Creating the Perfect Contact Page for Your Website

The process that you might follow is that you write some form of content, perhaps a blog, and in that content, you put at least one call-to-action. Once your reader clicks on the call-to-action, he or she will eventually arrive at your contact page. That page should be perfectly suited to your needs.

The anatomy of a perfect contact page

There many important parts to a perfect contact page on your website and many different things that you need to take into account as you are planning your contact page. If you do it correctly, it will yield positive results and it will achieve the results that you need it to achieve for your business.

• A form to fill out: Many businesses use a contact form to gather information on their prospective clients. However, it is safe to say that not every business uses one. Some businesses feel that having the person’s phone number is enough, at least, initially. However, in those cases where the business does have a form to fill out, you should consider that a very important part of your contact page so you need to make sure that you get it right before you do anything else.

• Take some security measures: In the event that you have a form on your contact page, it is necessary to put some security measures in place because you are asking other people for proprietary information. The last thing that either you or your prospect want is for private information to end up in the wrong hands. If you want to know how to determine if a page is secure, it will have “https” at the beginning of the URL. You will need to actually obtain a security certificate, which you are certain is valid.

• Pay attention to the identity part of the contact page: It is really sensible to have two fields for the name (one for the first name and one for the last name). That will allow you to collect data with integrity. A single field (instead of two) will cause the eventuality of separating the first and last name at some point in the future anyway. A salutation (Mr., Mrs., Ms., etc) is a really good idea on your form because it leaves no doubt about the gender of the person who is filling out the form.

• Two are better than one: When it comes to the Email address box, it is a good idea to have a double box. The reason that a double box is such a good idea is because human beings make typing errors sometimes. If a person types your Email and makes a mistake, a message will pop up that he or she made a mistake. The second box is there for the purpose of a second chance.

• Other valuable data fields: There are a lot of different pieces of information that may prove useful to you as a business owner at some point in the future, if not right now. While you are building your contact page (or having it built by someone else), you may as well put in those other fields. Exactly what you put on your contact page depends largely on what the needs are of your particular business. It is important to keep in mind that at least some of those fields should be optional. You should only make those fields that ask for essential information that you really need.

• Keep things organized: When you are dealing with a large amount of data, it is critical that you keep everything organized. If everything is in order, you will have a much better chance of achieving positive results than you would if your information is all over the place. Part of the organization means that your choice of who should receive your Emails is well thought out and has a specific purpose in mind. For that reason, you will need to think about what you want to do before you do it.

• Communicate clearly about attachments: When your online connections respond to your request(s), there may be an attachment involved. If that is the case, it is really important for you to be clear about which attachment formats will be acceptable to you. It is always a good idea to make sure that everyone is on the same page so that things run smoothly.

• The characteristics of your message box: Message boxes have character limits or word limits. It is important that you state the limit clearly for the sake of your online connections. Otherwise, the person may type in a long message and it will be truncated without his or her knowledge.

• Guard against spam: Spam protection is recommended. You don’t want to have to deal with spammers and the drivel that they try to send to you. It gunks up the system and makes it difficult and unpleasant for everyone concerned.

• Error protection: Once your online connection hits the submit button, you should have a safety net in place that lets you know if there are any errors in what the person submitted. You will begin to see how helpful that is rather quickly.

Conclusion   

Your contact page is very important because it is one of the few ways in which the person on the other side can interact with you. In fact, it may be solely responsible for getting a person to go from prospect to client. As you are considering the big picture, it is important for you to keep in mind that you need to optimize what can bring your business increased success. Your purpose is to start to build a relationship with that person and this will allow you to do just that.

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