A contact page provides contact information, a contact form, additional touchpoints for brand messaging, and invitations to connect further.
When website owners think of creating a new website, writing website copy, or improving an existing website, efforts almost always focus on service pages, product pages, inquiry forms, and sales pages first, followed by testimonials and reviews, the about page, and an FAQ or support page. Once those are tackled, the website’s home page strategy is dialed in and the blog is addressed. Rarely does any website owner prioritize the contact page.
Even some of the most beautiful, well-designed websites in the world have ho-hum, boring contact pages because it was viewed as a zero-strategy item to check off their to-do list. In these cases, a basic contact form was quickly slapped on the page with some boilerplate messaging so efforts could be directed toward something more important. Worse, however, are contact pages that are viewed as a necessary evil and created to be more of a barrier than an invitation.
Make Your Website Contact Page A Priority
Your website is the hardest-working member of your team and your best salesperson. It works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It is never sick, it never takes a vacation, and it does exactly what you tell it to do.
The contact page is one of the most visited pages on a website and often the first step in beginning conversations with prospective clients and customers. It needs to be warm, friendly, and inviting, and it needs to provide visitors easy ways to get in touch with you.
Did you breeze through the creation of your contact page? Have you basically ignored it since the initial website launch? If so, now is the time to re-evaluate its effectiveness and ask:
- Does it provide complete contact information, including a phone number and address?
- Are there multiple options to contact you like an email address and a contact form?
- Is the tone of the copy on-brand?
- Does it reflect your brand’s personality?
- Is there additional information that visitors may need?
- Am I inviting visitors to connect further?
- Does the contact form go to a thank you page with helpful “next steps” information and invitations to stay connected?
If you answered “no” to the questions above, your contact page may not be delivering the right brand experience — and that means it’s time for an upgrade.
Improve Your Website Contact Page
Your website contact page can be used for more than displaying your contact information and a contact form. If planned and designed correctly, it can be a valuable resource that helps people get in touch with you, connect with you on social media, and discover helpful information.
Not sure where to start? I’ve got 12 ideas that will help you improve your website contact page.
- Be helpful
- Skip the negativity
- Make it easy
- Provide all of the information
- Build the relationship
- Add value
- Segment your contact options
- Get personal
- Add personality
- Use responsive design
- Make sure it works
- Include a call-to-action
Let’s take a closer look at each of these ideas…
1. Be helpful
While some visitors are just curious, most will visit your contact page because they need something: they need help, have a question, want something, or have a problem. They are turning to you for the answer or solution so start things off right by offering to help.
- Replace “Contact Us” headline, with “How Can We Help?” or “What can I do for you?”
- Replace form “Submit” button with microcopy like “Send My Message” or “Get Help.”
2. Skip the negativity
While researching designer and developer websites, I was astounded by the number of unfriendly contact pages I encountered! These contact pages list all the reasons why someone should NOT contact the freelancer or agency and what messages they will not respond to. The entire focus of the page was negative and it was a total turn-off.
Instead of focusing on who shouldn’t contact you, why they shouldn’t contact you, and what you won’t help with, focus on who is the best fit for your offers, what the form is for, and what you can help with.
Consider adding a list of links to alternate resources (or educational blog posts) for those who aren’t a good fit or are looking for something you can’t help with. If you do receive messages you don’t want or inquiries from ill-fit leads, have canned responses ready so you can continue to be helpful.
I have landed multiple high-value, long-term clients from referrals made by people I turned away simply because they respected the way I handled their inquiry and how I said no.
3. Make it easy
Everything on your website, even the contact page, should be as frictionless as possible. Don’t bury your contact information at the bottom of the page underneath a contact form, don’t set the information in a tiny type size, and don’t exclude information. Make it easy and completely obvious, for visitors to find the contact information they need.
4. Provide all of the information
It’s tempting to only offer visitors a contact form, especially if you’re running a freelance business and working from home, but resist the urge. It’s unfriendly, cold, sterile, unhelpful, and dare I say, unprofessional. It makes it look like you don’t take your business seriously and it can make visitors question your trustworthiness and credibility.
- At a minimum, provide a phone number and email address along with the contact form.
- Even better, provide a mailing address. Don’t have one? Head over to your local UPS Store or post office and get a P.O. Box or remote mailbox. (Depending on where you live and what software you use, you may be required to include a mailing address on your website if you sell anything on your website.)
- If you have different locations, departments, or team members, and people need to be able to contact them directly, provide the complete contact information for each one.
5. Build the relationship
Invite visitors to contact you and connect further:
- Include a call-to-action to subscribe to your email newsletter or a checkbox to subscribe as part of your contact form.
- Include links to your Facebook page, Twitter profile, YouTube channel, Instagram account, LinkedIn page, or Pinterest page. Help them connect with you on the platforms they use most (and those you actively use).
6. Add value
Track why people are filling out your contact form, contacting you, or calling you, so you can provide even more value and enhance their experience interacting with your brand.
For example, if you notice that people commonly contact you with the same question, write a blog post on the topic and add a link to it on your contact page or have a canned response ready so it’s easy and fast to respond personally.
7. Use multiple contact forms
Visitors to your website may contact you for different reasons, which means you may not have a single contact form.
For example, at my creative agency, those specifically interested in hiring us are directed to a project inquiry form and all general inquiries are directed to the main contact form.
When I noticed some prospective clients were still using the general contact form to contact us about their projects (most likely because they didn’t want to fill out the longer project inquiry form), I added a section to the top of the main contact page that redirects those who want to work with us to the right place — it’s obvious and works like a charm.
8. Get personal
People want to do business with real people, not nameless, faceless companies. They want to know who they are dealing with, who is behind the company they are about to give their money to, and who they will be working with or communicating with. So get personal on your contact page and consider adding photos of the people who respond to and answer phone calls and contact form submissions. Let your visitors know actual humans are on-hand and ready to help.
9. Add personality
Your brand has a personality — a brand voice, language, and tone that is used in marketing, communications, social media interactions, and website copy. Your contact page needs to use the same voice and showcase the same personality as the rest of your website!
If your brand is casual and fun, the language and calls-to-action on your contact page also need to be casual and fun. And don’t forget, the contact form thank you page is the perfect place to really kick it up a notch and let your brand personality fly.
10. Use responsive design
Considering that more than 50% of all traffic to websites worldwide is from mobile, it seems crazy that we still have to tell site owners that their sites and, especially their forms, need to be optimized for those browsing and taking action from mobile devices. That means larger form fields and larger buttons to accommodate fingers doing the clicking.
Unfortunately, a huge number of small business websites are still not mobile-friendly, which means these businesses are losing out on potential new business and the opportunity to create new fans.
11. Make sure the contact form works
Test your contact form to make sure it is easy to use and that it works properly. Fill out the form and go through the process as if you are a first-time visitor. Double-check that the thank you page displays as it should, the content is correct and updated, the right person received the email notification, and that the correct follow-up is happening.
12. Include a call-to-action
Don’t forget to include a call-to-action on your contact page and encourage visitors to take action. Whether you want people to send an email, make a phone call, or fill out a contact form, adding a compelling call-to-action will increase contact page conversions.
A Consistent, Cohesive Brand Experience
To provide a consistent brand experience, every interaction, even on the contact page, must be aligned with your brand messaging, personality, and experience. This means your website contact page needs to be part of your website strategy. It isn’t something you can ignore.
While the person contacting you today might not be a great fit for your services at this moment, you don’t know who they know, who they may refer your way, or who they may go to work for in the future — and providing them with an extraordinary experience on even the simplest of pages can make a long-lasting impression.
