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How To Create A Contact Form In WordPress (Easy Beginner’s Guide)

WRITTEN BY
Benjamin Madamba
UPDATED
May 31, 2023

Having trouble getting a contact form added to your WordPress website? Well, we can’t really blame you.

 

Whilst tools like managed WordPress hosting, make starting up a site easy, it still involves a learning curve. Although a contact form is something useful for almost every website, WordPress doesn’t come with one by default. Luckily, they’re easy to set up – we’ll show you how.

 

 

Why Create A Contact Form Anyway?

 

You’re probably wondering why on earth you’d need a contact form. Can’t you simply just include your email address on your website so that people can contact you?

 

Well, yes you can, but this isn’t as effective and efficient. A great way to communicate with your website visitors is by creating a simple contact form. To report errors, request customer service, or simply ask questions about your website, all they basically need to do is just complete and submit a form.

 

Other than user engagement, a contact form also has the following benefits:

 

  • Cuts down spam email
    Contact forms are excellent for preventing spam because you don’t have to reveal your email address on the website, which makes it harder for spammers to find it.
  • Boosts the legitimacy of your website
    Having a contact form on your website proves that you are open to user comments and performance suggestions, which you can use to enhance user experience.
  • Automates your email replies
    Sending automated messages, like promotional emails or exclusive discounts, to website visitors who fill out forms can help you generate new leads.

 

That being said, you’re probably curious as to what a great contact form looks like. Let’s take a look at GetSiteControl’s site as an example.

 

contact us form popup

A contact form popup appears when you click on Contact us.

 

Their approach is a little different. Instead of designing a separate Contact Us page that visitors should navigate to, they included a Contact Us link that instantly opens a popup without forcing the visitor to reload the page.

 

You’ll find this to be very convenient because:

 

  • Any page on the website can be used to access the contact form.
  • You don’t have to stop whatever it is you’re doing just to send a message.

 

Pretty much across the board, Getsitecontrol’s contact form is straightforward and simple to complete.

 

So, now you know how they work and why they’re important, let’s walk you through the process of quickly building your own contact form.

 

How To Make Your Own Contact Form On WordPress

 

Now we can finally get into how to make your own contact form. WordPress contact forms are simple to add and don’t require any coding! Here’s how to do it:

 

Step 1: Find and choose a great contact form plugin

 

Choosing a reliable plugin with all the features you want and need is the first action you should take. But, that sounds easier said than done.

 

Finding the best form plugin for your needs can be time-consuming given the variety of options available. That’s why we’ve trimmed it down to a select few that you can choose from. We recommend using the following:

 

  • WPForms
    A free very beginner-friendly plugin thanks to its drag-and-drop functionality.
  • Contact Forms 7
    One of the oldest and most popular contact form plugins.
  • Formidable Forms
    An easy-to-use contact form plugin with advanced features.

 

You can choose from the top contact forms on this list but we’ll be using WPForms for this guide.

 

wpforms logo

WPForms is free but you can pay for their premium features.

 

After you’ve chosen a contact form plugin you want to use, let’s now install it on your WordPress website.

 

Step 2: Add the contact form plugin to your website

 

Let’s get started with adding WPForms to your WordPress website. Here’s how you do it.

 

  1. Start by accessing your WordPress dashboard.
  2. You can then install the WPForms plugin by going to the Plugins menu and clicking on “Add New”.

    click add new plugins

    Click on “Plugins” then “Add New” on your WordPress dashboard.
  3. Once you’re there, type WPForms in the search field to find the plugin.
  4. Then, simply just install and activate the plugin once you find it.

    install and activate wpforms plugin

    Activate WPForms after installing it.

 

You can now begin creating your custom forms.

 

Step 3: Creating your contact form

 

You are now prepared to create a contact form in WordPress after successfully installing WPForms. Let’s see how it works.

 

  1. Go to your WordPress dashboard and find WPForms.
  2. After finding it, click on “Add New”.

    add new wpforms contact form

    The WPForms menu will appear after installing and activating the plugin.
  3. You’ll then be greeted with a form setup page. All you have to do here is enter your form name, hover over a template then click on “Use Template”. For this example, we’ll be using the Simple Contact Form template but you can pretty much use whatever you want.

    form setup

    There are so many templates to choose from even with the free version.
  4. After clicking on the template, WPForms will introduce you to its drag-and-drop form builder. As the name suggests, all you have to do is drag-and-drop items from the left side panel to build your contact form.
  5. Once you’re happy with your contact form, you can click on “Save” at the top right of the screen.

    editing form

    If you pay for the premium version of WPForms, you can have access to more fields.

 

And that’s it! You now have your contact form. But you’re not done just yet.

 

Step 4: Set up form notifications and confirmations

 

After creating your contact form, you need to properly set up form notifications and confirmations. This is essentially an email you’ll receive once a web visitor fills up your form and submits it to you. Here’s how you configure it:

 

  1. In the Contact Form editor, find “Settings” on the left-hand side. Then, click on “Notifications”.

    set up form notifications

    Settings can be found on the very left side panel.
  2. You’ll notice that the default settings are already in place, which you can simply leave alone if you want the administrator email to receive the messages. If you want to set it to a different email, you can do so by simply filling up the necessary details.

 

Now, let’s edit your form confirmations (well, that is if you want to). This is basically the message they’ll see after they’ve completed your form. It can be a thank you message, a page you want to show them, or you can redirect them to a different webpage. Here’s how to do it:

 

  • Go to Settings again in the Contact Form editor. Then, below “Notifications”, you’ll find “Confirmations”. Just click on that and you’ll access the Confirmations settings.

    form confirmations settings

    You can display 3 types of confirmations.

 

After making your changes, don’t forget to press Save!

 

Step 5: Insert your WordPress contact form into a page

 

Now you have everything ready to go! All that’s left is to add this contact form to a web page in WordPress.

 

Just follow the steps below:

 

  1. If you want to create a new page for your contact form, simply go to your WordPress dashboard, go to the Pages menu, and click on “Add New”.

    create new page

    Add a new page if you want to create a separate page for your Contact Form.
  2. When you’re there, you’ll be greeted with a blank page to design however you want.
  3. While you’re designing your page, you can click on the + icon to add your contact form.

    add wpforms to new page

    Search for WPForms when clicking on the + sign.
  4. Your page’s content area will now feature the WPForm block. All you need to do after is click on the drop-down menu so you can choose the form you made earlier.
  5. Then, your contact form will load on the page editor. The “Publish” or “Update” button at the top right of the screen can now be clicked to save your changes.

    choose form from drop down menu

    Simple Contact Form was the form we made earlier so we’ll choose that.

 

After that, you’ll see your contact form ready in action on your WordPress website!

 

 

Other Helpful Form Tools for WordPress

 

Now that you have your contact form, you can finally communicate with your web visitors effectively. But, don’t celebrate just yet!

 

You may still encounter a few hitches, such as trolls that want to flood your inbox with spam emails.

 

This is why you need to choose a helpful form tool that not only helps you create contact forms but also protects you from bot fraud. For instance, if you decide to use WPForms, you can use its built-in feature, ReCaptcha V3 that’s already automatically enabled as soon as you download and activate the plugin.

 

You can also use one of the best web hosts for your website to make sure that you have added protection. They have features such as a firewall, SSL protection, backups and so much more to make sure your website is extra safe.

 

top wordpress plugins

Take some extra steps to make your website encounter fewer problems. Source: Design Wall

 

Also, not a lot of people know how important this is, but you can use analytical tools to help you track how well your contact form is doing. For this, we recommend using the MonsterInsights Google Analytics plugin.

 

You can track the views, conversions, and conversion rates of your WordPress contact forms. Basically, this plugin is a way for you to know if something is going wrong, so you can easily fix the problem in a jiffy.

 

These are just some tools that can provide you with additional assistance, but you can definitely find more that would fit your specific wants and needs.

 

 

Start Making a Great Contact Form!

 

Having a contact form on your website is essential if you’d like to interact with your visitors. With it, you can get comments, give support to customers, respond to inquiries, and so much more.

 

Luckily, creating one isn’t as hard as most people think. With our guide, all it takes is a few steps to get one up and running.

 

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