Most websites in the world make use of contact forms.

If it’s not obvious why, let me give you some clues:

• you can get more leads because you make it very easy for visitors to reach out to you,
• there are people who don’t like to phone companies and would rather choose email,
• it removes the friction of having visitors send an email to the email you list as contact detail,
• you can automate email sequences and better keep track of records.

The contact form is usually part of the contact page. And a contact page is essential for pretty much every website. It is clear proof the company is real, offers transparency and a real means for people to get in touch with the team members.

Now, we should not resume forms to contact forms only. Forms can also come in the format of a quiz, a survey, a payment form, sign-up forms, newsletter subscription form…You’ve encountered these multiple times, haven’t you?

The moment you understand how one form works, you’ll be able to create any other form. Maybe you have an ebook, that you want to offer in exchange for an email (like we did below). You’ll need a form for that.

Now, in this article, I’m going to:

• Show you the most popular WordPress contact form plugins,
• Guide you through adding a contact form in WordPress using a plugin,
• Give you web form design tips,
• Show you some cool and smart forms.

Deal?

The most popular 4 WordPress form plugins

These 4 plugins are the best out there, but beware that some of the features are free, some of them are paid. Before deciding, you can definitely take them for a spin, and see how you get along.

Let’s build a WordPress contact form

In this exercise, I’m going to use the SkylineWP theme, together with the Colibri page builder. The builder is expanding the SkylineWP features, by giving it drag and drop options. Also, it gives me access to tens of pre-designed content blocks (among which “contacts us” forms as well). Now, most of the page builders and theme Customizers out there behave similarly. So don’t get nervous if you’re not using the same theme as I do.

The plugin that I will be installing is Forminator.

Let’s get going!

Step 1 – Install and activate a contact form plugin

From the WordPress Dashboard, head over to Plugins->Add new. Search for the plugin by name, then select “Install Now”, then “Activate”.

Step 2: Open the theme’s Customizer

From the WordPress Dashboard, head over to Appearance->Customize,

or

from the WordPress Dashboard, head over to “Pages”. Hover over a page and select “Customize” or “Edit” (if you’re using the Default WordPress Editor).

In my case, because I’m using the Colibri page builder, there is the option to “Edit in with Colibri”.

Now I’m inside the Customizer.

Step 3 – Add a contact form to your WordPress page

My current page already has a contact form block, by design. But I’m going to add one more. I can do this by adding a contact block.

I’m going to the bottom of the page and select “Add Predefined Block”. A new window will show up to the left. I’m typing in “contact” to see all the contact blocks.

I’m selecting a design.

Now, you don’t see any fields right now, because the form needs to be configured in Forminator. We’ll do this in a minute.

But first, I want to explain what a shortcode is. Shortcodes in WordPress are tiny bits of code that allow you to do various things in WordPress such as: inserting a table, a form, etc.  Don’t worry about the term “code” in there, you won’t have to write the code by yourself. the code is generated by a plugin. You will just have to give it some inputs. You’ll understand this better in the next step.

Step 4 – Creating a WordPress form with Forminator

Then, you have to go back to the WordPress Admin dashboard. On the left-hand side menu, select “Forminator”.

A Forminator menu will show up below. Select “Forms”, then head over to “Create”

Step 5 – Customizing the contact form in WordPress

You can start a form from scratch or from a template. I’m going to select “Contact Form”.

After clicking on “Continue”, you can name the contact form.

Then, start customizing the form fields.

There are various form fields available in both the free and the pro plans.

I’m deleting the “Phone number” field because people are usually reluctant to share their phone numbers.

When selecting “Edit Field” you can:

• choose whether a certain field is required or not (inside “Settings”),
• choose to hide or not a specific field based on some rules (this is a cool and useful one!),
• change the default labels with the ones that best correspond to your contact form fields,
• change the placeholders. This means that inside the E-mail field you can give an email example, or just type something like “Insert your email here”,

The moment the form fields are set, it’s time to move on to “Appearance”.

In here you can:

• choose a design for the form,
• make font and color changes,
• make adjustments to spacing and borders,
• add your own CSS styling.

When the appearance is set, it’s time to move on to “Behavior”.

Here you should decide what happens after the form submissions: will you show a message or a new page (usually called Thank You page)?

Next, you can set up email notifications. You probably want to be notified when a new submission happens, right?

We’re almost done, so bear with me :).

Now, if you’re using an email provider such as Mailchimp, or Hubspot, you can integrate Forminator with it. You can also use Slack, Sheets, Trello, or other integrations.

Before publishing the form, you need to go to Settings and make privacy and spam settings.

And you’re ready to hit “Publish”. The moment you do this, you’ll receive a shortcode. Remember I mentioned it earlier? Copy it. You’ll paste it a bit later in the Customizer.

Now, if you go back to “Forms”, under “Forminator” you can see a list with all your forms and reports on the submissions.

Every form has an “Edit” option, so you can make changes afterward. From here you can also preview, publish, and delete a form. A key aspect of this “Edit” option is that it gives you the shortcode as well.

Step 6 – Adding the form to the contact form in WordPress

Now, it’s time to get back to the Customizer.

Let’s head over to the contact form, and click on “Add shortcode here”.

On the left-hand side, paste the shortcode inside “Form shortcode”.

Save and publish your page.

You’re set.

It was pretty straightforward, wasn’t it?

Step 7 – Check if the contact form works properly

Now, make a dummy form submission and see if it gets reported.

Web design forms – the best case practices

The anatomy of web forms is quite simple:

• form fields (eg: name, email, phone, etc.),
• call to action (aka a button inviting to take action: buy, download, sign up, etc),
• consent.

Now, there are some optimization recommendations that will help you have higher form fill-in rates, or conversion rates, depending on your scope.

So, let’s see some do’s and don’ts, shall we?

• add a header to your form: “Contact us”,
• use placeholders to make sure users understand exactly how the forms need to be filled in,
• prefill some of the fields when you have some information available,
• use dropdowns with autosuggest. For example, when someone starts typing a country, you can make suggestions.
• use reCaptcha only when you receive lots of spam responses, else it might affect fill in rates,
• only use “required” for fields that are really necessary,
• make sure that the active form field is in focus,
• make error messages clear: eg: “The password should contain at least a capital letter and a number”,
• don’t mask passwords, unless really necessary. How many times weren’t you pissed off that the password you typed in does not match the previous password? And there’s no way to spot the error,
• make sure that the call to action text and the button have proper contrast,
• remove unnecessary fields, the more fields you have, the fewer the people that will be filling up your form.  there are certain cases when you want more fields filled in. If you’re offering something really valuable, like a guide, or another important resource, people might fill in your info if they consider that the value they get is worth their while. Also, in B2B, marketers use multiple fields to segment their target audience and to personalize the follow-ups.

Source: Growth Tribe

On the other hand, there are tools such as Clearbit that can enrich the data you have on a potential prospect. Based on the name and email, you can have access to data such as company name, position, country, etc. But, this can get pricey.

In the case of checkout forms, there’s a study that shows that the average checkout display twice as many form fields as needed! and this is leading to a drop in sales. People just abandon the checkout process. And this, ladies and gents, means bye-bye client…

Web forms: some inspiration

• Neil Patel

Neil Patel is one of the biggest online marketing influencers out there, so he should really nail a contact form.

The title for his form is “How can I help?”. It’s not as cold as “Contact us”. It feels familiar and…helpful. Under the title, there is another text that clarifies the purpose of the contact form.

He’s using a dropdown to make it easier for him to follow up on a particular topic. He does not use any other fields for segmentation.

• Shopify. Frictionless free trial signup.

• AirSlate – marketing automation platform. The form has multiple fields. The intent is to segment by company size, company name, and job title. In B2B knowing these details can really help out in the sales process. It can help prioritize prospects.

• QArea – web design company

There are certain forms where an explanation of the next steps comes in handy. For the vast majority of IT outsourcing companies, there’s this practice of requesting project estimates via the contact form. What’s nice about QArea is that they are setting up the expectations. The process is made of 3 steps, and you can find out the details. All clear, right?

• Paperpillar – web design company

They have a contact form that pops up after clicking on a call to action (CTA). They make it clear for the person submitting the form that a reply will come in about 2 days. Also, you are invited to check the spam folder as well  .

• Contact form design featured on Dribbble: my favorite design inspiration platform!

This form has a visual next to it to help it stand out. Don’t neglect the visual aspect, folks!

Source: https://dribbble.com/shots/5299288-Daily-UI-28-Contact-us

Aaand that’s a wrap!

Now, if you liked this article, and you want to learn more about how to build a WordPress website, make sure to subscribe to our Youtube channel and follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

 [sibwp_form id=1]

The post How to Add a Contact Form in WordPress (UPDATE 2021) appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

• attracting new customers,
• retaining old customers.

But, before getting to that new customer, there’s a long way ahead. First, you need to get relevant traffic, then convert that traffic into leads or customers. Most of the visitors won’t engage with you or buy from you. That’s a fact. They might end up buying from the competition. 

Just take a look at the graph below from WPForms:

Source

Now, what is a lead anyway? Simply put, a lead is a contact that comes in the shape of an email, a social media profile, a phone number. This means that lead generation refers to gathering the primary information of your visitors (online or offline), or ideal customers.

So, in this article, I’m going to talk about ways to gain leads from your WordPress website. 

This means that you are already running some traffic acquisition campaigns or investing in content marketing.

Techniques to Generate Leads Using WordPress

In this chapter you’ll learn how to:

• use content marketing for lead generation
• use forms to acquire leads
• build lead magnets and landing pages that convert
• use WordPress pop-ups for lead generation
• leverage chatbots on your WordPress site

Let’s get going.

Create a Compelling Content Marketing Strategy

Content creation is still one of the most influential marketing strategies out there.

Why?

Because you can use the power of content to come up with solutions and answers to the problems and questions your targeted audience is facing. Content helps you prove knowledgeable on a topic, and it helps create trust about your brand. 

So, which are the main pillars of a compelling content strategy? I’m going to keep this short, so here we go:

1. Identifying the right target audience
2. Competition analysis
3. Doing keyword and topic research in order to identify the content gaps between you and your competition.
4. Content creation. Make sure to create a variety of content, both gated and non-gated. From blog articles, ebooks, guides, case studies, webinars, to podcasts and YouTube videos. Gated content means content that gets unlocked by filling up a form. 
5. Link Building – strive to acquire good quality links to your content. Here’s a guide from Ahrefs to help you with this. At the end of the day, if you want to acquire organic traffic to a blog, you will need both good quality content and links.

Now, the purpose of the blog or your YouTube channel is to acquire the much-needed traffic. But, how do you convert some of that traffic into leads?

Well, you could use:

• Lead magnets,
• Forms,
• Chatbots,
• Newsletter subscriptions.

Your purpose is to get them closer to your end goal (a purchase, a sign-up, etc.).

Here’s an example. The folks at Creatopy are using banners in their sidebar with a form and call to action button (CTA) trying to make people subscribe to their newsletter.

The folks at Planable are using a plain CTA that promotes their free trial:

When clicking on the call to action button they will end up on a registration page with a form.

They are also using banners inside their case studies, trying to get readers to book a demo with them. Why aren’t they using these banners inside blog posts? Because someone that is reading a case study is “warmer” than someone reading a blog article on a general topic. And when I say “warm” I mean closer to a purchase. 

The idea is to understand how to map all of the content across the customer journey, and to use certain strategies to move the user further in the journey.

The customer’s journey describes his/her path to purchase. Usually, buyers go through a whole process until purchasing something. Let me give you an example:

• First, they have a problem (maybe they need to redecorate a bedroom);
• Then they are looking for solutions (they will check Pinterest boards for inspiration and read blogs on interior design, or subscribe to Houzz);
• Next, they decide to buy a product, but they need to do some more research on the brands out there. Let’s say our future buyer is now interested in some yellow paint because it’s a trending color. He starts typing for “yellow paint prices” in the Google search engine. Lots of ads show up from various brands. He then sees several websites and checks for prices and reviews. Then he goes to a Youtube channel and sees how someone is painting with that yellow paint shade you like. 
• Our hero finally makes a purchase.

That was a long journey, don’t you think? 

Lots of touchpoints involved: from websites and blogs, Pinterest boards, Youtube channels, to various subscriptions and ads…

Each of these channels brought him closer to the purchase, your job is to map these channels and the proper content for it, and cross it with the stage they are in. Here’s an example of the most basic customer journey and how you can map content across it, courtesy of Hubspot:

Now, as mentioned earlier, a good content strategy that is able to convert needs gated content.

When I say gated content I’m including lead magnets, landing pages, and forms. We’re going to provide more details on this in the following chapters,

Create Useful Lead Magnets for Your Audience

The majority of your website visitors do not visit the page a second time. How can you hook them to make them come back for more? 

Well, you need to offer them content upgrades in the shape of lead magnets.

A lead magnet can come in different flavors, from ebooks to webinars. The twist is that in order to gain the leads, you will need to ask the visitor to fill in a form. It should be a fair exchange: contact details for valuable info. 

After you have your lead, the job ain’t over. You need to nurture that lead with customized email marketing campaigns, in order to increase your chances of converting the lead into a customer.

Now, you must know your audience, in order to develop the right lead magnet. Let’s look at some inspiration.

• Ebooks. The folks at Netguru, a successful software company, are using ebooks to hook chief technical officers and startup founders.

• Templates, cheat sheets, calculators. You can offer interactive content that your users might find valuable. For example, the folks at Hubspot are offering blog post templates to their future leads.

• Mini classes or courses. You can use them in order to hook people and try to upsell them paid trainings. In this case, Amy and Jordan are professional photographers that are offering a free online class on photography.

• Other freebies. The folks at LoveCraft are offering free knitting patterns in exchange for a registration.

Also, the folks at Shopify have developed all sorts of free tools that they are using as lead magnets, such as this QR code generator.

Here’s another example from Stitchfix: the opportunity to get advice from a fashion stylist.

• Product demos. If you have a SaaS business, you know that product demos are a must. Some choose to have their demo in plain sight, others choose to get in contact with their potential lead and meet virtually over a product demo call. For example, the folks at Boardable are using the demo as a lead generation tool. They want their website visitors to schedule a call for them, and to leave their email address as well.
• 

Here’s another example from factoHR. They are using social proof near the form, to increase the trust around their brand.

• Webinars are effective learning tools where people can register and interact in real-time with the presenters on a topic they’re interested in. Also, when the webinar ends, you can also make it available on-demand for those that couldn’t attend, just like the folks at MAN Digital do (a marketing agency in Poland).

Now, all of these lead magnets are usually presented on a landing page with a form on it.

Clearly, if you are a WordPress user, you have a clue on how to create WordPress pages. This time you’ll just have to promote an ebook, a webinar, or another free resource.

I’m not going to go into copywriting or design details here, but I’m going to talk about WordPress forms a bit. So, let’s go!

How to Create WordPress Forms that Convert

Creating forms to gather the essential details, such as newsletter opt-ins, is still considered to be one of the most standard ways of generating leads. 

Now, below you have a series of best case practices for your WordPress form:

• Data has proven that the conversion rate for forms decreases as the number of form fields increases. So, you should A/B test it and find out what works for you. In the end, it’s a business choice – do you want to select your prospects, and qualify them from the start, or do you qualify later on? What does qualification mean? When you ask questions such as: how big is the company you’re working for, how much budget does your marketing team have, what industry are you in? These questions allow for companies to create specific buckets of contacts, for example marketing specialists in startups in Europe, or WordPress developers in the US;

Source

• When you need to ask more questions, use multi-step forms;
• Enhance your forms with inline validation;

• Use ReCaptcha if you suspect spammy activity;

• Highlight your call to action button. Make sure you have proper contrast and text size. The CTA is an essential element of your form that conveys to your visitors where you want them to click;

Source

• Enhance your form’s quality with relevant groups. This way you can simplify form filling when there are lots of questions involved.  For example, in the checkout process when doing online shopping, the groups can be made under different categories such as personal info, payment info, etc. This results in the increasing rate of the completed forms by the visitors.
• Make sure your form is mobile-responsive;
• Acknowledge the form submission and express your gratitude. A small expression of gratitude goes a long way. Therefore, once the form is submitted, acknowledge it and convey your gratitude. It would be even better to include any other relevant info, such as when you’ll contact them again, or you can even include other offers that might interest the visitor. After the user fills in a form (for ebook download, newsletter signup, account registration, purchase checkout flow, etc), it’s recommended you direct the users to a page where you say ‘Thank You” and take the conversation further. Here’s a Thank You page example from us. After our users download our ebook, they get a hurray and a coupon :).

Later on, we’ll talk a bit about the tools that you can use in order to build such forms.

Enable Comments for Your Blog

When your blog gets some relevant traffic, you could allow your readers to comment, but with the condition, they fill in their email address, because we want those leads, don’t we? You can set up comments in WordPress, in the Dashboard, under Settings-> Discussion.

Don’t forget to reply and engage with the readers that are leaving you messages.

Use Pop-ups to Convert Website Visitors into Leads 

So, you have a newsletter subscription or you’ve launched a new ebook. Why not promote it inside a pop-up?

A pop-up is a window that appears while browsing a website. You’ve definitely seen them. In the example below, we have an exit-intent pop-up from Hubspot trying to convince their website visitors to subscribe to their newsletter. They are also using social proof to be more convincing: more than 600.000 marketers have already joined.

What do I mean by exit intent? When the user signals he wants to close the page or move away from it.

Marketers around the world have mixed feelings about pop-ups. Some say that they are hurting the user experience. I say that if you use them wisely, without being too intrusive, you have much to gain. This explains why famous marketers, such as Neil Patel, are still using them.

If you don’t agree with me, check this study from Sumo, which says that the right use of pop-ups can indeed result in getting conversion rates above 9%.

Source

But, how does a highly converting pop-up differ from a poorly converting one? Here are some tips:

• Identify and use only those that are relevant to the user and not to you. 
• Determine the goals and purpose of using a particular pop-up.
• Implement timed pop-ups for better engagement.
• Try to segment the pop-ups for the new visitors and repeated visitors.

Enhance Your Website With Robust Chatbots

Now, for those of you that do not like forms, and think they’re a thing for the past (I know that there’s a debate going on on the topic), a chatbot can work. 

Basically, a chatbot is a computer program that simulates and processes human conversation. You are probably recognizing this: 

You can use chatbots to replace forms on your landing page or to try and get people to schedule a meeting with you on your website.  

If you lack inspiration for using chatbots, here are some awesome chatbot scenarios, courtesy of Drift.

Like in the case of pop-ups, you can personalize them based on previous user engagement with your website. You can have different messages for returning users, previous customers, users browsing the blog that come from Australia, etc. The possibility to customize your engagement with visitors makes bots such a powerful tool.

Ok, We Have the Leads. What Now? 

What do you do with the data you collected?

Well, as I mentioned before, you need to nurture those leads, meaning that you need to develop targeted email marketing campaigns with the purpose of converting them into customers.

You can also use those contacts to design paid campaigns across various platforms, such as Google, Facebook, etc.

You can also do LinkedIn outreach.

Just don’t let them hang there. You’ve worked too hard to acquire them.

And take a look at that, I have just found the perfect lead magnet on the topic for you, from Marketo: “The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing”.

These guys really want to segment their leads. Are you noticing the form here?

Is there something else that you are noticing?

Consent, folks! Always include this in your forms.

So, we’ve just put to practice some of the lessons today!

WordPress Tools for Lead Generation

We’ve come to our last chapter!

As promised, we’re going to talk about WordPress lead generation tools! 

As mentioned earlier, in order to create landing pages, WordPress is your guy. You can do this with any WordPress theme. Forms, pop-ups, and chatbots are not built-in WordPress features, this is why we need plugins to create them.

Here’s a tutorial on how to install any WordPress plugin, in case you’re not familiar with the process.

If you want to design ebooks, cheatsheets, or other freebies, you’ll need to use tools outside the WordPress ecosystem. I have created my first ebook using Google Slides. My next one was done using Adobe inDesign. The idea is that you should always be on the lookout for tools that are easy to use, so that you won’t need to involve many resources (money and people) in your work.

Now, here are the plugins that we recommend for WordPress lead generation.

Forminator – WordPress Form Plugin

Forminator is a WordPress plugin that is used by more than 100.000 websites. It allows you to create responsive forms by drag and drop. It integrates with the most popular email marketing services out there.

We have a whole article on WordPress forms with a demo included here.

LiveChat – WordPress chatbot plugin

LiveChat is one of the biggest brands in the chat software market, serving companies like MacDonald’s, Mercedes Benz, Unilever, Adobe, or PayPal. They have also built a WordPress plugin in order to satisfy WordPress users as well.

And because we’re huge fans of LiveChat, we’re proud to say that we interviewed their brand ambassador, Marcos Bravo, here.

Convert Pro – WordPress pop-up plugin

We are using Convert Pro inside Colibri when we want to design pop-ups. It works by drag and drop. You can make adjustments to pop-ups to make them responsive. But what makes Convert Pro powerful is the targeting options: based on time on page, referral, exit intent, user inactivity, geos, etc.

Now, a pop-up can’t generate leads by itself, you will need to integrate a form in it. In the end, all roads will lead to forms :).

In conclusion, when you want to generate leads for your WordPress site you can use:

• A landing page designed with your desired theme;
• A WordPress form plugin to capture leads;
• A WordPress pop-up plugin that integrates with your form provider;
• A WordPress chatbot plugin if you want to engage live with your website visitors and make them your leads;

After gathering your leads, you need to engage with them. You will be in need of an email marketing tool.

Sendinblue – WordPress email marketing plugin

We rely heavily on Sendinblue here in Colibri. They are offering a powerful email marketing suite that allows us to do lead nurturing and to connect with our customers. They have email templates, but you can also add your own custom-made HTML designs. What makes Sendinblue powerful is the automation and segmentation. They’re a goldmine for a marketer. And beware, we also tested its most famous competitor, Mailchimp. 

Wrapping up

This was a long one, but full of insights, I’d love to assume

Let’s see what we’ve learned today:

• How to design a content marketing strategy that can turn website visitors into leads;
• Which are the most popular lead magnets out there (inspiration included);
• How to design WordPress forms that convert;
• How to create WordPress pop-ups wisely;
• How to use chatbots for lead generation;
• Which are some of the best tools out there for WordPress lead generation.

That’s all folks!

Now you have the know-how and the tools to acquire do WordPress lead generation.

Happy lead generation!

If you liked this article, and you want to learn more about how to design a WordPress website, make sure to subscribe to Colibri’s Youtube channel and follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

 [sibwp_form id=1]

The post The Chronicles of WordPress Lead Generation appeared first on ColibriWP Blog.

Therefore, if you own a WordPress website and you’ve pieced together some of the most important pages and posts, you’ll need a form to keep your visitors in contact with you. 

What’s a form, you might ask. A form is a structured document that has a specific purpose. It offers you a way to easily collect data as well as creating a database with your visitors for marketing purposes. Basically, it has some fields that a user needs to fill in, in exchange for something. 

Below I’ll list some types of online forms you need on your website. Stay close!

Best case practices

Every website needs a form – whether it’s a form of website design or a form that helps you gather contacts. They may not be bringing the creativity out, but they’ll surely skyrocket your website’s conversion rate. Let’s see some of the best case practices!

• Contact form

This one is a must! Having a contact form on your WordPress website will allow your visitors to get in touch with you. This way, you’ll provide professional customer service and gain happy clients. When using a contact form, you can add various fields for specific information that you want to collect. 

• User registration

If you want to let people register to your website, you can easily create their accounts with a user registration form. You can specify various custom roles for your users, such as admin, editor, guest, contributor, etc.

• GDPR compliant form

Since the GDPR came into force, many methods of getting consent are no longer valid. To keep everything legal and ensure that you can use the collected data, you’ll need a GDPR compliant form on your website.

• Pop up form

How does a pop-up form work? Well, instead of placing the form on a new page or post, it will simply open in a popup. Lately, it has become a trend, and it will be much easier for your visitors to get in touch with you without having to leave the page.

• Multi-page form

When people see comprehensive forms with many fields to fill in, they tend to leave your website. But we’ve got a solution for you – a form that is divided into pages. Splitting forms into pages will help you increase website conversion rates and not lose customers.

It seems easy-peasy to create an online form, right? Au contraire! As simple as it may appear, if you want to keep your visitors engaged, there are some configurations you need to keep in mind.

10 Dos and Don’ts of online forms

• Make it relevant

First of all, you’ll need to think about what type of form you want to create for your website. Regarding your topic’s form, you can start building it and adding fields that match the purpose of your form.

• Keep it cool and simple

Don’t make your form too long by adding many questions. Make it simple for your website’s visitors and add only the essential questions. This way, your visitors won’t leave the form and will fill it out carefully.

• Don’t be ambiguous

When building comprehensive forms, there will be the possibility to include questions that need additional information for your visitors. Ensure that you provide all the necessary information they need to be able to fill in your form.

• Add a descriptive title

Every time you want to create a form for your website, add a simple and clear title to let visitors know what they fill in. Don’t try to add complex words because you’ll confuse people. If you want to create a contact form for your page, just write these two words to make it clear and straightforward.

• Always start with friendly questions

Whatever type of form you create, always start with easy queries like first and last name, phone number, email, address, etc. And always build your questions logically by starting with personal information and then continuing with specific questions.

• Don’t use long forms

If you’re creating a form that contains more queries, I advise you to break it into more pages with a progress bar. Forms with many fields might bore your visitors, and a multi-page form will decrease the chances of people leaving your form.

• Add a CTA button

If you want to look like a pro, I advise you to include a clear CTA button at the end of the form. A CTA button can help you increase your website’s conversion rate and keep a professional image for your business. Instead of using words like “submit your form”, you can make it more specific and use “contact us” for a contact form or “get in touch”.

• Don’t bore your visitors

Try to focus on your form’s purpose and don’t include unnecessary questions. Be short and to the point! Also, try to keep the design clean, catchy, and enjoyable. Make a great first impression!

• Design your online form

Make sure that your form looks good. Try to match the colors, add catchy images if needed, include charts, and play with fonts until they fit with all your form’s elements. Quality graphics will always impress visitors and make them stay.

• Don’t forget to test your form

The last and the most important thing, don’t forget to test your form or look at it with fresh eyes. There may be times when you omit some pieces of information, fields, or design elements. You can also ask a friend or a co-worker to check your form. 

Recommended plugins for creating WordPress forms

If you want to create an eye-catching yet intuitive form, get started with one of these powerful WordPress form plugins listed below.

Kali Forms

Kali Forms is the perfect WordPress form builder for anyone. Whether you’re a business owner, blogger, agency, or designer, if you want to create a WordPress form, then you need to use Kali Forms. This plugin will undoubtedly adapt to your workflow!

Notable features:

• Drag and drop builder;
• Mobile responsiveness;
• Advanced fields – collect information from users through a big bunch of field types;
• Digital signature – add digital signatures to your form;
• Conditional logic – hide and show fields in your forms based on your user selections;
• Multi-page forms – group your page fields on different pages;
• Form notifications – trigger one or multiple notifications on each submission form;
• Submissions handling – store submission data in your database;
• reCAPTCHA and Akismet integration – prevent spam submissions through Google reCAPTCHA and Akismet services;
• Form templates – pre-made templates that can be added to your form;
• Form calculator – perform simple or complex calculations through your form fields;
• PayPal and Stripe integration – allow payments through the PayPal and Stripe payment gateways.
• Enhance eCommerce – Increase e-Commerce flexibility by adding multiple product fields;
• MailChimp, MailerLite, ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Sendfox, Sendinblue; Mailpoet, Moosend, Campaign Monitor – add users to your newsletters;
• Google Analytics – track user behavior on your forms;
• User registration – create, edit, and login users;
• HubSpot integration.

WP Forms

WP Forms is a drag-and-drop WordPress form builder that’s easy-to-use and provides powerful features. We know that building forms in WordPress can be time-consuming; that’s why WP Forms makes this process easy.

Notable features:

• Drag and drop builder;
• Responsive mobile-friendly;
• Multi-page forms;
• Form templates;
• Spam protection;
• User registration;
• MailChimp, Constant Contact, AWeber, GetResponse, Campaign Monitor, ActiveCampaign, Sendinblue, Salesforce, and Drip integration – add users to your newsletters;
• Create surveys and polls;
• Signature addon;
• Webhooks;
• PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.Net integration – to collect payments;
• File uploads – to allow users to upload their files.

Gravity Forms

Gravity forms is another good choice for creating beautiful, powerful, and accessible forms. It provides a big bunch of add-ons to help you build more advanced types of forms. But there’s a catch – it doesn’t offer a free version. However, you can try their demo for free.

Notable features:

• Drag and drop builder;
• Over 30 form fields;
• Conditional logic;
• Email notifications;
• Front-end forms;
• 14+ marketing add-ons;
• Spam protection;
• WordPress post creation;
• Limit and schedule forms;
• File uploads;
• Payment forms using PayPal or Stripe;
• User registration forms;
• Form calculator;
• Surveys and polls.

Now, that we know which are some of the best WordPress form plugins out there, it’s time to create our first form.

For the purpose of this example, I’m going to use Kali Forms.

Create a contact form with Kali Forms, the WordPress form builder plugin

First of all, install and activate the plugin. It’s a super easy process that won’t take you more than a few minutes.

However, you can follow this tutorial on installing and activating a WordPress plugin if you never did this before.

Kali Forms is a great plugin that helps you simplify your work and speed up the process. It is one of the most powerful and user-friendly WordPress form plugins that integrates a significant amount of features.

Let’s see how to handle it!

Create a new form

Whatever you do with your website, you’ll definitely need a contact page with a contact form. So, I’ll show you in this tutorial how to create a contact form for your website. 

After installing and activating Kali Forms, go to your WordPress menu > Kali Forms > Add New. 

You will be redirected to a page with pre-designed templates. As you can see, there is already a contact form template, but right now, we will show you how to create one from scratch. Press on Create New, and let’s go on.

Start by naming your form so people know what they fill in. You can give it whatever name you find suitable for your contact form.

Adding form fields

The one thing you need to know from the beginning is that you can play around with things – all form fields are highly customizable. Once you select the blank form, you’ll see the menu on the left. To customize a specific field, you just have to click on it after dragging and dropping it into your form.

From there on, you can name your field, add a description to it, and make it required to fill or not. It’s super easy, so let’s see what we need for this specific form:

• A Free Text field for typing a message;
• Two Text boxes for the first and last name;
• An Email field for the contact info;
• A Textarea field for your customers’ message;
• A Submit button for submitting the form.

You can also notice that I’ve made all the fields required to fill to ensure that you will gather all the necessary information.

Customize your form

You can send people an automated confirmation e-mail after they filled in the contact form. It’s a nice gesture that makes a difference. Just go to Notifications, and the whole process of creating the e-mail is there.

After this, you can go to Settings and customize what’s left. You can change your Form Style or even display a thank-you message right after filling in the form. It’s up to you if you feel like doing these things. Update your customers by sending them newsletters – this means that you’ll have to go premium, but it’s definitely worth it!

Click Save, and your contact form is ready for your website!

Add the contact form to your website

After saving the contact form, go back to Kali Forms and copy the shortcode. Then, you can paste it wherever you need – into a page or post.

Now that you have all this information about how complex yet easy-to-use Kali Forms is, the only thing left is for you to give it a try!

Conclusion

And that’s all, folks! I hope this article helped you acknowledge all the necessary information about creating forms in WordPress. 

Long story short, people hate filling out forms. If you want to keep them coming back to your website and recommending it to their friends, make sure you follow our tips on designing professional WordPress forms.

Remember this: “quality never goes out of style”!

If you liked this article, and you want to learn more about how to design a WordPress website, make sure to subscribe to Colibri’s Youtube channel and follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

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