The hours of revisions and testing have come to an end and that newly designed website has finally launched. Armed with killer strategy and call to actions on every page it’s important not to forget about the vehicle that carries those oh so important leads – the contact form. An area often overlooked, could be the biggest inhibitor to gaining quality leads from the web.
As a Charlotte web design the first question (and our favorite) we are asked is “How do I improve my website.” There’s certainly no blanket response to this and it could involve a variety of strategies including updates to the user interface, incorporating SEO or developing a responsive web design, to name a few.
All the above mentioned suggestions tend to lead to the same desired result – contact. Below are some suggestions on how you can improve your online contact form and start generating meaningful leads.
Simple Is Better
As with many things that relate to online commerce, your contact form should be as simple as possible. There is no need to ask for the person’s complete bio. Keep the fields easy so customers won’t feel like your form is a burden to fill out. Once you do so, you will likely see a significant increase in your conversion rate.
Irrelevant Fields Cause Mistrust
When creating the form, place yourself in the position of the potential client. You are requesting them to provide information to a business that they may have just discovered. Requesting overly sensitive information will likely be a major turn-off for most individuals.
It’s important to know exactly what information is useful to you. Start out by asking for their first name, an email address and have them write a short message or comment. These should all be required for them to fill out. These fields are simple enough to fill out, yet provides you with the contact information you need to send them advertisements or other relevant information. There’s always the option to add additional fields, but it’s best to keep them as optional. This not only makes it simple on the user but you receive information that you find to be important.
Make It Personal
People’s decisions are largely based off of trust. Does your website portray that to them? Another great way to make that personal connection is through the contact form. It could be the final bait that lands the bite.
When creating your contact form, you can use a button that says “submit”, or you can create one that says “sign me up” or “send me more information”; look at Alter Imaging’s for example. Not only do we have “required fields” we have additional fields that customers have the option to fill out. Not only can they request a proposal, we have included a fun option asking visitors to “just say hi.”
Your contact form should make an attempt to start a conversation with your potential clients.
The best way to discover what works best when designing a contact form is to test your product. Upload your newly designed form to your website for one month and keep track of the results that it produces. If you’re looking for better results, tweak the design and upload it again. Continue this process until you’re happy with the conversion rates.