Is your website contact page bland and boring? Does it give your visitors a good first impression? Or…do you even have a contact page?
Next to the about page and home page, the contact page is one of the most important pages on your website. Think about it, if someone has an interest in your products or services and they’re going to take the time to contact you, they are a warm lead… much easier to convert then a cold lead.
The contact page is where you can provide your visitors with all the information they need to contact you. The thing is, most people aren’t exactly sure what to include on their contact page.
They think their name and a link to their email address is enough for a contact page.
Let’s pretend you spent a few minutes Googling a service you needed. You click on one of the links displayed on the search engine results page. The website seems to have what you need, but it’s a high ticket item and you have some questions such as:
- How to get access
- How fast is the setup
- Can I talk to a human or just a bot or email
- Where are these people actually located
- Can I phone someone if I get stuck
If you’re like me, if I’m going to spend $500 on a service, I want to make sure I can connect with a human being at the company, not some robot at a call centre.
Many visitors to your website will contact you directly through your contact form, rather than via email or phone. Because of this, the contact page is one of the most important pages on your website. It doesn’t take a ton of time to design it properly and a quick way to look at other websites for inspiration and create some sketches on paper.
In this blog post and video, I’ve broken down the parts to building an effective Contact page as follows:
- How I’m doing a review so you’ll know how to apply this to contact pages you come across
- A personal review of website contact pages – the good and bad – and why
- Teaching you how to sketch your contact page using a digital tablet or pen and paper
- Teaching you how to sketch your contact page using whiteboard sheets and dry erase marker
- Homework should you wish to accept it 🙂
Review of Website Contact Pages
In the video below, we’ll take a very quick look at 17 website contact pages and check out the good and bad. BTW, I’m looking at small business and local business, not major corporations. One common thing which annoys me. Many of these brands made me work to find out how to contact them.
Here is a List of the Contact Pages Reviewed in the Video
- The Middle Finger Project
- ConvertKit
- MailerLite
- Crown K9
- Media Boom
- Barefoot Babies
- Kushies
- Modern Rascals
- Brand Culture
- Curries Art Store
- Oil Me North
- Any Etsy Site
- This and That
- Luv Lashes
- Art and Fashions
- Nude by Nature
- Dog Philosofur
What to Look for:
Some of the things that a good contact form design has are:
- It’s easy to get to from the main menu – not related to the sketch per say, but make it easy for people to contact you.
- Have a customer benefit at the top of the page. Why should your website visitor contact you? Include some intro text. Think of your ideal customer landing on this page, why would they want to contact you? Maybe add some FAQ’s.
- If you’re a brick and mortar business, have your retail store address and mailing address if they are different. An integrated Google map helps your visitor find the best path to get to your store. Otherwise, post your office hours and anything else they need to know such as when you will reply.
- If appointments are needed for speciality services (such as a boutique pet store offering grooming services. In this case, include an online booking calendar such as Book Like a Boss or Calendly
- Include your phone number – this is a tricky one because if you work from home and only have one phone, you don’t want your kids answering a business call. Or if you have a dog that barks at quiet noises – yes I’m talking about my Mia, offer an option for a Zoom call and do it with video. Adds credibility.
- A form where you can pre-qualify people (helps reduce spam). Drop down lists with pre-populated questions help.
- A photo of you as the business owner – humanizes the business so your website visitor is confident that they are reaching out to the human that owns the business. If you have a team, that’s no problem, a team photo works just as well. Details of your team should be on your about page.
- Be accessibility compliant – good sized fonts, easy to read, good contrast (tech talk – make sure that the forms are labeled when designing in your platform).
- Viewable on mobile devices – depending on your audience, if most access your site with mobile device, keep images to small size and elements look right. A good idea is to create a sketch of your contact page for desktop, tablet and mobile. It only takes a short amount of time to do this and eliminates any barriers for someone contacting you.
- Keep it Simple – no fluff or complicated forms. Ask only what you actually need to know.
If there’s something specific that you would have liked for me to have covered, let me know in the comments below.
I hope that you enjoyed this very detailed video and until I see you next time, stay inspired.
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