Your small business website is one of the most important lead-generating machines for your business. But, it’s only as good as its functionality. When a potential customer lands on your website, they should be able to easily contact your business, make a purchase or take any other conversion action, fast.

Forms are a common part of many website conversion processes. From demo requests and payment forms to service scheduling, forms can help you gather the customer information you need to grow your business. 

Learn more about the different types of website forms, and use these website form best practices to make your forms more conversion-friendly.

Types of web forms

From simple contact forms to customer surveys, website forms can collect a wide variety of helpful information. 

Common types of forms include:

• Customer surveys
• Lead forms: demo requests, inquiry forms, etc. 
• Job application forms
• Contact forms
• Scheduling forms
• Order forms
• Review forms

Website form best practices

Make it mobile

Mobile accounts for more than half of web traffic worldwide. Make sure your website forms are mobile-friendly and scale across all mobile devices. Testing your website yourself is a good way to self-check that your website forms are easy to use on mobile.

Keep contact forms short

Only require your visitors to fill out what’s necessary. In general, longer forms equal fewer responses. 

Ask for their name, email and/or phone number, and a field where they can leave a question or comment. Then, think critically about what else you need to know.

Requiring lots of personal information can discourage potential leads from filling out your form.

Tell people what to expect 

Tell people what will happen after they submit a form. Explaining the next action will help manage website visitors’ expectations and can improve customer experience. 

For example, after a contact form is submitted, a message that says, “Thanks for filling out our form! We will respond within 24-48 hours” will let the person know their form was received, and that your team will be following up within the next couple of days. 

Use engaging CTAs

By incentivizing your form, you can encourage more leads. 

Encourage people to fill out your forms by highlighting what they’ll receive. For example, if you’re a gym trying to beef up your email subscriber list, you can say something like: 

• “Subscribe to our emails to get easy nutrition and fitness tips straight to your inbox every week!”

You could also offer discounts for visitors who subscribe to your email marketing list. This could sound like: 

• “Get 20% Off Your First Order When You Join Our Email List”!

You can also use CTAs on lead forms. For example, service-based companies often offer a free consultation or demo of their services. These forms could lead with CTAs like:

• “Sign Up For Your No-Obligation Free Consultation!” or “Contact Us Today To Schedule A Free Demo”

Signal trust

Website visitors won’t fill out your forms if they don’t trust you. By communicating how you’ll use their information, you can help build trust and make users feel confident filling out your forms.

Statements you can include on your form to signal trust include:

• “Unsubscribe anytime” – You can use this on an email signup form to let users know they’re able to unsubscribe if they don’t find your email marketing content useful. 
• “We respect your privacy” – When you’re asking for personal information like a phone number or email, people may understandably be wary. By linking to your privacy policy on your website and including a privacy statement on your form, it can help build trust. 
• “No credit card required” – If you offer a free demo or free version of your product, make it clear that the potential client doesn’t need to provide payment info. This can remove any hesitation and encourage a form submission. 
• “Money-back guarantee” – If you offer a money-back guarantee or another quality promise, highlighting those on relevant forms, like order forms, scheduling forms or payment forms, can help build purchasing confidence.

Keep placement in mind

In general, it should be easy for website users to find your forms, but they shouldn’t clutter up your design. 

Having a main contact page in your navigation that hosts your contact information and forms is one way to make it easy for website visitors to contact you. 

You can also include forms on internal product and services pages. Just make sure you provide information about your services before you ask users to fill out a form. 

Many websites feature pop-up forms that appear right when someone lands on the site. Pop-ups aren’t great for user experience and can cause more harm than good. If you must use a pop-up, delay it so that it only appears after a user has been on the site for a certain amount of time, or after they’ve visited a set number of pages. 

Design website forms with ease using Marketing 360®

Marketing 360® is the #1 Marketing Platform® for small business owners. Our Forms app makes it easy to create customized, mobile-friendly forms for your unique business. 

Learn more and see our plans and pricing.

Originally published on 12/15/20