Why your contact form gets nothing, and the five fixes that change it

If your site gets visitors and your form gets nothing, the problem is almost never that people do not want to contact you. It is that the form asks too much, promises too little, sits where nobody sees it, or — more often than anyone admits — works fine and the emails are going to spam. Here are the five things to check, in the order that most often turns out to be the cause.

One: is it actually working?

Fill it in yourself, from your phone, on mobile data. Did you get the email? Did the person “sending” get a confirmation? A large share of “our form doesn’t work” turns out to be a form that works perfectly and mail that never arrives, because the website sends it from a server no mailbox trusts. Check the spam folder. Then check whether the site stores submissions somewhere you can see, so a delivery problem does not mean a lost lead. If none of that is true, fix it before anything else; you may have been losing enquiries for months.

Two: it asks for too much

Name, company, phone, email, address, budget, timeline, how did you hear about us, message. Nine fields is a job application. Each field loses a share of the people who started. Ask for the minimum you need to reply: a name, one way to reach them, and what they need. Everything else can be asked in the reply, or offered as optional tap-to-choose options rather than typed. If you must ask budget, make it a range with a “not sure yet” option.

Three: it does not say what happens next

“Submit” tells the visitor nothing. “Get my free quote” or “Send — a person replies within one business day” tells them what they are agreeing to and when to expect it. Put the promise next to the button and keep it. The confirmation email should repeat it. Uncertainty about what happens after the click is a bigger reason for not clicking than most owners believe.

Four: nothing around it says you are real

A form on a page with no reviews, no photo of a person, no address, no company name and no prices is a form on a page that could be anyone’s. Put proof near the form: a review or two, the number of reviews you have, a real name, where you are registered, a starting price. On a phone, the form should not be the first thing on the page; the reason to fill it in should be.

Five: it is in the wrong place, or only one place

A single form on a Contact page reached from a menu is a form most visitors never see. The people ready to enquire are on your service pages, at the bottom, having just read what you do and what it costs. Give them a short form or a booking button right there. On a phone, a sticky bar with “Email us” and “Book a call” keeps the two actions within reach on every page; it should not cover content, and it should only appear once the visitor has scrolled past the top.

Measure before and after

Whatever you change, know the number before you change it: visitors to the page, form starts, form completions. A funnel that is measured can be improved; one that is not is a matter of opinion.

If you want the whole funnel looked at

Our funnel audit is $750: we check your analytics and event tracking first, map the path from first visit to enquiry or sale, measure where people leave, and rank the fixes by how much each is likely to recover. It is credited in full to a fix sprint if you go ahead within thirty days. Many of the fixes above are in every audit we do.