A conversion-focused Contact Us page [Part 3]

(We’re continuing talking about our contact page. For the earlier parts, see the last 2 issues of The Daily)

#5 – Set Proper Expectations

Above, I said you should try to make communication as frictionless and instant as possible. People really want instant gratification these days. Problem is, unless you have a team of support people, instant response is likely impossible.

So, it is important to set expectations.

If it is going to take you a day or so to reply to them, tell them. If there’s a chance you might not even see their email because you get hundreds of emails per day, tell them. If you have to introduce a few hoops because of the sheer volume of email, tell them that. They’ll understand as long as you’re upfront about it.

If there are certain kinds of emails that are not likely to get any reply at all, tell them that, too. For instance, I get enough stupid guest post requests that I don’t even bother to acknowledge them anymore. It is a waste of time. So, I have a FAQ question about it where I openly tell them no. And I won’t bother replying. Perhaps Malika does when she goes through support, but I won’t.

#6 – Make The Contact Page Easy To Find

Top navigation, ideally. You don’t want to make people go hunting for how to contact you. It should be easy and obvious.

Anything else is the equivalent of making people go through a phone menu and wait on hold for 30 minutes. You know how much you like that.

How To Design A Great Contact Page

Now that we’ve discussed what to put on your contact page, let’s address what it looks like.

Most blogs (including this one up until recently) simply put the stuff onto a standard page, as designed by your blog’s theme. As a result, that page usually has many of the same trappings as your blog, complete with a cluttered sidebar.

Thing is, your contact page is one of your core marketing pages. It should be treated with the same level of importance as your about page. It should look professional. It should look different than a blog post.

Once again, I believe this is a job for Thrive Architect, from Thrive Themes. And, indeed, this is the tool I have used to design my own contact page without any custom design work.

Editing with Thrive Architect is fast, contextual, and truly WYSIWYG

Various elements of Architect were used to assemble this page:

• Page sections define the various rows going down the page.
• Columns were used to display photo alongside the text at the top, as well as the contact form and the alternative contact options side by side at the bottom.
• The Tabbed Content element was used for the FAQ.
• The Content Toggle element was used for the collapsible questions under each tab of the FAQ.
• The custom HTML element was used to insert the Gravity Form (using the shortcode) as well as the Manychat growth tool for Facebook Messenger.

Architect could easily be used to design almost any kind of contact page you’d like. All without knowing any HTML or CSS coding.

Final Thoughts

A contact page isn’t going to make or break a business. If you’re accessible and reply to people, people will have no problem getting in touch. For instance, Derek Halpern has one of the most simplistic contact pages I’ve ever seen and he’s doing OK.

In my view, though, it should be treated with more intention than what most people do with it.

The contact page of your site is actually a marketing opportunity. It is a conversion opportunity.

… if you set it up to facilitate that.

– David