How to Create a Strong Contact Page for your Website

November 18th 2013 | By Steve Grant

Whatever the purpose of your website, whether it is an ecommerce site, a personal website or an online service, a well-designed, easy to use and approachable contact page is essential. All too often the importance of this page is overlooked, but it’s often the first point of contact for web visitors who want to get in touch, so it’s important to create a good first impression.

By making this page easy to use, your business can also gain some valuable feedback. Here are some tips on creating a strong contact page:

1. Location. Firstly it’s important to place your contact page somewhere that can easily be found. Usually it will be the last link within the main navigation, a call to action off the main pages and / or a link from the footer of each page.
2. Include an email address. Including an email address on your contact page shows that you welcome contact from your web visitors. Even if you use a contact form, an email address shows you welcome personal contact and some people trust this more. If you do use a contact form, be sure to set up a thank you message to show the user that their query has been received.
3. Show your address. You should include your business address or customer service postal address in case web visitors want to write to you, and it is also required by law. If you are a retailer with multiple stores, it is best to create a separate page for each store and each location with details of opening hours and directions etc. This is not only useful information, but can help your site for local search queries. An interactive map feature in this section is a good tool to use.
4. Display a telephone number. By including a telephone number on your contact page, you are conveying a sense of credibility and trust with your web users, showing them that they can speak with a real person should they need to. Be sure to include a landline number as well as a mobile and make the numbers ‘searchable’ so that they can be automatically dialled from a mobile device.
5. Include social media links. Many businesses now use the contact page to display their social media networking pages, especially if they use these as a customer service tool. You would also ideally display these links on all pages of your website.
6. Employ good design. Your web design agency should include your contact information as HTML text rather than images so that your visitor can easily access your business information and so that it can be indexed by the search engines. A contact form should be user friendly making use of large fields to entice users to complete it.

Your contact page gives an important first impression of who you are and should not be neglected. It needs to be easy to find, simple to use and encourage interactivity. Does your contact page need a boost? We can help, so please get in touch.