High-Converting Contact Forms: The Best Practices to Follow

A decade ago, the contact form was just an accessory that can be mostly seen on the contact page; today, it is an integral element of every website, whether it is a personal portfolio or a huge portal like cite4me.

These days, digital marketing is the main driving force for every business online. It drives traffic, increases engagement with the brand, and most importantly, generates revenue. However, it can’t do its magic without its partner in crime that is a contact form that provides a way to communicate with the clients and get an actual response.

To back up this, consider these impressive statistics:

• 50% of marketers agree that forms are their primary source of leads.
• More than 70% of companies use web forms as a lead generating mechanism.
• Multi-step forms can lead to staggering 300% more conversions.

Indeed, the contact form is a marketers-approved tool to convert regular users into paying customers. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that it lies in the heart of every modern user interface these days. Let’s consider some more good reasons to use the contact form on the landing page.

Benefits of Using Contact Form in Landing Page

There are many benefits of using contact forms. Let us list the obvious ones:

• Reduce spam attacks since your email will be hidden from hackers.
• Keep track of inquires.
• Get more leads.
• Build your subscription list efficiently.
• Save you lots of time by automatically populating your CRM.
• Offer support for customers.
• Answer all the inquiries.
• Make the website look modern and professional.
• Shorten the user’s path to the set goal.
• Create a comfortable environment for non-tech-savvy people.
• Get all the information you need.

Having a contact form in place is crucial for any business. It brings lots of benefits and makes life easier not only for you but also for your clients.

However, this great power comes at a price. Not every contact form can be a leading generation tool. To turn standard contact form into a marketing instrument, it is crucial to follow the best practices and invest time and money.

Let us walk through the major points of creating a high-converting contact form and familiarize ourselves with the best practices.

Contact Us by Ivan Poddubchenko

Best Practices for Contact Form Design

It only seems that contact form is a tedious element of design; it is much more than that. In no way should it be taken lightly. To reap its benefits, you need to follow the best practices. Let’s consider them closely.

Three Pillars of the Good Web Contact Form

First thing first – when you create a contact form for any project and any purpose, it is vital to remember about three main pillars of good website design:

• Make it responsive.
• Make it accessible.
• Make it mobile-friendly.

According to recent studies, almost 50% of form data is submitted on a mobile device. Therefore, creating a comfortable form on handheld devices is imperative to meet the current needs and requirements of the target market.

Consider the popular personal referencing assistant. Here, the team uses a compact contact form with just two fields. This is enough to bring value to the users and address their issues efficiently. Everything is well-formatted and optimized. It looks great across all devices. You can easily use assistive technologies to enter your data. On top of that, it works flawlessly on small handheld devices.

In a word, the contact form is simple, yet it is made with three main pillars in mind that make it a strong player and a high-converting piece of the interface.

 

Ground rules of Good Contact Form

The ground rules of a properly optimized contact form are:

• Use only necessary fields – do not ask for too much information. According to stats, two-field and three-field contact forms convert the best.
• Use whitespace wherever you can. Add it between label and input, and input and error message.
• Use a single-column layout placing each field on its line.
• Strick to the right-hand layout.
• Focus on the call-to-action button. It should be prominent and straight-to-the-point.
• Make each field and button accessible through the keyboard and AT. Also, it is crucial to test your contact form to see whether the fields are in the correct order.
• Use radio buttons, checkboxes, multiple-choice fields, and selects to help lazy visitors to fill the form.
• Use font color and size to ensure excellent readability and perfect contrast.
• Invest in error messages.
• Break big form into multiple pages.

 

Contact Form Conversions Best Practices

Let’s consider the best practices for contact forms from a marketing point of view since numerous projects out there use forms as a lead-generating machine. Here they are:

• Do not add many forms. From a conversion standpoint, two forms on the landing page are enough to convert users into leads.
• Understand the goal of your form. Ask yourself, on what stage of the sales funnel is it used?
• Stick to the golden rule: one goal – one form.
• Balance how much information you need. Analyze your market and goal. Sometimes, asking for just a single email address is not enough. More so, according to recent studies, people are less enthusiastic about one-field forms.
• Use colors that speak business, like blue or green. Do not use red since it is widely associated with danger.
• Use persuasive language in the call-to-action button. According to stats, the best-performing labels for CTA are “Go,” “Download,” and “Register.” However, these labels should be supported by well-thought-out body copy so that users know why they are doing this.
• Do not ask for digits. People hate typing their phone numbers or any other digit-like information.
• Use visual cues with direction and line-of-sight to focus overall attention on the contact form.
• Build trust with the prospect before asking to fill the form. Therefore, always provide context for the form; use formatting to make the message evident.
• Be grateful. Show your appreciation with a special thank you note or even thank you page.
• Ask the right questions the right way.
• Add social proof or credentials to qualify your brand and contact form.
• Tell people what to expect.
• Use conversational-style forms to add a human touch.
• Respond as soon as possible.

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A/B Test Everything

A/B testing is crucial for every contact form, especially when it comes to a lead-generating one.

Although the ground rules may give you some solid foundation to build on, they still cannot guarantee that your target market will enjoy the result. Only your audience may tell you that.

Therefore, always listen to your audience, try different versions to see which one brings the best result, and resonates the best with your audience.

On top of that, with A/B testing, you can uncover some good insights on how to increase the productivity of the contact form and improve conversion rates.

 

Conclusion

Contact forms are everywhere: they are used to sign up for a newsletter, get a quote, or contact the team, etc. Indeed, they play a crucial role in every kind of business, so chances are you are going to deal with one in your next project.

To nail it and make it achieve financial goals, you need to follow the best practices and do regular A/B tests to find the best solution for your case.