Do you have a contact form installed on your web site? Some do, some don’t. I find many people don’t have one, or it’s in the wrong place, it’s hard to find, hard to use, or hard to read. First of all – let me tell you a little story. I maintain, fix, and create WordPress web sites for a living. I own about 25 WordPress web sites of my own, and I work on about a dozen+ client WordPress web sites per week. Some are blogs, some niche and affiliate stores, many are for small business and corporate use.
If you have a WordPress powered web site probably the most important page on your web site is your contact page. I’m a WordPress consultant – and sometimes even I forget this. Case and point, I have one web site that gets 25,000 pageviews per day. Two days ago I got a post comment that said “I want to advertise on your site and have no way to contact you – please get ahold of me at this email”. doh! It was also a blog I’m not in every day and the comment was 3 WEEKS OLD! I was just lucky he was still interested when I contacted him, and it was a $400 advertising sale! Not having a contact form almost lost me a sale!
On another web site I had a contact form, but it was on my about page. I wanted to get approval to get my product on that web site listed on Clickbank – so I applied. They said I had to have a page called “Contact”, and I had to link to it from both my sales and features page. I did that, but I did one better – I placed the contact form in my sidebar as well. Guess what, within 48 hours I got 3 emails asking questions about the plugin (before they purchased). All 3 people that asked questions bought the product. Who knows how many other sales I lost by not having a contact form that was easy to find and use!
You have no idea how many people might want to contact you – or what for. Sometimes people want to trade or exchange links, some want to hire you, others want reviews, some want to buy advertising, some people just have a question. You never know, maybe some big corporation wants to buy you out (if your site is really popular). You NEED a contact form on your web site, and not having one (or having one that’s hard to find) is like not having a mailbox on the front of your house!
If a future post I’ll go over my favorite contact plugins details in depth, but for now here’s 2 links:
Contact Form 7: This contact form is lightweight, easy to use, and updated frequently. Many people are very happy with it, and it is popular.
Cforms II: Hands down – this is the best contact form plugin I’ve ever used. But it has TONS of features. If all you want is a single form with a name, email, and comment field – go back and use Contact Form 7. With Cforms II you can build anything from small forms to big surveys. It has a dozen+ styled forms (including one for the sidebar). It has a refer a friend feature, it can save form submissions in the database for review on a reports page later either in place of – or in addition to getting form results in email (which can fail). You can even have this plugin handle all the comments on your web site! It’s my favorite, but it’s a heavy duty plugin for heavy duty work!
Do you have a contact form on your web site?
This is why I recommend people to also automatically send a mail to themselves every time someone comments one of you less active sites. Sure it might be a bit much if you have several hundred of visitors a day, but on all of you small niche sites it might be a good idea.
.-= Stefan´s last blog ..Is This Where You Waste Your Time? =-.
Is a contact form the same as an optin form? Does cformsII have an optin form in it..? What is the difference ? Could you recommend a good optin form..plugin for WordPress? Thanks..
.-= david´s last blog ..Blue Tri-Chopper =-.
I needed a contact form and was unsure what to use or how to do.
Thanks JT, I’ll try the Contact Form 7.
Jerry
P.S. I guess, eventually you are going to start charging me for your advice and I guess, eventually I’ll start paying you for it.
.-= Jerry´s last blog ..Building A WordPress Money Making Blog =-.
Absolutely true!!! EVERY website should have a contact form or section where visitors could leave reviews on their page, service or products offered.
.-= Diana´s last blog ..Leviton QuickPort =-.
I had never realized that there is such a big need for a contact form. The thing that is an eyeopener to me is that potential advertisers want to contact you, but that it is difficult to contact you because of the lack of a contact form. I have never done so on any of my websites, but after reading this article I will certainly consider adding a contact form to my websites.
But there is one thing that worries me in doing so. You do create a certain level of expectation among the visitors that you will reply to them. While this is certainly my intention, it might prove difficult in practice when you have hundreds of e-mails sent to you. How would you deal with that?
A contact form and an opt-in form are quite a bit different. The contact form is for people to actually contact you. An opt-in form is so you can build a “list” of people that approve you to spam them with cool offers and things they can waste their money on. cforms ii is not for opt in forms – if that was what you were looking for you should read 10 Simple Steps to Add an Opt-In form to WordPress.
Yes, I am aware of the difference between an opt-in form and a contact form. I am just a little worried that the number of people who’d like to contact you is huge. But from your reply I guess that that is not the case. In any case thanks for your article and your reply.
I totally agree! Contact forms are very important. They show that there is somebody behind the website that can help you out whichever your question is.
.-= Jill´s last blog ..Lutron Dimmer =-.
I wouldn’t worry about it – in all reality usually very few people use the contact form. In my experience – one in every 5-10,000.
I read this article with great interest as I am new to setting up sites. At the moment I have put a simple contact page on the sites which is easy to fine (I think).
After reading this article I think a contact form has benifits but a I will do a little reserach. I will put a contact form on some of my sites and monitor whether there is more responses to these sites than others without any contact form over a month or so.
Thank you
Pat
.-= Pat´s last blog ..Diet and herbal weight loss pills =-.
I’m still not sold. Some sites just don’t need a contact form.
@Jonathan – examples?
I agree! Contact form is just one of those things that just “have to” be there. Without that you lose in eyes of users your reliability.