Writing your website content can be tough. It’s hard knowing what to say, and it can be even harder blowing your own trumpet. So you focus on things like your homepage, about page and sales pages, so you can find the right way to show people how awesome you are and why they should work with you.
But that means that other pages are often an afterthought, or forgotten about altogether. Like your contact page.
When clients give me the content of their site so I can start designing it, I often have to go back to them because they haven’t given me any content at all for their contact page. And I can’t design around content I don’t have!
It’s such an important part of your site though. Because once you’ve got people interested in working with you, they need to be able to get in touch with you. Your contact page is the last step in convincing people to make an inquiry. Until they’ve actually sent you a message or called you they can still change their mind and you lose the opportunity altogether.
So you see, your contact is really not something that should be overlooked or thrown together.
Since this seems to be a tricky page to put together, let’s take a look at how to write your contact page. And to make it even easier for you, I’ve put together a worksheet you can fill in and give to your designer; download it here:
What should I include on my contact page?
[Tweet “What should you include on your website’s contact page? Download this free worksheet to help write a contact page that converts”]
First things first, you need some sort of introduction and call to action on the page – a page with just a list of contact details simply won’t cut it.
Explain why people should contact you and how that benefits them.
For example, if your contact page is more of a customer services hub, people will have issues or questions regarding their account. So the introduction could be something like:
“Got a problem with your account? We’re here to help you get back on track”
Or imagine you offer business coaching and your contact page is aimed at attracting new customers. You could try something like:
“Ready to uplevel your business? Get in touch to book your free 15 minute consult call”
Or if it’s more of a general contact page and you could be dealing with a variety of inquiries, you could go with something quite general, like:
“Got a question? I’d love to hear from you”
It’s also a good idea to give people an idea of what happens next. Like, how long will they be waiting for a reply? If you deal with inquiries twice a week, let them know it’ll be a few days, for example:
“I check and respond to messages on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I’ll be in touch soon”
Or if you pride yourself on super fast responses, you could try something like:
“Send us an email and we’ll get back to you soon, usually within 3 hours”
Remember to stick to your brand’s voice when you’re writing your intro and call to action. For example, if your brand is friendly and irreverent, an overly formal introduction on your contact page will seem out of place. Use the same kind of tone and language you’ve been using throughout the rest of your site.
You might also like: Easy ways to write better website copy
How should people contact you?
Next, think about how you want to be contacted.
Different people like to communicate in different ways so it’s a good idea to have more than one way for people to get in touch with you. But you don’t have to offer every contact method under the sun.
Start with the best way to reach you. Most people have a preferred way of being contacted. For example, if you’re a phone person who never checks their email, there’s no point asking people to send you an email. Make your phone number the most obvious contact method.
Or on the other hand, if you’re like me and your phone is usually either off or on silent, is there even any point in including your phone number? Instead, make it really obvious that the best way is to send you a message.
Then you can list any other contact methods you accept, like Facebook messenger, live chat, WhatsApp etc.
If you have multiple email addresses for different purposes or departments, like one for sales, one for customer support etc, make it clear when people should use each one. Don’t rely on people figuring it out for themselves or you may get support requests sent to the wrong department. It’s all about making it easy for people to get in touch and easy for you to deal with their inquiries.
Don’t forget the contact form
Most people expect to see a contact form these days, so don’t forget about that.
[Tweet “Most people expect websites to have contact forms, so remember to include that when creating your contact page”]
If you are using a contact form, think about the fields you need the form to have. As a bare minimum you’ll need the person’s name, email address and their message, so these 3 fields should be required (ie, the user must fill them in or the form won’t send the message).
If you also need other information, like their phone number or customer account number, be sure to note that down too so your designer knows to include those fields when they build your contact form. Think about what information you need from people in order to help them or deal with their inquiry quickly and efficiently.
Don’t make the form too long though or make every field required. The more information you ask for or require, the fewer inquiries you’ll get. Stick to the stuff you genuinely need.
Don’t forget to note down an email address that the form should send to as well – that’s the person/department who should be receiving messages from your contact form.
Where are you?
Do customers come to your business? If they visit you, you’ll need to include your address so they can find you, plus it would be extra helpful to include a map too.
[Tweet “Do customers visit your business? If they do, your contact page must include your address & a map is handy too”]
If you work from home or you go to your customers’ locations, on the other hand, that’s not usually needed. There’s no point adding a map if no one needs to use it.
If you have more than one location, like different branches of a cafe or shop, be sure to list them all so that people can find their nearest branch.
For some businesses it’s also necessary to include a mailing or registered address. For example, a limited company must display details like your company’s registered number and address on all promotional materials. It’s common to put that in the site footer but the contact page of your site could be a good place to include that info too.
Include social media
If your business has active profiles on social media sites, include links to them to encourage people to engage with your business there. Don’t bother including sites you’re not active on though, like if you set up a Twitter profile but rarely use it there’s no point sending people there.
Bonus tips and features
If you find yourself getting asked the same question/s over and over, it’s a good sign that your site needs some FAQs. This can lead to great content, either for blog posts or for a dedicated Frequently Asked Questions page, that you can link to from your contact page so you can spend less time sending people the same answers.
Consider setting up a ‘thank you’ page that people will be redirected to after filling in your contact form. This will outline the next steps, like how and when they’ll hear from you and can provide links to useful resources, like a downloadable price guide or worksheet, or popular and relevant blog posts on your site. And it’s a great place to put another call to action, like inviting them to sign up for your mailing list.
If you’re worried about getting spam through your contact form or by showing your email, that’s easily fixed. Add Google reCaptcha to your form; the latest version, v3, works in the background so people only have to click to prove they’re not a horrible spammer or robot if their message appears spammy. And you can obfuscate your email address so real people can see it and use it to contact you but it can’t be automatically scraped and used for nefarious purposes.
Download your free contact page worksheet
Grab a copy of the worksheet here:
Once you’ve filled it in, pass it to your designer and it’s ready for them to design you a cracking contact page that converts browsers into real leads. And if you need any help with the design of your new contact page, let’s work together. You can contact me here.