What the perfect contact page on a website should look like

The contact page is a fundamental element in any website. But there is a type of website where we live on lead generation, and in this case it becomes a fundamental element.

Below we review the main features that such a page should have, as well as its integration with the website as a whole and our digital marketing strategy.

1. Your website must have a contact page

Unless one of the client's requirements is explicitly that you do not want to receive interactions from users (which is very rare), every website should have a contact page. Although it is possible to include contact forms in the menu, header or footer, among others, we recommend always having a specific page, where all contact channels should be concentrated.

2. The contact page should be very accessible

Let's make it easy for the user to access our contact formulas. We recommend adding a direct link from the header of the website, and if possible in a prominent way: with a different colour, in the form of a button, etcetera. Also think that this accessibility should be there at all times and not only when I access the page. Let's imagine that I have read an informative content on a web page and I may be interested in contacting you. It is useful to put for example banners or sticky elements that allow me to contact the company from anywhere on the web, or CTAs on the service pages that suggest contact when I am interested. In the case of having a catalogue website, with a product but without e-commerce enabled, the contact button will be a central and priority element in the product file.

3. The contact page should be highly recognisable

Sometimes for creative reasons we give code names to the contact section, making it difficult to identify it quickly. Creativity is very important but it can be applied to thousands of aspects of a website, but here we advise you to be very uncreative. Try calling your contact page "Contact".

4. Provide all necessary information and keep it up to date

This seems very obvious but a user will appreciate that the information is up to date, and it will be very useful not only to offer contact information, but also complementary information such as customer service hours, company holidays, etcetera.

5. Offer several ways of contact

Unless logistically impossible, we recommend that the contact page is not a simple contact form. It is advisable to provide as many ways of contact as possible, and it is crucial that there is one for immediate attention (chat, telephone or WhatsApp, among others). If we do not offer an immediate service channel, we run the risk of losing a good potential client.

6. Track your potential customers well

It is very important to monitor the user's behaviour on our website regarding the proposed forms of contact. We suggest measuring everything you can in this section: visits to the contact page, clicks to send email (mailto), tracking of forms sent (if possible knowing the last page read and the input channel), or clicks to phones and chat buttons or whatsapps, among others. This tracking will allow us to know to what extent our services are interesting for our web visitor, our conversion rate into leads, as well as the contact channels preferred by those visitors. The more information we obtain, the better position we will be in to make future decisions.

7. Apply security solutions to your forms

To prevent spammersfrom sending mass forms, it is advisable to set up some kind of filter to reduce this phenomenon, although it will never be totally reduced. These mass mailings can bring down the website, infect websites or computers, or simply make lead management difficult and alter statistics. There are several technological solutions, although the best known is Google's recaptcha. Even so, you must ensure that it does not hinder the contact process too much, that the sending continues to be done correctly, and its impact on the loading speed of the website, and its impact on the Core Web Vitals and SEO.

8. Inform users of their progress

In a form submission process, it is essential to consider the different scenarios and that the user is informed at all times about how it is evolving. We must have ways of clearly informing the user when the form has been sent (a thank you page?), but also to keep them patient while it is being processed (an evolutionary with a percentage or a simple entertainment), and also in the event that there has been a problem, indicate what it is so that they can repair it (normally it will be due to an incorrectly completed or empty field). Likewise, once the form has been processed, we recommend configuring the sending of an e-mail to the user confirming receipt and providing guidance on the deadlines to be followed.

9. Legally compliant contact forms

Any website must comply with the law, and especially in aspects that include the processing, submission and storage of data. Consult an expert on the matter with these cases as the law is changing, but you will have seen that on many pages, before submitting a form, the visitor is informed of the site's privacy policy, with a link and mandatory compliance.

10. Capture commercial leads

When a person sends us a contact form and accepts the privacy policy, they are consenting to you contacting them to inform them about the specific query they have made. You do not have the right to add them to your customer files or contact them for other purposes. But you can always add a second OPTIONAL check, for those users who do agree to receive our commercial proposals in the future.

11. Integrate the data

The completion of forms is normally sent by email to the company, and sometimes it is also saved in the backoffice of the website for consultation. But if you want to go a step further, the ideal is to integrate this form entry with your ERP or CRM for better lead management, or in the case of commercial communications, synchronise it with the system you use to send newsletters, such as Mailchimp.

12. Leverage the page for SEO

The main purpose of a contact page is not usually an organic entry point, as it is usually a very functional thing with almost no content or context. However, in some cases it is possible to give it an intentionality. We advise you to carry out a small keyword study to determine whether you would be interested in targeting keywords such as "your service" + price, budget, contact, etcetera. Contact pages tend to be pages with a lot of visitors and internal linking, and consequently with a lot of authority among the internal URLs.