A contact form can be one of the most important, and overlooked, elements of a website. Learn how to optimize contact form conversions on your site.
For many websites, contact form design is crucial for engaging with potential clients. A poorly designed contact form can go unnoticed. An optimized contact form can attract your audience and improve your conversion rate.
A lot of factors affect the form's conversion rate. We could simply adjust our contact forms until we have something we like, but the best way to improve the conversion rate of our contact forms to design it based on proven research.
Fortunately, this is an area that's gotten a lot of research. In this article, we'll look at 10 research-based tips to improve form conversions.
1. Use a well-designed layout
This contact form should be appealing and familiar. This includes the location and size of the fields. Labels should be placed above the fields and be clear and easy to understand. The form should look inviting and easy to use. An older study supported by Google shows that the size of the fields should match the expected length of the answer.
Read more: WordPress Form Design for Increasing User Engagement
2. Limit the number of form fields
Too many fields can be overwhelming and can turn people away. Reducing the number required fields will help create a cleaner form and keeps from overwhelming the user. In a study by QuickSprout, a form with only three fields saw a conversation rate of 25%. That percentage was reduced to 20% with up to 5 fields and to 15% with more than 6 fields.
Limit the number of fields to no more than 5, and make sure you have the correct tab order. You should also consider building a form conversation that guides your users through the survey one question at a time. This reduces distractions and keeps the form fields to one per page so users don't feel overwhelmed. If a form only has one or two fields, you may want to consider using it as an inline form.
3. Determine the best form placement
Be sure to place your contact forms on multiple pages in multiple locations. Studies show that your primary call to action should be above the fold. This area should also be clean and simple. If it’s cluttered, the form will go unnoticed.
A landing page with a simple form is a great way to eliminate clutter and distractions. Plus, it'll keep the form immediately visible for any screen size.
Clicktale shows that visitor attention and page exposure reduces exponentially below 540 pixels. The ideal is no lower than 800 pixels from the top of the page. They also show that 76% of their test pages were scrolled. Visitors are willing to scroll to see the content.
Read more: 6 Ways to Increase Conversions in Your Email Sign Up Form
4. Optimize the form for mobile
In a study by PerficientDigital, in 2018 58% of website visits in the US were on mobile devices. This means it’s a good idea to optimize the contact form for mobile. Since you’ll have limited space, optimizing for mobile helps you to eliminate fields that you don’t need, resulting in a cleaner design.
5. Use the best label for the button
Optimize your submit button by choosing the best words. QuickSprout shows that certain words and phrases get more clicks than others. The word 'Submit' saw a 3% decrease in clicks. The words 'Click Here' saw a 30% increase in clicks.
Consider using action words that inform them of what’s happening. For example, phrases such as 'Request Information', 'Request Price', or similar words remind the user of what’s happening.
6. Use the right color for the button
There isn’t a single color that’s best in every situation, but there can be a color that’s best for your audience. This is true for any call to action and applies to the submit button of the contact form. Hubspot's A/B test showed that a red CTA button outperformed a green button by 21%. OptinMonster shows that we should use color psychology when choosing colors for CTAs.
7. Don't ask for personal information you don't need
People typically do not like to give information such as their phone number and address. This can cause a high level of form of abandonment. KoMarketing shows that a phone number is the leading information, at 58%, that users prefer not to include on a form. This is even truer today as spam calls have become more prevalent. A home address was next, at 53%.
If you have questions you only need answered based on another field, use conditional logic to build smarter forms.
8. Don’t use CAPTCHA
CAPTCHA is great for reducing spam, but it also reduces the number of submissions in a lead form. Moz has researched the effect of CAPTCHA on conversion rates. For their test period of three months, spam was reduced by 88% but they saw a failed conversion rate of 7.3%.
Images and text can be difficult to see, and the extra steps of performing math equations or answering questions can be a turn off to many users. Formidable Forms uses reCAPTCHA, which is usually invisible to your site visitors.
9. Make the errors clear
If the user encounters an error, make sure it’s easy for them to quickly see what the error was. Errors can cause stress. If it’s too difficult to figure out, they might move on. Make sure the problem is highlighted and the message is near the field.
10. Perform an A/B test on form conversion rates
It is important to do A/B tests to see what location works best for you. For example, Crazyegg saw a conversion increase of 304% by placing the CTA under the content rather than in the sidebar.
Wrapping up on form conversion rates
That’s our 10 research-based tips to increase conversion rates in contact forms. Simplifying your contact form, making it easy to understand, not asking for too much information, making it appealing, and making it easy to use will greatly improve the conversion rate of any contact form.
If your business depends on visitors using your contact forms, it’s crucial that the form is as optimized as possible. The tips are easy to implement and can make a huge impact on your conversions.
Read more: How to Build Helpful WordPress Forms That Convert
We want to hear from you. Have you tried these 10 tips to improve your contact form conversions with your Formidable Forms? Let us know about your experience in the comments.
Not using Formidable yet? Take a look at all the great form builder features to see how Formidable Forms can help you increase your form conversion rates.
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Thanks for sharing the real results! I know how annoying captcha can be and how it affects the conversion results. However, it is a big help in reducing spam. Can you share an alternative way to reduce spam without using captcha?
Formidable Forms also includes a built-in honeypot spam filter and optional javascript spam filtering. These two options have zero impact on the end user, but do a great job at reducing spam.