How to Add a Contact Form in WordPress: The Ultimate Guide

 

At the end of the day, converting visitors into leads and clients is the number one job of your website. And the best way to make sure that happens is to make sure that people have an easy way to reach out and contact you. Enter the contact form.

In this post, we’re talking about adding one of the most essential elements of any high-converting website: a contact form.

 

What is a contact form?

It might seem obvious, but let’s break down the basics. A contact form is an interactive element on your website where visitors can enter their information to get in touch with you. In its most simple form, it includes fields for a name, email, and message, but it can be customized to include whatever information you need or would like to gather before moving a potential client along to the next step.

It’s kind of like having a 24/7 digital receptionist.

Why use a contact form?

 

Great question! Short answer: because it puts reaching out to contact your business on autopilot

Yes, you could just list your email and phone number on your website (and you should definitely still do that!) But having a contact form has a whole host of benefits, namely:

 

Spam protection

Contact forms help protect you from spam bots that crawl websites looking for email addresses.

 

Consistency

Whenever people message you, they’re in control of which (and how much) information they give you about what they need and how they’d like to work with you. With a contact form, you’re in control of which information you collect, which means you can be sure you get all the details you need from potential clients.

 

Better user experience

Let’s face it–filling out a form is SO much easier for website visitors than copying your email address, going over to their email account, and figuring out what to say. Also, these days, lots of people would rather not have to  pick up the phone, so if that’s the only way to contact you, they may never do it! 

 

Lead qualification

You can include customized fields that help you qualify leads before you even speak to them. For example, if you’re specifically looking for custom interior design clients with a budget of $10k and up, then you can quickly see if someone has that range (or if you should refer them to another offer that’s a better fit.)

 

Automation

Forms can be integrated with your CRM or email marketing tools for seamless lead management (more on that in a minute!)

 

Best practices for contact forms

Before we dive into how to add contact form in wordpress websites, let’s talk about what makes a great contact form:

 

Keep it simple

Only ask for the information you absolutely need. The longer your form, the less likely people are to complete it.

 

Make it visually appealing

Your form should match your overall branding and be easy to understand and use.

 

Use clear calls to action

Encourage visitors to fill out the form with compelling headlines and button text that tell them exactly what to do.

Optimize for mobile

The majority of people will be filling out your form from their phones, so make sure it’s mobile-friendly.

 

How to add a contact form in WordPress

Now let’s get to the best part–how to actually add a contact form to your WordPress website. There are a few different ways to do this, depending on your specific tech stack and setup.

 

Option 1: Use your CRM

 

If you already use a CRM like Honeybook or Dubsado for your business (and if you’re not, check out our article on CRMs and why they’re great!), you can create a contact form there and embed it on your WordPress website.

Pros: 

• Seamless integration with your existing systems
• Easy to set up automations
• Information from the form maps directly to your CRM fields

Cons:

• Requires a separate CRM subscription
• May have limited customization options

 

Creating and embedding a contact form from your CRM

1. Create the contact form in your CRM (note: you’ll want the fields to map to client profile fields in your CRM.)
2. Create a contact page on your website.
3. Copy the CRM embed code from your CRM.
4. Add an HTML block on your contact page and paste in the embed code.

 

Option 2: Use a WordPress form plugin

If you’re not using a CRM (or you just prefer to keep everything within WordPress), you can use a dedicated form-building plugin. Our top picks are WPForms and Forminator.

For either one, you’ll need to search for the plugin by logging into WordPress and clicking on Plugins > Add New. 

Once you find the form builder plugin you’d like to use, install and activate it. 

(Pro tip! Always back up your WordPress website before installing new plugins. That way, if anything happens to go sideways with your website once the new plugin is installed, you can revert your website to normal operations with minimal effort!)

For WP forms:

1. Go to WP Forms > All Forms in your WordPress admin panel. 
2. Click Add New. This will open a drag-and-drop template builder library. You can choose any one you like by clicking on the template and then clicking Use Template. 
3. Click on any of the fields to edit them or use your mouse to drag and drop them to switch up the order.
4. Add new fields by clicking on Available Fields in the left hand sidebar
5. Then, configure your form options. Form confirmation is what people see after they submit the form (that could be a thank you message, resource page, or whatever else you like!) Form notifications is the email you get after they submit something. Customize these by clicking on Settings > Confirmations. If you want to redirect users to a new page after a successful form submission, select Go to URL from the Confirmation Type dropdown. Then enter the URL of the page you want users to go to.
6. To add the form to your page, go to your page in WordPress and click on the + button to add a block. Search for WP Forms and select the form you’ve created from the dropdown menu.

 

For Forminator:

1. 1. From the Forminator Dashboard, click +Create within the Forms pane.
   2. Choose a form template or create one from scratch by selecting Blank.
   3. Give your form a Name in the popup prompt.
   4. Now, edit your form however you like.

• Publish your new form.

1. Once you’ve published the form, you’ll get a shortcode. Copy that and paste it into a new block on your page to embed the form.

 

Pros: 

• Lots of room to customize
• Stays within your WordPress ecosystem
• Often includes additional features like surveys or polls

 

Cons:

• May require a separate plugin subscription for advanced features
• Requires additional setup to integrate with other tools
• You’ll need to configure SMTP to receive form submissions

 

Option 3: Use your page builder’s form element

 

If you’re using a page builder like Elementor or Beaver Builder, you can use their built-in form elements to build a contact form.

All you have to do is add the form fields to your page and customize the placeholder text.

Pros:

• Seamless integration with your page design
• No additional plugins required
• Often includes basic customization options

Cons:

• May have limited features compared to dedicated form plugins
• Can be tricker to integrate with external CRM tools
• You will need to configure SMTP to receive form submissions

 

Testing your contact form

Once you’ve set up your form, it’s time to test (because it’s always better to find out if something isn’t working NOW and not when people are trying to contact you!)

Here’s what you should do:

1. Visit your website as a regular visitor would.
2. Navigate to the page with your contact form.
3. Fill out all the fields and submit the form.
4. Check that you receive the submission (pro tip! use a different email address to get the full experience).
5. If you’ve set up any automations, make sure they’re working as expected.

 

Contact form on wordpress not working?

If your contact form on WordPress is not working, you might have missed an important step when setting up your WordPress contact form: configuring SMTP. 

By default, WordPress uses the PHP mail() function to send emails. However, many email providers mark these emails as spam. To make sure your form submissions actually reach you, you’ll need to set up SMTP authentication. 

Here’s how to do it:

1. Install and activate the WP Mail SMTP plugin.
2. Go to WP Mail SMTP settings in your WordPress dashboard.
3. Choose an SMTP provider (we recommend Brevo, formerly Sendinblue, which allows up to 300 emails per day for free).
4. Follow the setup wizard to configure your SMTP settings.

Now you know how to add contact form on WordPress!

Just to recap, here’s why you need a contact form on your website:

• Better user experience
• Stronger lead qualification
• Spam protection
• Streamlined data collection
• Automation potential

The client experience truly begins on your website–giving people a seamless and stress-free way to contact you is the first step in showing them how awesome it will be to work with you! 

Ready to level up your WordPress website?

Adding a contact form to your WordPress website is just one step to creating a site that looks great and converts visitors into leads and clients. We’re here to help you create a tailored website that streamlines the lead generation process–and we’d love to work with you to create a website that truly converts!