Paid Search Wizardry VI 8 Simple rules for Contact forms

For many websites and web-based businesses - the humble contact form may be the first point of contact between you and your customers. But is it ticking all the boxes?

Rule 1 - Is your Contact form too darn long?

Many contact forms are a little outdated - asking for the contact’s business name, industry, business address, phone number and mobile and email - the list goes on.Cut down on the number of fields to a bare minimum - it’s nice to know if the contact prefers Mr/Mrs/Miss/Mx - but you’ll get more useful information asking other, business related questions.

Rule 2 - Is your contact form easy to fill out on mobile?

Check your form on a few mobile screen sizes. Is your submit button obvious? Do you have drop down menu options that the contact has to scroll through? Is all the information correct? Do all of the fields stay within the page width?

Rule 3 - Are too many of your fields required?

Required fields need to be clearly marked as well as relevant. Consider making the phone number an option as long as they give you an email address or vice versa.

Rule 4 - Do you have an automated response?

Whether the form page itself or an auto-email, its good to show that the message has been sent - and an opportunity to manage expectations on the response time.

Rule 5 - Do you have multiple forms and how are they managed?

Sometimes having a quick form - email & question - as well as a full detailed enquiry form is a good idea - but make sure you know which pages they are on - and who responds to them.

Rule 6 - Where are your forms?

Try moving the form to be more visible, above the fold on a desktop view. Also think about if people coming to your ‘Contact Us’ page to see a Google map of your location - or are they wanting to send a message? Is the contact form easily visible on your advert’s landing page?

Rule 7 -Are your forms on brand?

Colour co-ordinate the submit button and match your websites font, or the contact form will look out of place and put people off reaching out. Off the shelf contact forms plugins work - but may phrase questions oddly. UK visitors should be asked for a postcode rather than a ZIP code.

Rule 8 - Are your contact forms compliant?

Your privacy policy should be visible, an unticked tick box for marketing, and a standard cookie policy will reassure a contact that their details won’t be added to an unwanted mailing list, or be used to show them third party adverts all over the rest of the internet.

As you can see, just by following some simple advice - and some less obvious points, you can make sure that your enquiry form is the first point of contact - and not the last.