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How to make a Contact Form in HTML

Launching a new business is challenging but it’s not the hardest part. Getting some traction for growing and scaling any business though, now that’s the tough stage.

Cue in contact forms.  

Even if you’re not selling any goods or services, if you’re launching a project or promoting a cause, contact forms are the basic method for building an audience.

But your contact form doesn’t have to be basic.

Contact forms are a must-have for any website and every business for sure and with MightyForms, you can easily customize the colors and fields however you like.

Furthermore, our form builder offers powerful features and functionalities to take your simple Contact Us form to the next level.

Ditch those static, unreliable, and questionable downloadable contact us form templates.

You can even try your hand at creating your contact form in HTML. But MightyForms requires no coding knowledge for you to build a fully responsive contact us form to be easily embedded into your website on WordPress or Shopify, for instance.

Here’s the ultimate guide to advanced Contact Forms!

 

What is a Contact Us form?

Let’s face it, if it’s not online, your business doesn’t exist. You’ll need a website to introduce yourself to the world.

This communication shouldn’t be one-way only. You need to provide a channel for visitors to talk back, to reach out in case they want more information about your business.

Divulging a phone number is not ideal since it won’t always have someone available to pick it up. Providing an email address requires visitors to copy and paste it to their email app and might discourage contact. Besides being bait for spammers.

A Contact Us Form is just the most efficient channel for both the visitors and the business.  

Just like a smiling host greeting visitors and prompting help, contact us forms offer a proper communication path.

By definition, a contact form is a short web-based form with fillable fields published on a website (usually found on the Contact Us page). It allows visitors to start interaction with a business by inputting their name, email address, maybe a phone number, and their message.  

For visitors, a contact us form is conveniently available 24/7 from any device.

For businesses, contact forms ensure security, accuracy, and engagement. Not to mention a golden opportunity to increase your mailing list with qualified leads, building your audience.  

 

What does a Contact Us form do?

Simply put, a contact us form collects contact information and contact reasons from visitors. And it does so in a standardized format.

Instead of calling or sending email messages with incomplete information, a contact us form lets visitors know what information is really needed.

With that in mind, a contact us form should be composed of at least three essential fields: name, email address, and message.

Contact us form must-have form fields infographic _ MightyForms

However, depending on your business model, you might need more fields. Maybe you need visitors to specify the reason for contacting you from a dropdown menu or provide detailed information about a product, for instance. So it’s very helpful when you get to customize your contact forms.

As you can see, a contact us form not only collects data but can also help you screen inquiries. You’ll be able to act fast on a potential sale or quickly address an issue.

At the same time, contact us forms allows you to build your audience. By collecting valid email address from visitors, you can nurture them into leads and hopefully, loyal customers.

A robust mailing list of qualified leads is just a valuable by-product of contact us forms on your website. Your sales and marketing teams will thank you.

 

How to create a Contact Us form 

The early paperless forms required a lot of patience to build a contact form on any word processor. One key clicked wrong and the whole thing would collapse. Downloadable contact us form templates seemed a gift from heaven until you got a computer virus.

Then brave people came in and built contact forms from scratch, using HTML language. Those people walked so we could run today with form builders.

So, before we go over creating your contact us form template with the best no-code tool and be inspired by some contact us form examples ahead, let us appreciate the grind.

In case you know some computer language and would like to write your own contact form, here’s a quick tutorial on how to generate the HTML code for a contact form:

Create contact forms in HTML: step by step

An optimized contact form is an excellent tool to capture leads and receive messages from your visitors. However, writing the HTML code from scratch can be quite time-consuming.

In this step-by-step, you’ll be using HTML markups and CSS, and sometimes JavaScript to make sure the form’s appearance is top-notch. Making sure that the data is submitted and properly stored, then delivering a notification are backend processes.

1. Design your HTML contact form

Before you start coding your contact form, it’s best to decide what you want the end result to look like. Try drawing it out or using a storyboard so you have a visual example to guide you.

Protip: To create a responsive contact form, draw a mockup representation of what you want your form to look like, both on desktop and on mobile. This way your contact page will adhere to the mobile-first indexing of most search engines.

Be sure to outline as much as possible. How many fields do you want to include in your form? Are you creating a traditional form or a conversational form? Do you want to add a success message after the submission? You need to answer all these questions before you start coding.

2. Create the HTML markup & CSS

Collect user input with a simple contact form with ‘Name’, ‘Email’, and ‘Message’ fields. You can later add more fields, with specific coding like a Single Choice field and Dropdown field.

So under the <header> element of your page, add the HTML markup for the form’s header. Then </header>create a CSS file with the coding for your form’s style, such as the background color, font family, font size, and so on.

3. Add the Text Input Fields to the HTML code

Finally, you’ll be adding the input fields. It’s important to include what type of data the field should receive since it also helps the browser identify how it can help the user submit the form.

For example, using <input type="”email”">  on your code and depending on the browser support, the email submitted can be automatically validated. You can also add some styling to the Input fields using CSS.




Examples of Contact Us Forms in HTML

So now that you know how to create a simple contact form in HTML, here are some pretty creative examples to inspire your design. But don’t panic if you’re not familiar with HTML. We’ll also show you some incredible code-free contact form templates afterward that you can easily customize with the form builder.

▶  Elegant Contact Form – by Mark Murray

Elegant Contact Form - by Mark Murray


▶  Clean Contact Form – by nick haskell

Clean Contact Form

▶  HTML5 Contact Form by ssbalakumar

HTML5 Contact Form by ssbalakumar



7 Best Tips to create a Contact Us Form

Contact us forms are a must-have on any website. It makes your business approachable and it drives traffic as well since contact pages usually get more page views than any other section.  

Whether you decide to write your contact form in HTML or let a form builder do the heavy lifting, there are best practices you should follow.

Consider these seven best tips to create a traffic-magnet contact us form:

Best Tips to create a Contact Us Form _ MightyForms

1.Compelling Design

Contact Us forms are in a sense your business card. It must represent your brand and blend in with your website’s overall style yet stand out elegantly. Tacky generic contact forms clashing with the rest of the page repels visitors.

2.Short and Essential Fields

Refrain from the temptation of extracting as much information you can get from a contact form.  The average number of fields for contact forms is five. Form length is the second reason why people abandon a form (followed by security reasons). So keep it lean at first, only asking for the very essential. Otherwise, at least try to break it down as a multi-step contact form.  

3. Optional Phone Number Field

I know it must feel natural to ask for a phone number on a contact us form but a required phone number field reduces form conversion by 5%. But don’t scratch off that field so soon. Another study shows that when you actually state and label this field as optional, it can DOUBLE the conversion rate.  Some mind tricks work, I guess.

4. Ensure Clarity

Filling out a contact form must be intuitive and hassle-free. Be clear of what input is expected by placing field labels and examples of answers as placeholders. Steer away from complex fields requiring special values or characters. Add a tooltip text to pop up explaining any field. Do not make visitors have to second-guess your contact form.

5.Location, Location, Location

Don’t play hard to get with your contact us form. Visitors will most likely fill out a contact form located above the fold on a page.  Keep the introduction short, leave FAQs to the side, and display your contact us form at the top so you emphasize how much your business appreciates customer contact.

6.Engaging CTA

The call to action button is the key element on your contact us form. You don’t want to look desperate but it has to encourage visitors to click on it. “Click here” and “Go” are the most successful CTA copy while orange or red are the most enticing button colors.

7.Frictionless Submission

Visitors filling out a contact form are potential customers. You must provide a reliable and responsive contact us form that delivers from any device without a glitch. If visitors get an error or unresponsive submit button, they might begin to distrust your business. 



The Best Tool To Create a Contact Us Form

If you’re thinking that a downloadable contact us form template or a contact form in HTML will do, hear me out. Yes, you’ll get to collect contact information but nothing beyond that.

Now let’s say you want to protect your contact form from bots and add more automation, like a reCaptcha, and a personalized success message, or an automatic email notification. That requires the more complex backend coding we’d mentioned before, which is why using a no-code form builder, like MightyForms, can be such a satisfying time-saver.

Once you sign up to MightyForms form builder, you can create multiple online forms that are responsive by default and have built-in functionalities and integrations that will help you capture more leads and streamline the workflow, while you track submissions.

MightyForms is the best tool to create a contact us form since it enables you to fully customize your form: resize and reposition any field, define style and color scheme, add a background image, or even add your own logo for brand presence.

Full design control is just the beginning. Once your contact us form is designed and published you can supercharge it with the following MightyForms features:

Logic Rules

Set up your contact us forms using conditional logic to make them user-friendly. The next question will only be triggered according to the previous answer, so only relevant fields are shown. Also, you can screen contact reasons and set up the next steps for each.

Field Justification

Not all fields are obvious to everyone. Ensure clarity by adding a tooltip text for each field on your contact form. When visitors hover over a field, the tooltip will show up explaining what and why specific information is needed.

Translated Contact Forms

Why forms need auto-translation _ MightyForms

Even if your business is not global, your audience might be international. Keep in mind that 65% of shoppers prefer website content in their language. Contact us forms by MightyForms have easy integration with Weglot, for auto translating embedded forms.  

Success Messages

As mentioned before, a contact us form is a channel of communication and MightyForms keeps the conversation going on. After visitors fill out and submit your contact form, you can set up an automatic confirming message to let them know it was well-received and how long they can expect a reply back.  

Notifications

Remember when I said contact forms by MightyForms are more than static contact us form templates? You can set up automatic notifications to be sent via email or SMS to you after each new submission. Combine it with Logic Rules to screen your submissions and channel each contact reason to the appropriate team.

Form Tracking

Every visitor counts and you never know who might become that one customer that turns struggling business around. MightyForms lets you track in real-time every contact form being filled out, even abandoned ones. Easily recover lost leads or learn more about your visitors with form analytics.

Form Embedding

Contact forms by MightyForms are easy to build and even easier to share and connect to other platforms. You can embed your contact us form on your WordPress or Webflow website without a hitch. If you’re running an eCommerce, complement your online store page on Shopify or BigCommerce with a contact us form.

Integrations

Your contact us forms can be connected to other native integrations, so you can leverage the collected data even further, any way you want it. Export data to Google Drive or Google Sheets for extra backup and management, or enter new leads into your Mailchimp marketing campaigns. Advanced contact forms can easily be automated through Zapier as well.

Check out all the time-saving features our form builder offers and the step-by-step guide to create your first contact us form.

 

Contact Us Form Templates

Another perk you get when you create a contact form with MightyForms worth highlighting is a headstart with contact us form templates.

You can create your contact form from scratch, but we have readily available templates to speed up the process.

Just choose one that suits your needs, customize it and empower it with features to leave your contact us form on autopilot, so you don’t even need to worry about it:

Simple Contact Form – For General Needs

This template is a perfect contact us form example that covers all business needs. It’s short enough to avoid form abandonment, but it has got all the essentials down. Simple, to the point, yet not so basic: this advanced contact us form template has a convenient location widget so visitors are reassured of your address. Customize this template now!

Detailed Contact Form – For Specific Needs

As I’ve mentioned before, some business models require more information from visitors in order to follow up with precise answers. This contact us form example eliminates the need of exchanging many back and forth emails since it already provides fields for detailed info. Bonus: a field that allows visitors to upload files (documents, images, etc.) for specific requests. Set up this template for your business now!

 

Request Contact Form – For Additional Info

A version of the simple contact form but aimed at service providers. This contact us form template prompts visitors to clear any doubt that is causing them to hesitate to make business with you. The call-to-action is very straightforward with clear instructions. Provide this template to your audience now!

 

Website Contact Form – For Personal Requests

Maybe you’re promoting a seminar or a book and visitors would like to contact you. This contact us form example will act as your secretary writing down their message. Visitors can easily leave their contact info, anticipate the subject, and tell you how urgent a reply is expected. Employ this template now!

As a sign-off, I leave you with a real and active Contact Us Form, so you can see for yourself MightyForms in action. Go ahead, fill it out so you can reach out to our support team to help you build your own advanced contact form in no time. Build an audience faster with automated custom contact us forms!

WRITTEN BY

Olivia Pompeu

Olivia Pompeu is a Communications, Public Relations and Marketing professional with over 15 years of experience in global companies, overseeing communications strategy aimed at promoting business objectives to stakeholders.