The importance of website contact forms

Does your website have a contact form?

A contact form is a must-have for any website. Not just a contact page, mind you, but a real, working contact form that someone can fill in and submit.

A lot of websites have just a contact page with some contact details such as an address, phone number and an email by which someone can contact them. This is both a mistake, and a huge missed opportunity.

Putting your email address on your website is a Very Bad Idea.

There are people out there running software robots that comb through websites looking for email addresses. Any addresses they find are captured and put into spam database. Ever wondered why someone suddenly decided you needed Cialis? Or selected you to help deal with someone's deceased estate by putting the funds through your bank account?

Some people argue with me on this, saying that there is a percentage of visitors who are not comfortable with forms but will click an email address to send a message. That's fine, I guess, if you don't mind dealing with the spam, and if you really think that percentage of visitors is significant for your website. But it's not the only reason you should avoid putting your email address on your contact page (or any other page).

Having a proper contact form is a gold mine

With a contact form, you can control what information you get.

• You can require they give you their name and phone number. What good is a contact if you don't know who they are? And if they are that cagey about providing basic information, it's going to be difficult to find out more about their requirements.
• You can ask them things they may not have thought you'd need to know when making an enquiry, such as which model of your product they're interested about, or how they heard about you.
• You can determine which email address the information in the contact form is forwarded to (without publishing those email addresses on the website). For example, sales enquiries could be forwarded to the sales manager, support enquiries to the services manager, etc. All of this happens behind the scenes without the visitor knowing it's happening.

If you rely on a simple email address on your website, the enquiries you get might not be very informative at all, and you'll have to go back and forth establishing exactly what the person contacting you actually wants from you.

A contact form is a conversion point you can track

When someone visits your website, you want to convert them into more than just an anonymous visitor. A conversion point - such as a contact form - is essential. The supply of personal details by a visitor indicates that they are prepared to enter into some kind of relationship with you that may well result in some business for you - which is exactly what you want.

By having a contact form, you can track the responses. If you're using Google Analytics (or some other website analytics tool), you can even see which keywords resulted in a visit where someone converted by completing your contact form, and which pages they visited between arriving and completing the contact form. Ask your Yellow Pages representative whether they've figured out how to do that yet!

Keep it simple!

A lot of people take all this on board, but then completely overdo it by creating a contact form that asks for every detail they'd like to know about a prospective customer. This is offputting to the visitor looking at the form, and may well cause them to click away. There's only so much information you can ask for at this stage. Keep it simple, and don't ask too much just yet.

Another mistake people make is to have more than one contact form. For example, you could have a "Contact form" and a "Sign up for a free demo" form. Unless there is a very compelling reason for two forms, find a way to make one form. Otherwise, you're likely to find people filling in the wrong form.

Follow up!

Each enquiry you receive is a potential business opportunity. Therefore, make sure you respond immediately and professionally. Also, give the customer a reason to respond. For example, you could ask them one or two additional questions that you need the answers to before you can give them a complete response to their enquiry. Even better - ask them to suggest a time when you can call them to discuss their requirements in more detail.

Check your form regularly!

We've experienced this ourselves, unfortunately. We thought the contact form was working but ... well, it just wasn't. So take it from us - make sure you regularly check your form is working, and is sending completed submissions to the correct email addresses.