The pattern I have been seeing on my client's websites is that the contact page is usually the second or third most viewed page behind the homepage. However, despite this being the case, the majority of websites on the internet seem to treat this page as an afterthought. It's creators seem to have just thrown one up to tick off a box.
Homepage check
About page, check,
every other page, check
.... contact page .. check
I don't know about you, but if I knew that a page was the second most visited on my website, and that it directly contributes to leads and sales for my business, this is a page that I would be placing a lot of emphasis on.
If you are about to create a website, or you are one of those online business owners who’s contact page is lagging behind the rest of their website, I am about to share a few tips with you that will help you take advantage of this traffic and convert more of your visitors into actual leads and sales.
People hate contact forms
Personally, when I see a contact form, I always get this sneaky feeling that once I fill it out and click the “send” button more than likely I will never hear back from this company/person. If I, someone who makes websites for a living feel this way, random people who visit your contact page surely do as well.
Anecdotally even on my website, though I make sure that a contact form is present on literally every page, the vast majority of my leads still choose to call me or send a direct email.
You need to make sure that you are displaying multiple ways for a potential lead to get in touch with you. At the bare minimum, your contact page should display a email address, a phone number, and links to the social media accounts that you actually check.
Keep It Simple
Anything on your website that puts a barrier between your sales inbox and your customer can be thought of friction. People only have so much patience, so the more friction they experience when trying to get in touch with your business the more likely they will be to abandon the process. An effective well-designed contact page is one that provides as little friction as possible while still giving you the information you need to qualify clients and separate the wheat from the chaff.
Keep your contact form as short as possible. Focus on information that is immediately important and remove anything that not absolutely necessary to qualify your leads and/or provide the service. When it comes to a potential lead, do you really need to know their exact age, their industry, or their gender immediately upon first contact?
Realistically, how many businesses genuinely need more than an email address, name, and a short message? In fact, if you know what to look for, what someone chooses to include in a short message can tell you a lot more about them than things like their nationality or gender.
Track Your Conversion Rate
Without seeing the numbers and tracking your conversions it is almost impossible to know if the changes you are making are having a positive or negative effect. Even if you make a change and see a sudden spike in leads, there is no way for you to verify that that it is not a result of some unknown external force (e.g., increased website traffic, a social media post going viral etc.,).
Tracking your leads will allow you to see how many people are visiting your contact page, and what percentage of them are getting in touch with you as a result. This will allow you to verify, based on percentages, whether or not a change you have made is having the intended impact.
Tools like Google Analytics will allow you to not only track how many people have clicked the "contact" button, but also how many have filled out the form, how many of them have abandoned the form, and at what point they have abandoned it. You can also display a heatmap visualization, which will give you insight on where your visitors are looking and in what concentrations.
This is invaluable stuff if you want to craft the perfect contact us page. One that has been optimized to convert the highest possible number of qualified leads.
Conclusion
Some of Google Analytics’ most useful tracking features cannot be set up unless you have a technical background and/or know how to code.
If you are interested in improving the effectiveness of your contact page all you have to do is get in touch with me. I will set up all of the required Google Analytics conversion tracking, then go through a process of analysis and iteration to craft the perfect contact us page for your business.