Why Your Website Needs an Online Contact Form (Template Included)

Did you know that online contact forms have the lowest conversion rate compared to other types of forms? Just 1%. What does that mean?

Two things – (1) only 1 in 100 people who had visited your online contact form actually successfully completed it and (2) most people probably don’t utilize the complete power of these forms.

The fact is that contact forms are not just an easy way for your website visitors to reach out to you. They are also a great way of collecting leads for your business or organization. You can ask users to leave their name, email, phone number, or any other contact information you deem necessary. Also, such a form can include a personalized message, question, or request to make sure you get exactly the information you need.

Even though we could justify the somewhat low conversion rate of contact forms with the fact that a lot of users visit the “Contact Us” web pages looking for addresses or additional information about the company team, there are still some things you can do to make sure you get the most out of your online contact forms.

Online contact form

In this post, I will share some tips and best practices to help you create a perfect online contact form. More importantly, I will share a contact form template I created using LeadQuizzes that you can use right away!

(In the meantime, you can preview all the form templates available to LeadQuizzes users.)

But before that, why you need to have a contact form on your website in the first place?

6 Reasons Why Your Website Needs an Online Contact Form

Why have a separate online contact form on your website when you can simply just display your email address and let people contact you? Seems like a valid question – only if you don’t know much about lead generation and online business.

Here are the top 6 reasons for having an online contact form on your website.

1. Less spam and more security

Having a contact form can help you reduce spam and make your website more secure. Simply displaying your email address on your website makes it easier for spammers to crawl your email address and flood you with unwanted offers.

Another way of dealing with spammy emails could be linking the Contact page of your website to your social media profiles and expecting your potential customers to reach you there. Still, this approach has two main flaws – (1) not everyone is on social media and (2) it requires extra effort from your users.

2. A convenient and easy way for users to reach out

From a user’s perspective, an online contact form represents an easy way to send you a message or inquiry straight from your website, without having to access their email client or social media.

LeadQuizzes Contact Form

In addition to providing your users with a quick and easy way to reach you, online contact forms leave an impression of constant availability.

3. Getting exactly the information you need

To be able to offer your users the right product or service or provide them with adequate customer support, you should get exactly the information you need from them. This is where online contact forms kick in.

Having a customizable online contact form enables you to request from your users whatever information you might need, be it an email address (or any other contact details) or what product or service they need, what issues they are experiencing, and how you may help them.

Here’s an example of a lead-in question I used in the online contact form template I’m going to share with you below:

LeadQuizzes Contact Form 2

With logic branching, you may even extend your contact form to ask them different questions on the basis of their previous responses.

4. Generating more leads

Someone who visits your website is already likely to be interested in your product, service or industry, right? But if you don’t capture their contact information while they are still there, they might be lost forever as potential customers.

Using an online contact form is a great way to do this, provided that the rest of the content on your website is enticing enough to make them want to become a lead.

5. Task automation

When a user submits a contact form, you can automatically direct their submission to the right person on your team to move them further along the sales funnel or to provide them with adequate customer support. This way, it saves you time as you don’t need to send emails and assign tasks manually.

6. Integrations

Depending on the tool you use to create your online contact forms, you might be able to use a variety of integrations for better connectivity and easier follow-up.

If you’re using LeadQuizzes contact forms, you will be able to integrate and connect them with a number of email marketing, CRM, advertising and analytics tools such a Mailchimp, Infusionsoft, Facebook Pixel (and much more via Zapier).

Online Contact Form Best Practices

The old saying goes that the devil is in the detail. When it comes to online contact forms, it’s often true that a better conversion rate is in the detail. That being said, here are some of the best practices and examples that will help you create high-converting online contact forms.

Use the adequate contact form layout

A controlled eye tracking experiment that tracked how users interact with forms found on real company websites has shown that improved online forms can lead to faster completion time, fewer form submission trials, and increased user satisfaction.

Here are some of the things to pay attention to when deciding on the appropriate layout for your online contact forms:

  • The input field size should approximately match the expected answer length. For example, as most first names contain 10 letters or less, don’t make your name input field 100 characters long.
  • Fields should be clearly labeled with a label placed above the corresponding field and optional placeholder within the input field itself. That way, respondents will be sure to input the right pieces of information into the right fields.
  • Don’t split forms into multiple columns. Try to keep it at a single question per row.

Find the right placement for the form on your website

Most websites dedicate a separate page to contact information (including a contact form) but even if you decide to include it on your homepage (or maybe you have a one-page website), you need to make sure it is clearly visible and easily found.

The LeadQuizzes online contact forms can be easily embedded on your website or blog, shared on social media, or sent via email.

Fewer form fields mean better conversion rate

HubSpot recently did a research that involved 40,000 contact forms and found that conversion rate can improve by up to 50% when you reduce the number of form fields in the contact form from 4 to 3.

Hubspot Conversion Rate Graph
Source: Hubspot

The main thing here is, you don’t want to overwhelm your visitors. That being said, your online contact form should never ask for more information than you actually need. Whenever possible, keep it down to a maximum of 3 form fields.

Use an inviting CTA

Another important part of your online contact form is the CTA (call-to-action). Even though it’s “just a button”, it can still make a substantial difference in terms of the number of form submissions.

Changing the color or text copy of your CTA button can affect the click-through rate. For example, most people don’t like being left in the dark and not knowing exactly what to expect after they click on the button, which is exactly what happens if your button just says “Submit”.

By adding another line of text telling them what to expect or by making your CTA copy a bit more descriptive, you’re highly likely to increase the number of submissions. Also, one study has shown that using the first person point of view in the CTA can increase conversions by up to 25% compared to using second person.

Get rid of captcha

Even though many people decide to include a captcha checkbox to prevent robots from submitting the form as a part of their spammy intentions, studies have shown that having a captcha on your online contact form can lead to losing about 3% of your total conversions.

So, while they may be a good way of filtering spam and providing an extra layer of security, most users generally don’t like them and are less likely to fill out your form if they need to deal with captchas.

Online Contact Form Template

To help you get started, we have prepared an online contact form template you can use right away with your LeadQuizzes account. You can preview it below:

Or you can simply use it for inspiration and create your own using our intuitive and user-friendly form builder. Just click on the button below and try it out now for free! P.S. No coding skills needed.

online forms cta