Why on Earth would you want to contact me?

The Contact page.

It’s the embarrassing cousin of web pages.

The page everyone knows is there but doesn’t want to talk about because what is there to say?

The vast majority of Contact pages content themselves with throwing up a form for visitors to fill in details of their query and that’s about it.

I have just one question for you.

Why turn down another opportunity to engage with your readers?

If they’ve got as far as the contact page, there’s every chance they want to engage with you on some level.

It’s a great way to set the tone for the conversations you’re going to have in the future with your audience and an excellent way to set expectations. It is an essential step in the relationship.

What makes the best Contact Us pages?

• It needs to work. I’ve concluded that contact pages need a contact form to avoid spam harvesters. So, make sure it works. So many pages have broken forms or ones that don’t send correctly. Bad look and lost business.
• It needs to grab attention. Mine may not be the most original one you’ve ever seen, but the image is a 1980s-style French public phone. It relates to my past. You can lose a potential client with a crappy contact page. It needs to be visually perfect.
• Make sure the copy has personality. And it’s seductive.
• This is the moment of truth where you can throw away all the good things done by your other pages in an instant with a badly placed word or phrase or indeed a word or phrase you do not say.
• But don’t overload it. It’s a page where you want one single thing to happen. Make sure it does.
• It needs to set the standard for your future relationship. Make sure your future client knows what to expect from you.
• Make sure people can find it, right up in the main menu.
• How many times have you given up on a website because you couldn’t see the Contact page? And please don’t call it Get in Touch; that’s far too cutesy.
• It’s vital to have a Call to Action. Of course, every page should have a CTA, but this one is the action centre for the whole site, so getting them over the line is crucial.

A great contact page is a way to tell your prospect a little more about your personality and build a little more of a relationship. If yours is a contact form and nothing more, go on, change it!