Some Tips For Making Contact Forms Easier
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I accept that it is easier for me to experiment with contact forms than most people simply because of my experience. A lot of people I speak to simply say "I know a bit of HTML but don't know how to do forms" or something similar.

This is a shame really because inevitably, it means that it gets done instead by someone who might not be the person who sees the leads coming in. Consequently, the contact forms very often are quirky and don't offer a particularly good user experience.

So let me make a couple of suggestions.

First Suggestion : There now exist lots of scripts and solutions that make it easier than ever to make contact forms and you can have all the buttons and drop-downs and data-checking that you ever want.

You won't need to know any code as they're "drag n drop" and are a breeze to use.

I personally still write my own but that's simply more from habit than anything else. My suggestion would be to simply type in the phrases "Contact Form" into Google and see which companies are offering the quickest, cheapest and easiest solutions.

Ironically, Google itself can help you here. If you checkout the spreadsheet component of Google Docs at http://docs.google.com you will see that you can make a simple(or complicated) form within minutes and the results are neatly tabulated making for easy review.

Simply Click "New" then "Form" and you're away. You can display the results online or have them emailed to you. Talking of email, you can of course include a form made like this within an email and Google will do it all for you.

Second Suggestion : Offer the questions in Bite-Sized Chunks. Naturally, this only really applies to a questionnaire on a website rather than an email but you get what I mean.

I have personally noticed a marked increase in my own conversion rate when I use multiple pages to ask all the questions I need answered, rather than having them all on one page.

T here's a couple of reasons for this (I believe). Firstly, when someone sees half a dozen questions instead of (say) thirty all in one go, they're a lot less daunted.

Secondly, when someone has completed half a dozen questions, they've made a commitment. It's a lot easier to get someone to finish something they've already started than to get them to start something in the first place!

So, my suggestion is that as a general rule, get the very basic contact information first so that if you do experience user-abandonment, you can contact them later if you want to - either with an autoresponder or simply calling them up on the phone.

Anyway, it is essential that you do have the ability to change and tweak your contact form because this is the very point at which people interact with your website and represents a huge opportunity to increase your sales and leads by optimising it for conversion.

Loads of times I see a great website that looks a though it has cost a fortune yet which has lost the ball at the last minute by using an inappropriate form. Waste!

If you'd like some more help in this or any other area, checkout my quick-consultancy service.

It's a very inexpensive way to see how to rapidly boost your leads and sales.

Checkout http://www.mklink.com/getstarted today or call 01454 852414

'till Next Time,

Mike Knight.
Internet Marketing Advice & Training
for Businesses since 1998.