How to Make Website Forms Work for You

 As a business owner, website forms are one of the most powerful lead generation tools you have at your disposal. Forms are a key way to get value out of your website in the form of new customers and qualified leads. If you don’t have any forms on your site, or if your existing forms are lackluster, there’s no better time than the present to elevate your forms and grow your business.

How to Leverage Website Forms for Your Business

One of the best things about forms is how multipurpose they can be. You can customize forms to capture all kinds of information on different pages. Regardless of whether you are doing something as simple as gathering email addresses for your newsletter list or collecting information for a new long-term project, a website form is the perfect tool. Want to know how to do it right to capture as much information as possible without frustrating potential customers? Read our tips below.

1. Think about your funnel

A huge part of successfully targeting forms is making sure they’re in the right places. You need to consider not only a form’s position on the page, but also which forms are on which pages. It’s common practice to put basic subscription or contact forms requiring only a name and email on every page, in a global location like the footer. This is a good idea because it gives potential clients access to a contact method on every page. However, other forms may require more thought. Consider where in your sales funnel each of your website’s pages may fit. If there are pages customers primarily visit early in the funnel, forms should not require extensive information. If they do, you’re likely to scare people off. On the other hand, if customers are at an advanced funnel stage when they visit a certain page, forms can be more detailed because the people filling them out already feel a certain level of commitment to your brand.

2. Create easy, self-explanatory website forms

Creating website forms that fill a spot on a page is easy, but creating forms that actually get completed and submitted is much harder. The easier and more intuitive a form is, the more likely it is to garner responses. Label all the fields as clearly as you can, and make sure any error messages are in an easily readable font and color.

3. Target and clarify form messaging

The last thing you want after people have filled out a form on your website is for them to be left with a sense of uncertainty. Make sure to have a thank you message or page that appears to confirm their submission, and if possible, send them an email shortly after they’ve completed the form.

4. Offer something in return

If you want more people to fill out your forms, one of the best and easiest way is to offer them something in return for their information. This might be a whitepaper from a staff member of your company, a discount code, or a free consultation. This can help build trust in your business and help you build form submission numbers.

What’s the best website form you’ve ever seen? Have you ever had a frustrating experience with a form? Unfortunately, forms can end up frustrating customers, but done right, they are among the best lead generation tools in the business!