at the right time. By using a few best practices, you can build powerful contact forms—and equally excellent contact pages!—that encourage communication and qualify leads.
FAQs
How do I get people to fill out my contact form? ›
- Limit the Number of Fields. We're not talking just required fields; we're talking all fields in general. ...
- Indicate Required Fields. ...
- Optimize Your Design. ...
- Create Trust. ...
- Design for Mobile. ...
- Incentivize Your Visitors. ...
- Make a Promise. ...
- Be Unique.
A Contact Us page provides guidance for existing customers and offers an overview of your brand for new visitors. A strong Contact Us page should contain several elements, such as a phone number and links to social media channels. It should also be easy to navigate, as this makes for a positive customer experience.
How do I make my contact form 7 look nice? ›In the left-hand admin panel, click Contact Style and select the Add New option. The Contact Form 7 Style plugin page has a very detailed demo video on how to style a form. You can change the margins, background color, border color, button color, text box color, and much more.
How do you get visitors to want to fill out a form? ›- Offer incentives for visitors to fill out forms and submit them. ...
- You can show progress to your customers when filling out forms. ...
- Try using CapSumo – it's like a safety net when your visitors don't hit 'submit'.
- Place the form above the fold. ...
- Ensure you have a strong call-to-action. ...
- Include your privacy policy to remove all doubts. ...
- Minimize friction in and around the form. ...
- Include the right number of fields, remove unnecessary fields.
- Focus on the submit button.
- Use inline validation.
- Remove distraction, provide direction.
- Make your error messages helpful.
- Get passwords right.
- Avoid drop downs (for long lists)
- Utilise microcopy to nudge the user through the form.
- Accept multiple user inputs.
- Add the company's basics. Include your official company name, address, and phone number. ...
- Include testimonials. ...
- Insert CTAs. ...
- Provide images of your location. ...
- Update meta descriptions and titles. ...
- Layout of the contact page. ...
- Mobile Experience. ...
- Brand building.
- Well Designed and Functional. Your site reflects your company, your products, your services and ultimately your brand. ...
- Easy to Use. ...
- Optimized for Mobile. ...
- Fresh, Quality Content. ...
- Readily accessible contact and location. ...
- Clear calls to action. ...
- Optimized for Search and the Social Web.
Success pages, or thank you pages, are pages on your website that users are directed to after completing a form successfully.
How many fields should a contact form have? ›Limit the number of fields to no more than 5, and make sure you have the correct tab order. You should also consider building a form conversation that guides your users through the survey one question at a time.
How do I create a functional contact form? ›
- Choose an HTML editor.
- Create a new file with the. HTML extension.
- Create a new file with the. PHP extension.
- Generate the PHP code to capture form data.
- Create your HTML contact form.
- Add additional fields.
It's been said before, but there's no harm in repeating it again: every website should have a contact page. Most websites are set up to interact with the visitor, get them to buy products or provide information. But visitors could always have extra questions or interesting business opportunities for you.
Why are contact forms good? ›It's easier for the user.
Contact forms can often sync up with the visitor's browser autofill features, making it even easier and faster to fill out. It's simple, it's straightforward, and it's less clunky than shifting to an email, figuring out what to say in that email, sending it, and then coming back to your site.
A contact form is a short web-based form published on a website. Any visitor can fill out the form and submit it to send a message to the site owner. Behind the scenes, your contact form triggers an email message to be generated and sent to your email inbox.
What is the builder for contact form 7? ›Description. Builder for Contact Form 7 is a user-friendly form builder plugin which makes Contact Form 7 form easy to build just using drag & drop tool. The plugin doesn't affect the Contact Form 7 plugin work, it just helps to create forms in the backend.
How do I align text in contact form 7? ›To align the form to the left, right or center simply set the text align class to the main form CSS container class. For example: . wpcf7 { Text-align: center; } This will align both the labels and the text within the form.
What are the features of contact form 7? ›Contact Form 7 can manage multiple contact forms, plus you can customize the form and the mail contents flexibly with simple markup. The form supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and so on.
Do you say fill in the form or fill out the form? ›A: Generally, when referring to a document of some kind, it's wise to stick to one or the other. And if you're writing for American audiences, “fill out” is preferred – “fill in” for the rest of us.
How do you create a form that people can fill out online? ›...
Google Forms.
- On a computer, open a spreadsheet at sheets.google.com.
- Click Tools. Create a new form .
- A new sheet will appear in your spreadsheet, and your form will open.
- Reduce the number of fields. ...
- Remove all optional fields. ...
- Don't lose focus on the reason you are using a form. ...
- Remove the phone number field. ...
- Make the form look straightforward and easy.
How do I automatically fill out a form? ›
- Step 1: Install Katalon Recorder on your preferred browser (Chrome/Firefox/Edge) ...
- Step 2: Record the desired flow. ...
- Step 3: Prepare data for automating form filling. ...
- Step 4: Import the CSV file and Run.
Form conversion is an essential, early step to building your list of leads. A “good” conversion rate falls between 2% to 5%, according to CRO platform company Adoric. However, Hubspot research from 2020 found that only 22% of companies were satisfied with their conversion rates.
Where do I get more responses on Google Forms? ›- Open a form in Google Forms.
- At the top of the form, click Responses.
- Click More Download responses (.csv).
Form owners or collaborators can enable the edit after submit option in Google Forms to allow form respondents to edit the response they have submitted. When this option is enabled, an edit link will be included in the confirmation message shown after submit and the response receipt sent to their email.
What is the default method for form submissions? ›The HTMLFormElement. method property represents the HTTP method used to submit the <form> . Unless explicitly specified, the default method is 'get'.
How do you maximize constant contact? ›- Send at peak daytime hours.
- Segment your contacts.
- Personalize your subject line.
- Make the benefits obvious.
- A/B test your subject line.
- Reward your most active subscribers.
- Give contacts a second chance to open.
- Remove inactive contacts.
Contact Optimization works by taking a list of proposed contacts from one or more Campaign flowcharts, applying rules to the proposed list, and generating an optimized list of contacts. Campaign overview. Campaign is a web-based IBM EMM solution you use to design, run, and analyze direct marketing campaigns.
What is the meta data for a contact page? ›The most important function of your contact page's meta description is to show users that they have found the right page they were looking for. As a general rule, your contact page SEO meta description should be under 160 characters, contain your keyword, and inform users they've found what they're looking for.
What are the three golden rules of web page design? ›Usability, visual design and functionality are the three key elements that determine the success or failure of a website. It's not just about making the website look pretty - use design to effectively guide a user through a path and make an impression of your brand upon the customer.
What are 3 things every website should have? ›- Clear description of who you are.
- Contact page.
- Small chunks of information.
- Easy mobile navigation.
- Customer testimonials.
What six elements should a great website contain? ›
- 1 Navigation. The website design should be easy to navigate and the menu items should easily accessible from any page. ...
- 2 Visual Design. ...
- 3 Content. ...
- 4 Web Friendly. ...
- 5 Interaction. ...
- 6 Information Accessibility. ...
- 7 Intuitiveness. ...
- 8 Branding.
- Set your goals. ...
- Find a story to tell. ...
- Take an inventory of your content. ...
- Identify your target audience. ...
- Plan your website. ...
- Build your website. ...
- Research keywords. ...
- Plan and write content.
- Home Page. ...
- About Page. ...
- Blog Page. ...
- Contact Us Page. ...
- Provide information the user is looking for. ...
- Identify a goal for the user once they find the information. ...
- Home Page. ...
- About Page.
1. Homepage. A website's homepage is often the first impression a potential client gets of a business. Users will stay on this page for only a few seconds before deciding whether to investigate further or navigate to a more interesting or competing site.
What are different forms of contact? ›The most common options they provide are physical addresses, telephone numbers, social media links (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc), email addresses, online chat with an advisor, online chat with a robot, and a contact form.
What is contact form 7 conditional fields add on? ›If you edit your CF7 form, you will see an additional tag called “Conditional fields Group”. Everything you put between the start and end tag will be hidden by default. After you have added the field group(s), go to the “Conditional fields” tab to create one or more conditions that will make the group(s) appear.
How do I make contact form 7 fields required? ›Both text and text* are used for single-line input and accept any form of text. The difference between them is that text* connotes a required field. In Contact Form 7's convention, all types of tags with an asterisk '*' mean that these are required fields.
What is the difference between contact form 7 and Fluent Forms? ›...
Fluent Forms VS Contact Form 7 – Which one should you go for?
| Fields and Features | Fluent Forms | Contact Form 7 |
|---|---|---|
| Free Input Fields | ✅ | ✅ |
| Advanced Input Fields | ✅ | ❌ |
| Pre-built Templates | ✅ | ❌ |
| Manage User Submission | ✅ | ✅ |
- Help customers find the page.
- Humanize your customer service team.
- Adapt the page to the situation.
- Centralize your contact options.
- Use design to guide people to specific channels.
- Add structure to incoming questions.
- Set expectations for response times.
In Your Footer
This is where they expect to find social media links, links to important pages, maps, disclaimers, and – of course – contact information. Rather than making your users click to a new page to contact you, consider placing the form right in your footer.
Which plugin is best for contact form? ›
- WPForms. First up, WPForms is perhaps the most well-known WordPress contact form plugin and the all-around best option for many users. ...
- Gravity Forms. ...
- Formidable Forms. ...
- Ninja Forms. ...
- Form Maker. ...
- Divi Contact Forms Module. ...
- Contact Form 7. ...
- Jetpack Forms.
Go to File > New. In Search online templates, type Forms or the type of form you want and press ENTER. Choose a form template, and then select Create or Download.
What is simple contact form? ›Simple Basic Contact Form is a clean, secure, plug-n-play contact form for WordPress. Minimal yet flexible, SBCF delivers clean code, solid performance, and ease of use.
How do I create a contact 7 contact form? ›Log in to the WordPress Admin Dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New and then type “Contact Form 7” in the search box. Once find, install and activate the plugin by clicking on Install → Activate. To display a form, open Contact → Contact Forms at your WordPress dashboard. You can manage multiple forms from this location.
What are the steps to create a form? ›- Create a form.
- Add questions.
- Customize your design.
- Control and monitor access.
- Review your form.
- Open Word and locate the document. Open Microsoft Word and find the document you want to make into an editable PDF. ...
- Prepare the document in Word. ...
- Select Adobe PDF. ...
- Create the form. ...
- Make your form editable. ...
- Edit and save your PDF form.
That's where contact form comes into the stage. It's a great and easy way for letting people know that you are reachable directly through the contact us form that you use on your website. Another advantage of contact forms is to give the impression that you're always there to get their message.
What is the purpose of contact form? ›A contact form is a short web-based form published on a website. Any visitor can fill out the form and submit it to send a message to the site owner. Behind the scenes, your contact form triggers an email message to be generated and sent to your email inbox.
Which is better contact form 7 or WPForms? ›WPForms is far better than Contact Form 7 because it has a beginner-friendly drag & drop form builder interface whereas you have to build a contact form using code in Contact Form 7. Even when comparing just the WPForms free version, WPForms comes with better spam protection, customization options, and more.
How to do multiple steps in Contact Form 7? ›Create a Contact Form 7 form. Place your cursor at the end of the form. On the “Form” tab of the Contact Form 7 form, click on the button named “multistep”. In the window that pops up, check the checkbox next to “First Step” if this is the first step of your multi step forms.
Why not use Contact Form 7? ›
Contact Form 7 only allows you to use reCAPTCHA v3, which is known to cause different types of errors on a WordPress website.
How do I create a contact form without plugins? ›To add a contact form without a plug-in, you need an online form builder that allows you to embed a form directly on your site. Jotform is a full-featured online form builder that doesn't require site owners to install a WordPress plug-in to embed forms on their site.