4/15/2009
The Contact Page – How to Write a Website, Chapter 4
Do you have a tip for business website content?
Perhaps all we will agree on about a Contact page is that every website should have one. Sites that offer only email contact strike me as amateurish in the extreme. Furthermore, email forces visitors to craft their message from scratch, which is a major deterrent to submitting an inquiry.
A contact form provides an opportunity to make it easy for a visitor to contact you. Let me repeat: a contact form provides an opportunity to make it easy for a visitor to contact you. It’s an extremely important page, unless of course you don’t want potential customers to contact you.
A contact form also provides an opportunity to gather important data about your visitors with their permission. This information, which usually includes email addresses, areas of interest, and how they were referred, is invaluable for sales, marketing, and product development.
The challenge with a Contact page is to provide enough prompts and gather enough information to help the visitor and yourself, without asking for so much information that the visitor clicks off in frustration or suspicion. You cannot make the visitor feel that your only interest is to coax out his or her private data points.
This makes me a Contact page minimalist, I suppose. Dropdown menus should be short and succinct, and kept to a minimum -
- What are you interested in? (Offer three or four options)
- How did you find us? (Keep them general; e.g., friend, print ad, Google, Twitter, Facebook.)
- A text box for visitors to compose a message.
- How would you like us to contact you? (Phone, email, send your white paper PDF, etc.)
Naturally, the contact page should contain all your vital contact statistics – phone numbers, mailing address(es), store locations, hours of operation, driving directions, and links to your social media pages.
Given the importance of a Contact page, it is imperative to make it a top level navigation link. I make mention of this because on recent posts here, several readers have commented that one of their biggest pet peeves is a website with a hard to find Contact page.
Over to you!
What are your likes and dislikes about Contact pages? What elements do you feel are essential for a Contact page? Do you have examples of really good or really bad Contact pages?
Thanks!
10 Responses to The Contact Page – How to Write a Website, Chapter 4
Contact pages are generally pretty for helping someone to sorta “frame their need”, so to speak. My biggest problem with a contact form is one that may not be fixable, though.
See, when I send an email, there’s a copy of it in the “Sent” folder. But with a contact form, there’s never a record I ever sent anything! Still leaves me with that “I wonder if they’ll respond” feeling, y’know – that “black hole” feeling.
I also agree with the “less is more” idea. Too much information and it feels like they’re steppin’ over the line.
Robert Hruzeks last blog post..The Trouble With Trouble
I list every method of contact possible, so that they can choose the option they are most comfortable with. I know several people who only use the phone, only use email, or only use twitter, facebook, etc. and prefer not to communicate directly through email, phone or contact page.
I state my preferred method of contact but I am available to others using their preferred method.
Luke Gedeons last blog post..The Value of Meaningless Words
Brad,
I don’t think you will get too many arguments about the need for a contact page, and a properly designed contact page promotes the perception that your company is an organization which conducts itself in a professional manner.
I feel that with contact pages, it can be a good idea to have compulsory and non-compulsory fields. Compulsory fields should be kept to a minimum, with the aim of making the customers experience in contacting your firm as painless as possible.
Non-compulsory fields, on the other hand, can provide customers with an opportunity to share more about themselves and for your company to learn more about your web site visitors.
Some people won’t mind sharing more intimate information, but you must cater for those who view compulsory fields as an invasion of privacy and a waste of their time.
andrews last blog post..Diligently handing money over to scam artists
Good reminder for me to update mine Brad, thank you
What do you think about having some audio / video as part of a contact page (not of the autoplaying sort!) so people get a chance to hear / see you before making contact?
Joanna Youngs last blog post..Blogging, Writing and Community: A Round Up
Hi Brad! Hey, I like the new comment area! I need to upload my new one but I agree a good contact form is essential. You can use services like Vertical Response (my favorite), Aweber and others to not only create contact forms but send an auto response (letting people know you received the form) which can also include FAQs and key info. Most importantly you can track the form and even test different forms to maximize the effectiveness. In addition to a good contact form, I agree it is important to provide multiple ways to contact you. I cannot tell you how often I have visited sites that have no name, no email, and no phone number. For those in my niche, I want to thank you for that because I get the customers who wanted to use you but were frustrated by their ability to pick up a phone and call you.
Karen Swims last blog post..Magic in the Mundane
Brad, I mentioned the comment area but I love the entire new design! Geez, got so wrapped up in rambling I failed to say that. It looks great! Going to cruise around a little and see what else you got going here!
Karen Swims last blog post..Magic in the Mundane
Robert, Good point – every contact form should include an automated response to avoid that black hole feeling.
Luke, I like the idea of adding social media id’s to a contact page. That could certainly work for a business just as well as for an individual. I’ll have to update my contact page.
Andrew, Many’s the time I’ve abandoned a contact form because I was forced to enter one piece of information too many. Why should a company take the chance of losing a prospect that well qualified?
Joanna, Super idea adding video/audio to the contact page. I usually suggest that for about pages, but same concept. Sights and sounds personalize and appeal to different learning styles.
Karen, Yes, there are still plenty of people who want to pick up the phone and talk to a real live person. You are speaking about entrepreneurs and small companies, I believe, but large companies, for instance phone companies, have a way of hiding email and phone contact information so they can route you into their impersonal, automated systems. Not good. (Hey – thanks for the good feedback on my site, too!)
Brad Shorrs last blog post..The Contact Page – How to Write a Website, Chapter 4
The auto response is a great idea… It could also include a telephone number if for some reason you don’t hear back in a stated period of time. Feeling as if you haven’t been heard is usually worse than finding out you’re not going to get your way. And, Brad, you have me going back to my contact page to figure things out. I regrettably admit it has received little attention. (Maybe an unconscious desire to become a hermit?)
Fred H Schlegels last blog post..Physics and Ideation: Ways To Unleash Creativity
Fred, you and me both. My contact page is the lamest on my site – shame on me. Please don’t be a hermit – your ideas and conversation are too valuable!
Brad Shorrs last blog post..Banks Should Stop TV Advertising and Use Social Media
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