Your contact form: how to get more enquiries in

The form is where it happens

Your whole site works towards one moment: someone fills in your form. That's exactly where many visitors drop out. Not because they aren't interested, but because the form works against them.

The good news: the rules for a good form are well researched. And most of them can be fixed in an hour.

Fewer fields isn't the whole story

You often hear that every extra field costs you enquiries. That's only partly true. HubSpot looked at more than 40,000 landing pages. The number of fields made little difference. What did hurt: several large text boxes and dropdown menus.

More important than the number is how the form is built. In research by Seckler and colleagues, 78% submitted a form that followed the guidelines correctly on the first try. For a form that didn't, it was 42%.

So cut fields you don't use when you follow up. And keep the field that makes the enquiry usable.

Which fields, in what order

For an ordinary contact form, three to five fields are enough. In this order:

1. Name. One field, not separate first and last name. In Baymard's testing, 42% of participants typed their full name into a "First name" field anyway.
2. Email address. That's where your reply goes.
3. Phone number, optional, unless you really do call back. Say why you ask: "Only to ask questions about the job."
4. How can we help? As radio buttons or buttons, not as a dropdown.
5. Message, optional and last. Free text takes the most effort, so it should never be the hurdle.

Put labels above the fields, in one column. Don't use example text inside the field as the label: it disappears as soon as someone starts typing. And mark required fields with a clear asterisk.

Need a quote? Work in steps

Do you need more to give a price, such as size, type of job and postcode? Then split the form into two or three steps:

1. The job: type of work, size, postcode. Easy questions, and it feels like getting help.
2. When: how soon it needs doing, and maybe a photo.
3. Who: name, email and phone, with the button "Get my price estimate".

Contact details come last. By then the visitor has already put in effort and sees what they get for it.

The button and what sits under it

"Submit" is the weakest button text there is. Say what the visitor gets: "Request a quote", "Book my appointment", "Get my price estimate".

Directly under the button belongs one line that removes the doubt that comes up at that moment. Am I committing to something? When will I hear back?

No strings attached. We reply within one working day.

And give a way out for people who don't like forms: "Rather call? 020 123 4567". According to Nielsen Norman Group, many people prefer to call, and distrust sites that hide their phone number.

Error messages and privacy

Show an error message next to the field, as soon as someone leaves the field. Not while they're typing, and not as one general message at the top. Say what's wrong and how to fix it: "Fill in an email address with an @, like name@company.com."

Above the button, put one line about what you do with the details, with a link to your privacy statement. That's the GDPR, but it also reassures. Want to offer a newsletter? Then as a separate box that is not ticked in advance.

After sending

Don't send people back to your homepage with a small notification. A thank-you page does four things, in this order:

1. Confirm what has arrived. "Thanks, Sanne. Your request for roof insulation is in."
2. Say who will reply, and when. "Mark will call you tomorrow before 12:00." People expect to hear something within 24 hours.
3. Give them something to do. "Take a few photos of your roof in the meantime."
4. A direct channel for urgent matters.

Then send a confirmation email with the details they entered. That way the customer knows for sure it went through.

In short

• Three to five fields, one name field, labels above the fields.
• A button that says what you get, with a reassuring line under it.
• Need a quote: in steps, contact details last.
• A thank-you page that says who replies when.

Want to know where your form is leaking? With website optimisation we test it every month on real traffic.