Getting People to Reach Out Through Your Contact Page

 Getting People to Reach Out Through Your Contact Page  : You probably have a website contact page but you probably don’t think about it all that often. In fact, you might not give it a thought usually. However, it is the way in which people reach out to you so that you can establish a relationship together, which will serve you well over time.

A normal part of your website
Most websites have contact pages. Without one, the business (or person) would not have a way to allow the other person to contact him or her. It is a way in. It is probably safe to assume that most people don’t give their contact pages much thought after they have either built their websites or had someone build it for them.

Undoubtedly, there are a lot of other things (pertaining to your business) that you deal with on a regular basis and your contact page is not your number one priority. That is completely understandable. However, it is time to give it another look and to recognize that it serves an extremely important purpose for you and for your business.

Just like the rest of the elements on your website, your contact page deserves to be tweaked and considered on a regular basis. Stagnating content (no matter where it is on your website or as any part of your web presence) is just wrong. It serves no positive purpose and it is definitely something that you want to avoid. The fact is that your contact page is the bridge between you and the other person. It is important for you to understand that your success is driven by the relationships that you build.

Without your contact page, how is the other person going to reach out and interact with you once they are visiting your website (considering that they like what they are seeing)? Your contact page is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

If you are thinking in terms of your bottom line, it is the first step to eventually selling your product and/or service to the other person. The reality is that a person will never buy anything from you if he or she doesn’t trust you, find you credible, and consider you the best choice for whatever they are looking for. It is really that simple. Of course, in order to attract other people, your contact page should be attractive and appealing to them.

Making your call-to-action (CTA) interesting and compelling
Your CTA is a separate topic but it is the way that you get the other person to arrive at your contact page. People visit your contact page for a variety of good reasons. One of the major reasons is that they are looking for something on your website and can’t seem to find that information.

Another reason may be that they have a comment or a question regarding something that is written on your website. If you happen to be selling a product (or several products), they may want to reach out to you regarding whatever they have purchased. In any case, the most important thing is that the contact has been established. The next step is up to you. If you regard the other person as a potential client (at some point in the future), it will be worthwhile building a relationship with him or her.

Because of what an important role your contact page plays, it is well worth your while to make it as compelling and attractive as you possibly can. That means (among other things) that you will want to make sure that it is optimized. After all, you want as many qualified leads to use that page to contact you as possible.

Your contact page itself should not be too long and it should have a reasonable amount of fields (five or six is a reasonable number). You should be driven by the concept of less is more. Of course, on the other hand, you don’t want to cut it down to the point where it doesn’t have everything you need on that page. You should take a long, hard look at your contact page and figure out if there is anything extraneous. You want to make it lean and tight but effective, at the same time.

You need to build trust with your prospects
The fact is that if a person is visiting your website and stays there for any length of time, that person is interested enough to start. No matter what sort of communication occurs, it is valuable communication. The fact is that relationships are not built overnight. They take time to nurture and grow. Along with that, trust doesn’t happen immediately either.

It take time and lots of interactions before the other person trusts you and you trust the other person. It is just human nature. A large part of building that trust is your demonstrating clearly how you are going to use the information of the other person. You need to make the other person understand exactly why you need the information that you are requesting and why. Don’t ask for more information than you actually need. Also, keep your contact page simple and easy to navigate and to complete.

Another large part of trust in a relationship is your responsiveness. There is probably nothing more annoying for the other person than their communicating with you and getting no response (either ever or for a very long time). It is certainly not a good way to conduct business. The truth is that you want something from the other person and you certainly will not get it if you don’t hold up your end of the relationship.

Conclusion
When it comes to your contact page, it should be clear, concise, and to the point. Of course, it should also reflect your branding message in some way so that the person remembers what you have to offer. Of course, it goes without saying that you should test every field on that page to make sure that they all function. There is nothing more annoying that clicking on something only to discover that it goes nowhere. It isn’t as important for it to be aesthetically fancy. However, it should say what it needs to say in order for you to get the information that you need from the other person. The bells and whistles will not be what drives the other person to you. You want to make it a pleasant and seamless experience for the other person to reach out and touch you.

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies. Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. He also reduced company travel and travel costs by introducing and implementing various collaboration technologies.

His expertise includes business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.