9 Features That Will Make Your Contact Page Great

Cora Quigley | March 18, 2020

8 min read

The content of every single page on your website needs to be carefully considered. Your contact page is no exception. Yet many simply don’t put much thought into their contact page at all — some websites don’t even have one. If a site does have a contact page, it’s typically sparse; often it will feature an email address and/or phone number and nothing else. At best, it’s a wasted branding opportunity. At worst, you’re scaring potential customers away because they don’t feel encouraged to get in touch.

Just by putting a little bit of thought and work into your contact page, you’ll be able to cultivate an image that your brand is approachable, and cares about the wants and needs of its users.

Keep scrolling to find out the nine features that will make your contact page the best it can be.

1. Make It Easy to Find

Before we dive into the contact page itself, let’s talk a little about navigation. It’s always better to opt for a straightforward approach over trying to be clever. Be clear when it comes to labeling your contact page so that users have no doubt about where it is located. Sticking with old reliable, “Contact Us”, “Help” or “Support” instead of anything remotely cryptic is the safest bet.

When it comes to website navigation, some websites put a contact link in the header navigation, while some sites choose to link in the footer only. Ensure your contact page’s findability by including it in both.

2. Include a Contact Form

But your contact form shouldn’t only include a contact form. A good contact page should include several ways of contacting you, such as:

Email address
Phone number
Social media links

Including a contact form in addition to these points of contact brings more convenience to everyone involved. Users won’t have to go to leave the site to contact you via email or social media. They can fill out a form and be done with it. In terms of security, it will also save you from a flood of pesky spam that just displaying an email address is likely to result in.

If you’re using WordPress creating a contact page with a contact form is easy. There are a whole host of contact form plugins out there you can use. Here are five:

Contact Form 7 – With over five million active installations, Contact Form 7 is a great free option for creating basic contact forms. Form customization is easy, and it supports CAPTCHA and Akismet spam filtering.
Jotform AI Form Generator – Can create a contact form and customize it by processing prompts, but also offers thousands of templates. Jotform is also great for dynamic forms and advanced ones with payment options and more.”

Ninja Forms – Another great free option, Ninja Forms is highly customizable for laypeople and developers alike.

WPForms – With its drag-and-drop WordPress form builder, WPForms makes creating contact forms easy. The free version comes with basic contact form features, like standard form fields and CAPTCHA. You can extend form functionality even more with the premium version.
HappyForms – One of the newer contact form plugins available for WordPress websites, but it’s very promising. Not only is it developed and maintained by respected developers at The Theme Foundry, it’s also totally free.

Contact forms also provide a great opportunity for lead generation. You can gather the information that could be useful to your sales team – but don’t overdo it! On that note…

3. Ensure Your Contact Form Contains Only Relevant Fields

When it comes to contact forms, less is generally more. Greeting users with a form with countless fields that will take them 15 minutes to fill out is off-putting, to say the least. That being said, having fewer questions isn’t necessarily better either.

According to Quick Sprout, it’s about the quality of questions you’re asking users to answer. The information you’re collecting must be pertinent to both your customer care team and its users. Although it is certainly a great opportunity to collect valuable information for your sales team, if your users feel like you’re asking pointless questions, they’re more likely to leave the site without filling in your form. For instance, several studies have found that asking for a phone number on a form reduces increases the likelihood of form abandonment. If in doubt, leave it out (or at least make it optional).

4. Include a Well-tested CTA

It might be tempting to have your submit button merely say “submit” and be done with it. But it’s important to never neglect your call-to-action. CTAs matter more than you think, and can mean loss of vital leads if you don’t put some thought into it. The word “submit” isn’t actionable, and it isn’t about the user. Elements that can affect the performance of your CTA include:

Color – Choosing a color that stands out is vital; you don’t want users to spend too much time searching for it. Color choice is subjective, but it should contrast and stand out from the webpage background.
Size and placement – This is another element that is dependent on your site. The button should be big enough that it stands out, and placement should make sense when it comes to the flow of your webpage. In terms of a contact form, it makes sense to place it after they’ve completed filling it out, rather than at the top of the page.
Word choice – Ideally a CTA should include a verb and somehow be of benefit to the reader. It needs to persuade the user to take the relevant action. Words like “Get”, “Go”, or “Try”, for example.

5. Have All Help Options in One Place

Depending on the type of website you have, users might need to contact you for all sorts of reasons. These reasons could include:

A problem with an order
Requesting delivery information
Questions about the site
Media inquiries
An affiliate inquiry
General inquiries

Keep all bases covered by either providing links to different forms specific to potential queries, or providing a multi-step form. A multi-step form breaks down long forms into smaller, digestible chunks. The user will first only enter basic information. When that is submitted it will lead to another more specific form. It ends up being far less intimidating than a long form as they’re only asked for a little information at a time.

Another option is to categorize your page by potential issues users may have. Sometimes you may only need to help users help themselves. In addition to directing them to different types of forms, you can also cross-link to helpful resources you may have, such as a FAQ page, knowledgebase articles, videos, or even a customer community forum.

6. Tell Users How Long It Will Take for You to Respond

Merely telling users you will reply “as soon as possible” is really unhelpful when that can mean anything from two hours to two days. Try to be more specific if you can, whether it’s saying you will respond “within 24 hours” or simply listing your office hours. Whatever information you can provide to set realistic expectations and ensure they’re not left completely in the dark.

7. Be Open and Trustworthy

Similar to setting expectations in the previous point, you should be upfront with how user data will be utilized. Make users feel more at ease with handing it over by assuring them that their private information will be kept private. Include links to your privacy policy, too.

8. Keep Design Minimal and Straightforward

What should a contact page look like? This will, of course, vary from site to site and be dependent on what your site does. In general terms, it should be easy to navigate. The layout should be minimal and uncluttered. And like with any other webpage, it should be responsive no matter what device it’s being viewed on. It should also look the same as the rest of your site. Every page on your site needs to reflect branding, no exception.

9. Add a Dose of Humanity

Elevate the trust factor of your contact page by adding some human elements. Adding images of your customer care team is a great start. Having a face (or faces) to associate with your business will make things way more personal.

Every page on your website counts, so don’t neglect the content of your contact page. By following these nine steps, it’s easy to create a contact page that will make people want to get in touch and connect with you or your business.