TCW - The Complete Website

The lowly “contact us” page on a website generally suffers from neglect, yet it could be the 2nd most important page on your website. Sure, it doesn’t have the panache of the home page but, like a top salesperson, it has the power to close. Think about it: a visitor comes to your website, moves from your homepage through your website and then decides they might contact you - so they click on your “contact us” button.

Now what? When I first got into this business, I assumed that all a visitor was looking for was the email link or phone number. Many websites in the late 90’s also had overeager marketers that thought big long questionnaires on the contact page would deliver lots of demographic information from that visitor. Yeah, right. Visitors clicked away in droves. I trumpeted my “keep contact pages simple” mantra and all was good… sort of.

Basic email links were certainly better than big long pain in the neck forms but, as it turns out, a small form that collects 2 or 3 bits of information is today’s contact solution. On one website (clock-repair.net), we more than tripled our response rate as a result of the form we installed on the contact page. In fact Doug, the owner, got so busy we had to pull the form off!

Why are the shorter forms more effective? Answer: with an email link alone, visitors are unsure of how to initiate a contact. The more complex a business offering, the less certain a visitor is about how to approach an organization. An email link prompts a window that requires them to fill a big blank void… what does the visitor say? Where does he/she start? Email links are great when a visitor KNOWS what they want to ask. The form provides a clear path for the visitor to contact you when the visitor is UNSURE.

Keep the form as short as possible and don’t ask for unnecessary information that you can get later. For example, don’t lengthen your form with a request for a street address. If you don’t need it now, get it later. Plus, with many visitors having privacy issues, the less asked about them specifically, the more willing they often will be to converse with your company. The crux of the form should be to gather enough information to start a dialog (via phone or email). Once a prospect has contacted you you can continue the dialogue with more detailed information.

The clock repair request form (from the above link) asks the model, age, and number of keyholes of the clock in need of repair. These are all answered with simple clicks. After a few clicks the visitor is warmed up and ready to type their real question in the general comment box. This format works. Follow this logic and you will find more visitors knocking on your virtual door.