Your contact page might not be the most exciting page to work on but contact page optimisation can offer certain rewards that make it worth your time. There are many reasons that people visit contact pages on a website, not least to actually get in touch with the owners of the website. Increasing the conversion rate of your contact page also has the ability to significantly increase sales, gain advertising opportunities, partner with new companies and of course to build powerful relationships with your users. In this post we address 7 steps you can take to improve the conversion rate of your contact page.
1. Increase Trust With a Personalised Appearance
In many cases people may just want to check that you are actually a real company and that they can contact you if they need anything. In these cases a personal picture of somebody from the business or the premises can go some way to reassuring the user that you are a legitimate and trustworthy business. It should go without saying this is most definitely NOT the place for stock photography if you really plan on earning their trust. For those users that do actually want to contact you this will also add personality to your website and if staff images are used it can give them someone to envisage writing to.
2. Reassure People With Introductory Text
When arriving at a blank page with just a contact form you can instantly put a lot of pressure on a users. The following thoughts can start to run through their mind:
Am I in the right place? How long will it take them to respond? Should I try call them instead? Have they answered my question elsewhere?
You can prevent all of this with some well written and concise introductory text. A simple message that lets people know why they might contact you, how long responses typically take and potentially alternative methods of contact for specific queries can set aside doubts and encourage users that they are in the right place and should be reaching out to you through this medium.
3. Ruthlessly Reduce Form Fields
How many fields should a contact form have? According to Eloqua the optimum number of fields is between 5-10 but the more observant will notice that they are also basing this on the most commonly used number of fields. There is a clear pattern that the less fields you have the higher the likelihood of a form converting so if you don't need 5 then don't use that many. The key takeaway here is that you need to use as few fields as possible without sacrificing the objectives of your business. If you need to take telephone and web addresses then take them but know that you will be scaring away a percentage of users than if you could simply get these details at a later date.
4. Don't Make People Fill Out Necessary Fields
At first this may seem very similar to the last point but there is a key difference. Sometimes there are fields that you need to include for one reason or another but it may not be applicable to everyone that fills out the form. A simple “(Optional)” message besides the field may encourage people to fill out the form where they otherwise would have left due to an aversion of filling out a particular form field. If your form designer or contact form plugin allows it then you may also want to increase conditional logic to show fields only when they are needed.
5. Provide “Real World” Contact Details
When visiting a contact page users may also be seeking an address if you have a physical premises or a phone number so they can speak to somebody with on your company. Even if somebody decides not to use these details they can increase the level of trust just through their appearance as it shows your company is not simply hiding behind a website and the relative obscurity of the internet. You can also improve the SEO value of your contact page by including Schema markup either manually or through a local seo plugin to get your business appearing in local searches. A bonus to including your phone number is the click to call feature on many mobile devices.
6. Include a Privacy Notice
Whilst many users will be happy to submit an email address and name in exchange for a response many others may be wary if they have no prior experience of your business and if you ask for even more personal information this experience can be amplified. Including a simple notice along with your contact forms letting users know that you respect their privacy and even linking to your privacy policy can go a long way to reassuring people that you will respect their data. Whilst it depends on the audience your site aims at, attempts to make this friendly and personable whilst backed with a genuine privacy policy are likely to inspire more trust than a block of small print that nobody but a lawyer could understand.
7. Link to Support Pages
Whilst this tip may not increase the conversion rate of your actual contact form, it can seriously improve user satisfaction. Many websites have a support desk with a knowledge-base or at the very least an FAQ. Providing a link to these pages can often bring them to peoples awareness so that they can help themselves. A user that can get an instant answer on a question that has been bugging them with a single click will often be much happier than one that has to sit around waiting for their email to be responded too no matter how fact you email back.
8. Think Mobile, Act Universal
With the rapidly increasing adoption of the mobile web it is more important than ever that your website loads quickly and is fully accessible. Form elements like dropdowns can often be a nightmare to complete on a mobile device, especially when scrolling though countless countries to reach one near the bottom of the list. Try to use open and simple form fields that validate instead of complicating the entry method and where possible apply the correct HTML mark-up so that smartphones can present an optimised keyboard for the task at hand, plugins like Gravity Forms for WordPress are great for this.
9. Don't Lose Your Users With Maps
Whilst things like Google Maps can be useful for people that need to find your business premises they can also significantly impact page loads times. If you must include these then consider using an image of the map that links to the appropriate map page so that a mobile device can open it in the browser or app of their choice. If people aren't likely to need the map it may even be worth removing it completely to maintain the focus on getting people to contact you rather than being distracted by countless widgets.
10. Be Social
Whilst many early adopters in tech started this, it's quickly been adopted by some pretty large companies with great success. If you are highly active on social media sites like Twitter then simply providing your username or link on the contact page can encourage users to reach out so that you can fire back quick fire responses to their message and spend even less time in your overflowing email inbox! Users that connect through these channels are likely to receive other messages you broadcast through the medium as well which can spark the basis of a long term relationship.
In Summary…
Taking some simple steps to improve your contact page just one time can have a positive impact over the long term and increase the number of opportunities you have within your business. Whilst not every one of these tips will be applicable every time it's also important to consider whether they are for each case. It can be far too easy to just throw up a default contact form and think that your work is done but a little effort can go a long way.
Very useful steps Daniel! Thanks!