WordPress contact form plugins are generally free to the public, which makes your job as a contact management system owner much easier. If you were working in a software like Dreamweaver, you would have to code the contact form yourself using PHP code. But with a free plugin, all the hassle is behind you.
A WordPress contact form basically provides you with all the information fields you need from a potential client or customer. Plugins of this type usually include name, email address and message fields. Some even place a CAPTCHA form at the bottom so your odds of getting spam are reduced drastically.
WordPress Contact Form Plugins
Finding WordPress contact form plugins is a fairly simple task. You can go to Google or to your WP plugins dashboard and search for contact forms, then sift through the results that appear. There are plenty to choose from, so you have options, but you also want to be aware of how well they function.
Checking the plugin home page (there’s usually a link to that in the description) gives you a good idea of how well it functions once it’s installed. Look at the star rating that other users have given it. If it has 3.5 to 5 stars, it’s probably a good choice. If it’s a two-star plugin, however, you might think twice and keep looking.
Look at the plugin home page to see which versions of WordPress it is most compatible with as well. It might malfunction if you haven’t upgraded your version of WordPress, or it might not have been updated for a few years to comply with the newest level of WordPress.
WordPress Contact Form Usage
Even thought the WordPress contact form has been tailored as much as possible to meet your needs without tinkering, you still need to give it a few rules. For instance, you must input an email address of your own to which the form will forward contact queries from your website. Additionally, you’ll need to create a contact page on your site to house this form.
Under the “Settings” tab of a contact form plugin, you can play around with the text that your site visitors will see. For instance, you can customize the confirmation message that viewers will see after they submit a message. Try to make it as personable as possible so they don’t feel like they just submitted a message to a robot. You might even leave additional contact information on this page, so in case you neglect to reply to them, they have additional means of getting a hold of you.
You can also customize the “from” and “subject” fields of the contact form so that you know the request came from your website. These are generally not options available to customers, so if you don’t plug any values into these fields, it will probably send with generic info, such as “Contact Form Request from MyWebsite.com.”
WordPress contact form plugins make life a lot easier on you when you’re a busy webmaster who doesn’t want to reinvent the wheel. Just be sure that the plugin you pick works reliably (in other words, test it yourself before the official launch!) and that it is easy enough that a customer can figure out the WordPress contact form with ease.