Why Every Website Needs a Contact Form

Why Every Website Needs a Contact Form:by Jeff Gibb
At Optify, we review a lot of websites. It’s hard to find the time between Nerf wars springing up throughout the office and Scott Axworthy mixing up seasonal cocktails, but it’s a key part of understanding our customers and their needs.
The number of websites we review without any sort of contact form is surprising. For most, it comes down to technical ability or simply time/prioritization. But others haven’t considered the benefits of a contact form. No matter the reason, let’s review why a contact form is so important.

First, get rid of this: info@example.com

The generic email address on a “Contact Us” page has got to go. There are a number of reasons this is a poor approach:

• This could be perceived as a black hole by the visitor, leaving them wondering if any anyone will receive or respond.
• An email address will automatically pop open an email client that is installed on the computer. What if they use a web-based client? What if they are doing work-related browsing on a tablet or a personal computer?
• There are thousands of spam bots crawling the web to collect these addresses for spam email blasts. If this address does go anywhere, it will quickly be overrun with junk.

Benefits of a Contact Form

Generate Leads – Enable sales by gathering information of those requesting information. Collect the contact data to nurture the leads with email marketing after they submit their information.
User experience – Simply stated, a form will build trust. It will let your visitors know you are ready to receive their information. You can reassure them with a confirmation message or thank you page stating you have received their request and will contact them shortly.
Standardize information – With a form, you can choose which fields are shown and required to be completed before submission. Be careful not to over do it, as more fields will generally decrease the number of visitors that will complete the form.
Integrate with CRM – Forms can be built to automatically create records in a CRM like Salesforce.com, which will synchronize your website and customer database.
Measure conversions – Understand the number of visitors that convert into a lead, and also measure where the best leads are coming from. This will help you focus your digital marketing efforts.

What Now?

Don’t worry if you haven’t finished that degree in Computer Science yet. There are many ways to easily build a form into your website. Optify is a great place to start, as our Digital Marketing Software will support all the benefits I listed above.
Alternatives:

1. Check to see if your Content Management System (CMS) has a form builder.
2. If you’re using WordPress, there are tons of plugins you can choose.
3. You may also want to check out something like Formstack that will help you build and manage forms.