Have you seen a big dip in leads lately, even though you’ve got a contact form on your website? A contact form is an essential tool in your website when it comes to lead generation. It allows visitors to send information to the site owner AKA you without exposing their email addresses to spam bots. However, outdated website elements or plugins that make your contact forms work, can lead to technical issues, customer frustration, and decreased leads.
In the past few months, you might have noticed or heard that websites need security updates made to them in order for the emails automatically produced by contact forms to actually get to where they’re supposed to. In short, if you haven’t given your website a little TLC lately, you might be missing out on leads thanks to a recent security upgrade you haven’t yet made. And, we all know missed leads, are missed opportunities, that are crucial to the success of your business.
Fret not though, we’ve compiled this simple guide for you to follow that overviews contact forms and what you need to know about the latest updates to popular email programs, as well as suggestions to make sure your online lead generation engine is doing its job.
But First, What Is A Contact Form?
A contact form is basically a form on a website or app where you can type out a message, hit send, and that message is sent to the website owner. It’s a convenient way to reach out to the business to request more information, a consultation, or to book an appointment without having to open your email. Just type your message right there on the site, hit send, and off it goes! For the business, it is a place to gather information from potential customers, we would be referred to as leads, to start the sales process.
What Are The Benefits Of Contact Forms?
Putting your email address out there on your website might seem convenient, but it’s a big no-no to an extent. Spam bots are constantly scouring the web for email addresses, and if they snag yours, you could end up drowning in spammy emails, from phishing attempts to straight-up scams.
HOT TIP: If you’re thinking of listing all the email addresses of your entire team on your about us page under each person’s name — DO NOT DO THAT.
However, a button to a contact form is something you could do instead. Contact forms keep your email address hidden from scammers, so you can dodge those spam bots. Sure, contact forms can’t block all the spam out there, but you can beef up your defenses by adding CAPTCHA or by adding other security measures to your website to help prevent as much as possible.
The biggest benefit of adding a contact form to your website is that your form can capture leads 24/7. That’s like having a 24/7 salesperson working for you while you sleep. Think about it: if someone tries to reach out by phone when you’re not around, they might bounce off to your competitor instead. Having a contact form where they can ask their question or request a consultation ensures they can still drop you a line, even if you’re not there to pick up the phone, instead of you losing out entirely. Granted some people like to speak to a real human and aren’t in love with using a booking form but, many people are just as happy to fill out a form and wait for a reply. It really comes down to knowing your customers and what they prefer.
TEST IT OUT — If Your Contact Form On Your Website Isn’t Working, You May Need An Update
Contact forms can be tricky beasts. If you’re only getting a few leads each week, it’s essential to stay on top of things by regularly testing your contact form—just fill it out and hit submit to make sure you get the form submission via email so you know everything’s running smoothly. And if you usually get a ton of leads but notice a sudden drop-off, don’t wait around—get those forms checked ASAP.
What update might you need? You could be missing out on leads coming from the contact form on your website because you need to upgrade to a newer security protocol. There are several popular WordPress plugins that most websites will use to build web contact forms that send emails to you, including Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, and WP Forms. The first things to check when you aren’t receiving information from your form are your plugins and WordPress core. If there is a pending update – take a backup and then update it. It shouldn’t take long to fix it but, taking a backup before updating any plugins is a smart idea because errors happen. There could be a bug in the code or another plugin that doesn’t play nice with the new update. And, the more outdated website code there is throughout your website the more chances there are that you’ll run into conflicts and errors.
If you’ve updated everything and you’re still not receiving the email from your contact form, there are two solutions – One is to set up an SMTP plugin or consult your email provider to see if they now require an app password key be input into your contact form tool to make it work properly.
Setting up an SMTP plugin to support your contact form
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP for short) is basically a set of rules for sending emails online. If you’re having trouble with a Contact Form 7 Error on your WordPress site, we’ve got you covered with step-by-step instructions explaining how to fix the issue using the WP Mail SMTP plugin. This handy plugin sorts out any email delivery problems by making sure WordPress uses the right service to send your emails.
HOT TIP: As the plugin uses the password specific to the email address you are trying to send the form submission to, if you update the password for your email, you’ll also need to update the password in the plugin to match. If you don’t it will stop working.
Generating an App Password to support your contact form
Depending on the email program you use, in order to use the SMTP plugin on your WordPress site, you may need to generate an app password in your email account. (The app we are referring to here is the email app or program you use.) To learn how to set up an app password specific to the system you are using, click on your provider in the list below for instructions:
What Other Things Might Fix A Low Volume Of Leads From Your Contact Form?
- Make Sure Your web host isn’t blocking your emails. If you’ve updated your plugins and core code and the email still does not send, then you should contact your email host next. But, not until you send an email to yourself and another person from the form. It takes a few minutes to update which email address a form is sending to but, if you put your email address in and it doesn’t work but, it does work when you put in a gmail.com email for example, the issue is very likely that your mail provider is blocking you from receiving it. Why would it be blocking it? Because your email provider is trying to protect you from spam emails. Contact them and let them know it’s happening. There are usually a few things at that point they can change in their email system security settings to let that email through. All you have to do (usually) is ask.
- Use the KISS principle. One reason why people might not fill out contact forms is if they’re too complicated. In this case, it’s not that the form doesn’t work. It’s that people are too lazy to fill it out. A basic form usually asks for your name, phone number, email, and message. These are simple and quick to fill out. You may also want to add easy options that relate to your business that will help you qualify the answer to your customer’s questions and, avoid making them feel like they are answering a ten page questionnaire.
- Make sure there’s an “other” option. When you’re offering different choices to a question in your form, make sure you offer an answer that isn’t specific, like other, N/A, or “I don’t know”. And, give them a text message box following that labeled something like “If you choose other, tell us what we can help you with.”
- Make it easy to verify the person is a human. To stop being hit by spam bots, many forms use some kind of verification or Capture. There are two main ways to do this. One is a simple formula or input that only a human could complete. This could be an equation like 5 + 7, or ask them to type in a series of letters and numbers that are shown in a Captcha. You know, those slightly annoying, slightly hard to read images that you have to read and enter the characters you see because the computer is asking you to prove you’re human. The best way to implement this tactic is to use a service like Google’s reCAPTURE that offers a simple checkbox stating “I am not a robot” although there are fancier options you can implement through this tool as well. However, you will have to install an API key from Google on your website to make these work.
- Identify form errors clearly. If there is an error or a missed required field after someone tries to submit the form, make that warning below those fields really stand out with a red border and tell the user clearly what the issue is. You really want to avoid using a generic phrase like, ‘There was an issue submitting your form”. Why? Because frustrated customers will exit your website and go to your competitor instead. It’s really that simple.
- Make sure your form works on mobile devices. Thoroughly test your forms on both mobile and desktop devices, but most importantly on mobile because typically 80-90% of your website traffic is mobile. Mobile forms often have issues like input boxes that are too small, labels that are hard to read or that are not showing on the screen, error messages that are unreadable, or some functions of the form that don’t work simply because the tool that you are using lacks responsive modifications. Meaning that it’s not designed to be used on mobile devices.
If Your Contact Forms Are Still Not Generating Leads Or If You Can’t Seem To Make It Work…It’s Time For A Website Audit
And, we’re the people to call to get a website audit done! If you’re ready to throw up your hands in frustration because your contact form still isn’t producing the results you’re looking for, it’s time to give 3SIXTY Marketing Solutions a call. We can do a website audit to pinpoint where your problems may be stemming from, give you an estimate so you know what it will cost to have us fix it, and then we’ll fix it for you and bring all your contact forms up-to-date when we do. Give us a call today at 647-250-1494, or book a free consultation to get started. When you’re not getting any leads, there is no time to delay. Whether it’s a simple fix or your website needs a refresh, we can help you work out the issues and get your lead generation funnel flowing again.
