How Web Forms Can Help Your Website Generate Leads
Updated: May 28
Your website serves as your company's greeting card. To encourage visitors to contact you, inquire about your services, and become self-contained leads, you must provide them with an intuitive user experience, especially when it comes to initiating conversation, and simply displaying a bland contact page or listing your email address in the footer will not suffice. Nay-nay. Your visitors DESERVE and NEED MORE. Paying attention to user journeys can result in more qualified leads, and the almighty contact form is one of the best ways to create a frictionless experience.
Web forms enable visitors to cut to the chase and start a conversation whenever they want, regardless of the page they are on. They also give you the opportunity to capitalize on their chattiness. Emails alone cannot accomplish this; consider how many times you've clicked on an email address only to be directed to your computer's email client… which you haven't configured. Did you carry out your intention, or did you sigh in frustration and move on to something else? Forms will not allow for this.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the advantages of adding web forms on your most important website pages, and quickly review the best plugins for WordPress websites.
THE BENEFITS OF WEB FORMS FOR LEAD GENERATION WEBSITES
1. YOU GIVE VISITORS A CHOICE
While, unlike me, some of your visitors may have actually set up their email clients and have no issues whatsoever, others, who are fans of direct communication and fast responses, may prefer to give you a quick call. For everyone in between, there are web forms. Providing enough options for the wide array of people who browse your website will ensure that they’ll be comfortable enough to get in touch.
2. YOU IMPROVE USER EXPERIENCE
As mentioned earlier, creating a frictionless experience for visitors is paramount, and adding forms to your most important landing pages – such as the home or product page – allow you to capitalize on user intent by giving them the chance to inquire about your product while the information is still fresh and relevant. If you have a great copywriter who manages to draft compelling, emotional copy on your product page, chances are your visitor may impulsively want to reach out. Why not give him the chance to do just that?
3. YOU AVOID SPAM EMAIL
I think we’ve all been contacted by enough Nigerian princes to recognize a spam email when we see one. Fortunately, most web form providers have advanced anti-spam features that prevent junk submissions from reaching your inbox. They also support reCAPTCHA add-ons, so your visitors can test their traffic-light detection abilities while the internet’s spambots cry in shame. More leads for you and fewer emails from long-lost cousins – sounds perfect, doesn’t it?
4. YOU CAN TRACK PERFORMANCE EASIER
Web forms make performance tracking much easier than their simpler alternatives, such as listed email addresses and phone numbers. By setting goals and events in your Google Analytics account and pairing up the data with form abandonment and form submission statistics, you get a much clearer picture of how your landing pages perform and what you can do to improve them.
5. YOU CAN QUALIFY LEADS FASTER
Unlike standard email messages, web forms can include specific questions that allow you to better understand your visitor’s needs. Most form add-ons have conditional logic features that enable you to add if not this, then that sequences in order to really dig deep and get the information you’re looking for.
6. YOU CAN INTEGRATE WEB FORMS WITH YOUR CRM
Most web form solutions can be easily integrated with CRMs such as Mailchimp, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, ActiveCampaign, and more. By going the digital route, you can automate part of your sales process, as the CRM will pull lead data directly from the form submissions. You can then target new subscribers with personalized communications and campaigns, moving them along the funnel.
THE BEST FORMS FOR WORDPRESS WEBSITES
As you may already know by now, at Proof we specialize in developing beautiful and user-centric WordPress websites, so it’s only fair that we focus our web form round-up on solutions that work well with the tech stack we use. If you’ve built your website on Wix, have a look at this resource, and if you’re more of a Squarespace kind of person, check this one out.
Probably the most popular WordPress form builder, WPForms is a great option for beginners and advanced users alike. This drag & drop form builder has over 100 pre-built form templates and snazzy features such as conditional logic, spam protection, and advanced fields. It comes in four tiers, with the basic package coming in at $79 per year. The advanced ones integrate with CRMs such as MailChimp and Salesforce, and a variety of other solutions. For an extensive overview of available options, check this page out.
One of our clients, Candid CRM, strengthening their landing page with a simple and effective web form.
At Proof, we love Gravity Forms – it’s our go-to form builder due to its ease of use and advanced customization options. Each of the three packages comes with a lengthy set of add-ons that includes HubSpot, EmailOctopus, MailChimp, reCAPTCHA, Active Campaign, and more. The Pro and Elite packages allow you to connect your form builder to payment solutions such as Stripe, Square, and Paypal, and to file-sharing platforms such as Dropbox. In our opinion, Gravity Forms gives you the best bang for your buck, and we couldn’t recommend it more.
Formidable Forms is slightly more complex and should be your no. 1 option if you plan on adding quizzes, surveys, or profile forms on your website. You can choose between four service tiers, with pricing starting at $79/year. Formidable Forms integrates with a variety of marketing and payment platforms, with the Elite package even pairing up with WooCommerce.
NinjaForms is a free plugin that you can get from the WordPress repository, but you’ll need a premium version if you want to connect it to a CRM. Add-ons include ActiveCampaign, CleverReach and EmailOctopus. It offers four packages, and a very cool option for the basic (or a la carte, as they call it) one is that you can hand-pick the add-ons that you’re interested in. You can export your forms directly to Google Sheets, accept payments, and choose from numerous email marketing and CRM integrations for as little as $29/year.
TypeForm is a great option for conversational forms and surveys. It connects to Zapier, Google Sheets, Slack, Google Analytics, Hubspot, and Salesforce. Slightly pricier than the other options on this list, the basic plan supports over 500 integrations through Zapier and includes Automate.io, Pipedrive, Mailchimp, and Airtable add-ons at 21 EUR/month. The premium package provides all the features of the basic and plus plans and adds Salesforce, Google Tag Manager, and Facebook Pixel integrations at 75 EUR/month. For a full list of features, visit their website.
Built into the WordPress customizer, HappyForms is a Gutenberg-ready plugin that starts with a free option that allows you to test the software and move to a paid starter plan of $69/year once you’re comfortable. Even though it’s cheaper when compared to other options on the list, the plan doesn’t include email marketing, payment add-ons, or even Zapier. You would need to buy a Business plan for $99/year to enjoy the add-ons that Gravity Forms, for example, provides in their $59/year basic plan. To check out their complete product offering, visit their website.
And now, for a free option – Contact Form 7 is the granddaddy of form plugins for WordPress, and has been installed over 5 million times. It has a number of addons for payment processing, database entries, spam protection, integration with your CRM, conditional form submissions, and more. If you’re looking for a free plugin that gives you complete control over your form’s design and structure, Contact Form 7 is a great contender.
THE BOTTOM LINE
To sum up, web forms are a great tool to use to improve your website’s lead generation potential: they allow you to easily track performance, avoid spam, and save time through smart CRM integrations. Whether you want to go with one of the form options listed above or browse the internet for something better suited for your needs, you can’t go wrong with adding a good form to your website.
And while you’re looking for ways to up your website game, don’t forget to check our posts on the golden rules of website content strategy and on how to fuel business growth with great lead magnets.
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