From getting questions in the comment section to people asking to be put in contact with someone, here are 12 answers to the question, “What are some signs to tell your “contact us” page isn’t good enough and needs updating?”
- Getting Questions in the Comment Section
- People Have Trouble Finding It
- Irrelevant Questions On the Contact Form
- Too Many Spam Bot Form Completions
- An Influx of Similar Questions
- Missing Social Media Links
- It Ignores CRO Practices
- When It Doesn’t Match the Rest of the Brand
- If Your Contact Us Page Has a Long Form
- High Bounce Rates
- When No One is Contacting Us
- People Ask to Be Put in Contact With Someone
Getting Questions in the Comment Section
If you’re getting a lot of questions in the comments section of your contact page, then you need to update it. People are looking for answers to their questions before they go through the hassle of leaving a comment. If your contact page doesn’t answer the questions that your visitors are asking, then it’s time to update it. You want to make it clear what you can offer and what your company does.
Matthew Ramirez, CEO, Rephrasely
People Have Trouble Finding It
Sometimes it’s simply the fact that the “Contact Us” link is too difficult to find. Oftentimes, people place that link at the bottom of the homepage. That isn’t necessarily bad, but it can be bad if your homepage is so full of content that the user has to scroll down so much that they give up trying to find it. Newspaper websites frequently have this problem.
If your website is loaded with content, you should have your Contact Us link in plain view or someplace where it can easily be seen. Have it at the top, put it in one of the margins, or place it strategically so that users don’t have to spend minutes scrolling and navigating through a heap of graphics and other content in order to find it. Don’t send the signal that your Contact Us page is merely an afterthought.
Rachel Blank, Founder and CEO, Allara
Irrelevant Questions On the Contact Form
Simplifying and streamlining the customer contact process should be a priority so that users can move seamlessly from start to finish without being deterred. A key sign that the current “contact us” page isn’t quite up-to-date is the presence of long forms or irrelevantly timed questions serving as impediments to progress.
This can be incredibly off-putting to potential customers and may very well leave them unsure of how to move forward with their query. By constantly refining your form, you encourage leads to progress and save time reviewing only the necessary information for that sales funnel stage.
Michael Sena, Founder and CEO, SENACEA
Too Many Spam Bot Form Completions
If you’re getting a lot of spam bot submissions on your “contact us” page, it means that you need to strengthen your website’s security. Start by adding a captcha to all of your forms. This will significantly reduce bot submissions.
In addition, be careful about auto-subscribing people to your mailing list when they fill out the form. If you don’t require a double opt-in, you could end up with thousands of email addresses on your list that belongs to people who did not opt-in. The result is that you’ll start getting spam reports when you send out newsletters and your sender’s reputation will be damaged. This will make deliverability difficult when you send legitimate emails to people who want them.
Dennis Consorte, Digital Marketing and Leadership Consultant for Startups, Snackable Solutions
An Influx of Similar Questions
As an online business owner, it always helps to analyze my “Contact Us” page on a regular basis. One easy way for me to tell if this page needs updating is when I start receiving an influx of emails that are asking the same questions over and over. This means that the key information about my business, such as an address, phone number, service hours, or FAQs, isn’t being properly conveyed. This can be an indication that the “Contact Us” page isn’t good enough and needs some revamping with more informative content. Fortunately, help should be easy to find since there are several resources available with tips on how to design a high-quality contact page to drive conversions.
Ludovic Chung-Sao, Lead Engineer and Founder, Zen Soundproof
Missing Social Media Links
If your social media links are missing, it’s time to add them. These days, many customers prefer to engage with brands through social platforms. By adding your social media links to your “Contact Us” page, you are making yourself much more accessible to customers. Furthermore, are there social platforms you should be on but aren’t? It could be time to evaluate your web presence as a whole.
Annie Ricci, Senior Manager of Digital Marketing, Prima
It Ignores CRO Practices
Treat your Contact Us page like any other squeeze page on your site. It’s a point of conversion, so there will be anxiety around the click. To ease that anxiety, add things like a picture of your team, testimonials, and a short FAQ. This builds trust and makes it easier for your prospects to reach out.
James De Roche, Managing Partner, Lead Comet
When It Doesn’t Match the Rest of the Brand
When a contact us page doesn’t match the current brand image, it’s usually a sign that it needs updating. Nothing can be more off-putting than a contact information page that’s just an email and a phone number. Inject some personality into the page to match what is currently being projected for the rest of the brand. Uniformity like that can go a long way.
Alexandre Robicquet, Co-founder and CEO, Crossing Minds
If Your Contact Us Page Has a Long Form
This is something I often see with B2B companies that have a specific client intake process. Instead of a simple “input your name/email” form, they have a multi-page quiz asking detailed questions about the form submitters’ firm, needs, industry, and so on. Simplifying such a form is almost guaranteed to lead to higher conversion rates and more form submissions.
Nick Zviadadze, Founder, MintSEO
High Bounce Rates
A high bounce rate on the “Contact Us” page, where a high percentage of visitors leave the page without taking any action or visiting other pages on the website, is a sign that the page may not be effective and needs updating. This could indicate that the page is difficult to find, unclear, or not user-friendly, causing visitors to leave without reaching out to the business.
Will Gill, Event Entertainer, DJ Will Gill
When No One is Contacting You
On our site, we make getting in touch pretty simple. We have a phone number in the top-right corner and underneath is the navigation bar with a link to the contact page. Additionally, we have Google Analytics set up so we can see which pages are getting visitors. If we notice that we have stopped getting emails from our contact page, that would be an indicator that it’s time to change things up.
Jeff Pollak, Partner, RadioActive Media Inc.
People Ask to Be Put in Contact With Someone
“Hello, can you put me in touch with sales/customer service/account management?” This represents a significant failure in contact page design, as people believe their queries will not reach their intended recipients.
Your contact page gives the impression that their message will be lost in the ether unless someone manually forwards it to the relevant department. Instead, contact pages must parse queries more efficiently, ensuring that questions reach the right people without manual intervention. But more importantly, contact pages must be designed to actually give this impression, reassuring leads, prospects, and customers that their query will be addressed directly.
To achieve this, users must be able to select an end destination for their message, either directly through forms or by presenting multiple email addresses to choose from. This will inevitably increase interactions, while also reducing the time required to properly respond to queries.
Oliver Savill, CEO and Founder, AssessmentDay